Me Time Brings R.A.V.E. to Downsview Airport Lands

It’s a dance party. It’s a theatre show. It’s a rave opera for desperate times. Me Time is one of Toronto’s favourite underground DJs, known for her inclusive events and infectious energy on the decks. While DJs typically mix and blend tracks, this time she’s teamed up with Outside the March to remix live performance styles, bringing interactive theatre to the dancefloor to tell the story of a futuristic wellness startup and a founder forced to face the music. 

The result is an immersive mashup like no other. R.A.V.E. is parody meets autobiography; Black Panther meets Severance;Oprah meets Daft Punk. No rave experience required.

Coming this June for just six performances, R.A.V.E. blends fact and fiction, imagining DJ Me Time’s alter ego, The Founder, as an Elizabeth Holmes-style character, and the performance itself as the product launch of a new “R.A.V.E.” (Real Audio Visual Experience) technology. 
 
Staged on a dancefloor in a cleared-out cubicle farm at Downsview Airport Lands, audiences are invited to dance for the entire performance as Me Time performs one of her signature sets. Through storytelling and a cast of four dancer-performers, the audience becomes part of the drama. 
 
“The experience is woven together with an evocative dance music soundtrack, blending original compositions with historically relevant samples from Black pioneers, building on my work as a DJ, vibe selecta and beat archivist,” says Me Time. “Drawing from seven years of creating dance music events that provide safer spaces for marginalized communities and promote underrepresented artists, R.A.V.E. emphasizes that shared values enable transformative communal experiences.”
 
The project is supported by some of Canada’s leading designers and immersive artists. It is co-directed by Me Time and co-devised and co-directed by !Kona, a leading artist, writer and activist in Vancouver’s Black, queer and artistic communities. It is supported by contemporary dance artist, choreographer and educator Andrea Nann and Dreamwalker Dance Company, whose embodied community practice has been key to creating the piece’s participatory and choreographic elements. Creative development has been supported by Outside the March Creative Producer Griffin McInnes and Artistic Director Mitchell Cushman, whose collaboration has underpinned many of OtM’s most genre-bending immersive experiences, including the telephone-based The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries (2020-2023) and the escape room-inspired The Tape Escape (2019).
 
Thanks to its designers, the project’s design fuses dance parties and Silicon Valley-style tech startups in a former real-life office and industrial space. Set and environmental design is led by Leigh van Maaren, whose colourful and eclectic work has underpinned a slew of Toronto’s most exciting pop-ups, installations, raves and immersive experiences. Amine Bouzaher is the project’s Sound Designer and Composer, whose award-winning designs and electronic music have been performed all over the world across live and recorded media. Lights are designed by long-time OtM collaborator and one of Canada’s leading immersive designers Nick Blais. And costumes are designed by Diséiye, whose impressive work spans the worlds of fashion, performance and music videos. 
 
Joining Me Time on stage are “Modelling Citizens” (in R.A.V.E.’s pseudo-tech-speak), or four multi-talented performers and dancers: Chenise Mitchell, Ashley Perez, Wellesley Robertson III and Raoul Wilke.

To post a comment, you must register and login.