Outlandish locations and offbeat spaces make for the best parties: There’s something wonderful about breaking away from hotel ballrooms for an evening in an untapped places. This year’s Big Bang Bash, a kickoff fundraiser for the Luminato Festival in Toronto, took the cake for location of the year. The raw Hearn Generating Station (named for Richard Lankaster Hearn, a forefather of Ontario’s energy system) was not transformed but rather enhanced with light, sound, flora and fauna that made the desolate concrete space (once home to Canada’s first 100-megawatt steam turbo-generator) an awe-inspiring nature-versus-industry-themed oasis. Cocktails, for instance, were served in a room with floors covered in hay.
The attendees, however, mostly ignored the suggestion, which accompanied the invitation, to wear flat shoes and shawls, instead donning floor-length frocks and teetering slingbacks. On the fashion front, Maxine Granovsky Gluskin, president of the Art Gallery of Ontario board of trustees (who attended with her husband, Gluskin Sheff co-founder Ira Gluskin), stunned in a Dries Van Noten printed skirt that met the hay-covered floor. Gala committee member Amoryn Engel was one of the more sensibly attired guests, smartly pairing her Balmain chevron shift with sneakers. Publicist Amy Burstyn Fritz wore a to-the-floor crimson floral brocade dress from Canadian-born designer Erdem, and Lynda Prince practically floated in a bustled Raf Simons-designed Dior gown.
Dinner was served in another mad space, beneath striking concrete passageways that brought to mind the Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Below them, the concrete floors were grass-covered and dotted with tables, each with its own elaborate centrepiece garden of herbs, which guests were encouraged to add to their meals (pruning shears and gardening gloves were set out close by).
The evening, of course, benefited Luminato, the 10-day multi-arts festival that has taken over Toronto theatres and public spaces for the past nine years to present a slew of forward-thinking events and performances celebrating theatre, dance, music, literature, visual arts and film and, more broadly, challenge viewers.
Post dinner, gala goers got a taste of the festival’s offerings and were the first to be immersed in Tim Hecker’s Ephemera, an impressive dream-like installation that brought together the musician’s unique sounds, the scents of conceptual perfumer Geza Schoen and lighting designs by Berlin-based collective MFO. Several of the festival’s top-billed performers were among those in attendance, including actor Charlotte Rampling, who was in town to perform in 7 Monologues: The Night Dances, and singer Nelly Furtado, who took part in David Byrne’s epic performance event titled Contemporary Color. Also in attendance: Luminato Festival artistic director and man of the hour Jörn Weisbrodt and his husband, Rufus Wainwright; gala co-chairs Tony Gagliano, St. Joseph Communications chairman and chief executive officer, and his wife, Lina, and David Feldman, Camrost-Felcorp CEO, and his wife, Angela; jewellery designer Krystyne Griffin; lawyer Max Gotlieb and his wife, Heather; Franco-Nevada Corp. co-founder Pierre Lassonde; E-L Financial Corp. president and CEO Duncan Jackman, his sister, Trinity, and her partner, entrepreneur Marcus Doyle; National Arts Centre president and CEO Peter Herrndorf and his wife, Eva Czigler; artist Rundi Phelan and her daughter, Jennen; philanthropist Emmanuelle Gattuso; and Thomson Reuters family member Taylor Thomson.
