Abstract
On 7 December 2010, Toronto’s newly elected mayor, Rob Ford, was sworn in at City Hall. In keeping with recent shifts towards the right in Canadian politics, Ford rode to victory on a populist Tea Party-style platform promising small government, tight spending and tax cuts.1 Setting the tone for a new era of municipal politics — one that has placed a combative mayor at the centre of highly theatrical and seemingly endless public scandals — Ford invited controversial hockey commentator Don Cherry to attend the ceremony as his special guest and gave him the honour of hanging the chain of office around his neck.2 Cherry, a celebrity known not only for his political conservatism but also for garish attire, showed up in a flamingo pink floral-print blazer, a costume designed to match his equally colourful remarks. ‘I’m wearing pinko for all the pinkos out there that ride bicycles and everything’, he declared, going on to slam the left-wing media who turn up their noses at his church attendance and patriotic support of the troops. ‘This is what you’ll be facing, Rob, with these left-wing pinkos — they scrape the bottom of the barrel’ (in Nurwisah 2010). A few days earlier in an interview about Ford’s win, Cherry gave this rationale for his upcoming appearance in council: ‘People are sick of the elites and artsy people running the show […]. It’s time for some lunch pail, blue-collar people’ (in Rider 2010).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Works cited
BarkNews (2008) ‘Nuit Blanche 2006: Jess Dobkin’s Vagina Dentata’, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2abCLGBlao, 9 March (accessed 9 May 2011).
Bennett, S. (2011) ‘Toronto’s Spectacular Stage’, in L. Levin (ed.), Theatre and Performance in Toronto (Toronto: Playwrights Canada).
City of Toronto (2003) ‘Culture Plan: Developing the Creative City’, Toronto.ca (accessed 9 May 2011).
City of Toronto (2007) ‘Live With Culture Signature Events’, Livewithculture.ca, 5 August, available through archive.org (accessed 9 May 2011).
Clark, S. (2008) ‘Simon Clark’s Response to Fee for Service’, in Rachel Zerihan (ed.), Live Art Development Agency Study Room Guide on One to One Performance (London: Live Art Development Agency), pp. 25–6.
Davies, A., and S. Ford (2003) ‘Art Networks’, The Academy and the Corporate Public, Societyofcontrol.com (accessed 25 September 2011).
Dobkin, J. (2011) Interview with author on 2 May, Toronto.
Doolittle, R. and K. Donovan (2013) ‘Rob Ford in “Crack Cocaine” Video scandal’, Thestar.com, 16 May (accessed 30 June 2013).
Florida, R. (2004) Cities and the Creative Class (New York and London: Routledge).
Grundy, J., and J. Boudreau (2008) “Living with Culture”: Creative Citizenship Practices in Toronto’, Citizenship Studies, 12.4: 347–63.
Hardt, M., and A. Negri (2000) Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Harvie, J. (2011) ‘Democracy and Neoliberalism in Art’s Social Turn and Roger Hiorns’s Seizure’, Performance Research, 16.2: 113–22.
Hume, C. (2007) ‘Kyle Rae: Big Biz, Meet Big Arts’, Thestar.com, 29 January (accessed 9 May 2011).
Jackson, S. (2011) Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics (New York and London: Routledge).
Keil, R. (2002) ‘“Common-Sense” Neoliberalism: Progressive Conservative Urbanism in Toronto, Canada’, Antipode, 34.3: 578–601.
Kipfer, S. (2010) ‘The Hordes at the Gate? Hard-Right Populism Defines Toronto Mayoral Election’, The Bullet, 419, 13 October, socialistproject.ca (accessed 9 May 2011).
Lange, B. (2006) ‘From Cool Britannia to Generation Berlin? Geographies of Culturepreneurs and their Creative Milieus in Berlin’, in C. Eisenberg, R. Gerlach and C. Handke (eds), Cultural Industries: The British Experience in International Perspective (Berlin: Humboldt University of Berlin), pp. 145–72.
Léger, M. J. (2011) ‘Introduction’, in M. J. Léger (ed.), Culture and Contestation in the New Century (Bristol: Intellect), pp. 7–20.
Levin, L., and K. Solga (2009a) ‘Building Utopia: Performance and the Fantasy of Urban Renewal in Contemporary Toronto’, TDR, 53.3: 37–53.
Levin, L., and K. Solga (2009b) ‘Zombies in Condoland’, Canadian Theatre Review, 138: 48–52.
Madoc Jones, R. (2010) ‘A Letter from a Leaf Fan to Don Cherry’, Praxistheatre. com, 8 December (accessed 9 May 2011).
McKinnie, M. (2007) City Stages: Theatre and Urban Space in a Global City (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
McLean, H. (2009) ‘The Politics of Creative Performance in Public Space: Towards a Critical Geography of Toronto Case Studies’, in T. Edensor, D. Leslie, S. Millington and N. Rantisi (eds), Spaces of Vernacular Creativity (London and New York: Routledge), pp. 200–13.
McLean, H. (2010) ‘Competitive Creativity? Arts and Culture in Toronto’s Mayoral Debates’, The Bullet, 420, 17 October (accessed 9 May 2011).
McRobbie, A. (2011) ‘“Everyone is Creative”: Artists as Pioneers of the New Economy?’, in M. J. Léger (ed.), Culture and Contestation in the New Century (Bristol: Intellect), pp. 77–92.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964) The Visible and the Invisible (Evanston, IL: University of Chicago Press).
Mitropoulos, A. (2005) ‘Precari-Us?’, Republicart, March, republicart.net (accessed 9 May 2011).
Nurwisah, R. (2010) ‘Audio and full text: Don Cherry, Rob Ford speeches at City Hall’, National Post, 7 December, http://www.news.nationalpost.com (accessed 9 May 2011).
Peck, J. (2005) ‘Struggling with the Creative Class’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 29.4: 740–70.
Perkel, C. (2012) ‘Rob Ford Removed From Office As Toronto’s Mayor By Court Ruling’, Huffingtonpost.ca, 26 November (accessed 15 December 2012).
Phelan, P. (1993) Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (New York and London: Routledge).
Rider, D. (2010) ‘Why Don Cherry Backs Rob Ford’, Thestar.com, 3 December (accessed 9 May 2011).
Ridout, N. (2006) Stage Fright, Animals, and Other Theatrical Problems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
The Toronto Star (2011) ‘Pink Named the Colour of the Year’, Thestar.com, 9 June (accessed 9 May 2011).
Vaughan, RM (2006) ‘Live Without Culture: An Apology, on the Occasion of a Recent Art Project’, in A. Wilcox, C. Palassio and J. Dovercourt (eds), The State of the Arts: Living With Culture in Toronto (Toronto: Coach House), pp. 24–7.
Whyte, M. (2009) ‘Why Richard Florida’s Honeymoon Is Over’, Thestar.com, 27 June (accessed 25 September 2011).
Wissinger, E. (2007) ‘Modelling a Way of Life: Immaterial and Affective Labour in the Fashion Modelling Industry’, Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 7.1: 250–69.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Laura Levin
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Levin, L. (2014). Performing Toronto: Enacting Creative Labour in the Neoliberal City. In: Whybrow, N. (eds) Performing Cities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137455697_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137455697_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-44112-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-45569-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Theatre & Performance CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)