When Toronto loses a public event like Taste of the Danforth, it loses more than just a street festival
There was a time when Taste of the Danforth, recently cancelled again this year, was a red dot on Toronto summer calendars: free to attend, with delicious food and drink and clever musical programming on offer. A relatively sober urban strip would become a bustling quasi-European thoroughfare; you'd see elders among the teens, interlopers from the west end making their annual pilgrimage to the east.
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CTV News
3 hours ago
- CTV News
Greek Fest celebrating 50th year in Ottawa
Opa! Ottawa's Greek Fest is back for its 50th anniversary in the nation's capital. The festival started as a one-day festival in 1975 for the celebration of the Greek church's name day and has grown into a two week-long festival with lots of volunteers and families. Siblings Nicoletta and Wyatt Owens say this is more than just an event for them. 'We come every year. We've probably been coming even before we were born. We always look forward to it. We live nearby so we actually hear the Greek music from home every year. It's something we always look forward to in August,' says Nicoletta Owens. 'Our parents got married at the church here and everything. Our grandfather on our moms side and our moms side is Greek. Our papou did all the lamb when he was still around. It's just always a treat coming by,' says Wyatt. The festival is taking place at 1315 Prince of Wales Drive. 'We're very big supporters of our Greek church. My husband and I got married here. All our children were baptized here,' says visitor Gina Mertikas. Admission is free and visitors get to experience authentic Greek culture with delicious food, live music and dancing. 'We have our food court where you can find those staples that everyone's come to love. Your souvlaki, your gyros, your salads,' says Alex Reklitis, co-chair of Greek Fest. Lisa Tsotroudis' mother was one of the people that helped start the festival 50 years ago. 'We started off in our parents' footsteps. My mom's post was making honey balls. She's been doing it for 50 years and now we have a new team taking over. She's still helping of course. She still wants to be here, so she comes out. We enjoy doing this for the community and for our guests,' Tsotroudis says. Tsotroudis helps run the Loukoumades station at the festival. Loukoumades is Greek for 'Honey balls.' 'They started with the Greek ladies making them for one day and now it's something that people expect and line up to eat,' says Tsotroudis, 'It was all the Greek wome, working together and making this camaraderie and having fun together.' Visitors can also enjoy comedy shows, art displays, language lessons and a night Zorba show. Jaimee Pichette and her family are visiting from British Columbia. 'It's just a wonderful day to spend learning about the Greek community and culture and a great day out with the kids,' says Pichette. Greek Fest runs until Sunday and again from Aug. 22 to 24. For more information, visit
Winnipeg Free Press
19 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
With the Bayeux Tapestry that tells of their long rivalry, France and Britain are making nice
BAYEUX, France (AP) — For centuries, the storytelling masterpiece has been a source of wonder and fascination. In vivid and gruesome detail, the 70-meter (230-foot) embroidered cloth recounts how a fierce duke from France conquered England in 1066, reshaping British and European history. The Bayeux Tapestry, with its scenes of sword-wielding knights in ferocious combat and King Harold of England's famous death, pierced by an arrow to an eye, has since the 11th century served as a sobering parable of military might, vengeance, betrayal and the complexity of Anglo-French relations, long seeped with blood and rivalry but also affection and cooperation. Now, the medieval forerunner of today's comic strips, commissioned as propaganda for the Normandy duke William known as 'the Conqueror' after he took the English throne from Harold, is being readied for a new narrative mission. A homecoming for the tapestry Next year, the fragile artistic and historic treasure will be gingerly transported from its museum in Bayeux, Normandy, to star in a blockbuster exhibition in London's British Museum, from September 2026 to July 2027. Its first U.K. outing in almost 1,000 years will testify to the warming latest chapter in ties across the English Channel that chilled with the U.K.'s acrimonous departure from the European Union in 2020. The loan was announced in July when French President Emmanuel Macron became the first EU head of state to pay a state visit to the U.K. since Brexit. Bayeux Museum curator Antoine Verney says the cross-Channel trip will be a home-coming of sorts for the tapestry, because historians widely believe that it was embroidered in England, using woolen threads on linen canvas, and because William's victory at the Battle of Hastings was such a major juncture in English history, seared into the U.K.'s collective consciousness. 'For the British, the date — the only date — that all of them know is 1066,' Verney said in an interview with The Associated Press. A trip not without risks Moving an artwork so unwieldy — made from nine pieces of linen fabric stitched together and showing 626 characters, 37 buildings, 41 ships and 202 horses and mules in a total of 58 scenes — is further complicated by its great age and the wear-and-tear of time. 'There is always a risk. The goal is for those risks to be as carefully calculated as possible,' said Verney, the curator. Believed to have been commissioned by Bishop Odo, William the Conqueror's half-brother, to decorate a new cathedral in Bayeux in 1077, the treasure is thought to have remained there, mostly stored in a wooden chest and almost unknown, for seven centuries, surviving the French Revolution, fires and other perils. Since then, only twice is the embroidery known to have been exhibited outside of the Normandy city: Napoleon Bonaparte had it shown off in Paris' Louvre Museum from late 1803 to early 1804. During World War II, it was displayed again in the Louvre in late 1944, after Allied forces that had landed in Normandy on D-Day, June 6th, of that year had fought onward to Paris and liberated it. The work, seen by more than 15 million visitors in its Bayeux museum since 1983, 'has the unique characteristic of being both monumental and very fragile,' Verney said. 'The textile fibers are 900 years old. So they have naturally degraded simply due to age. But at the same time, this is a work that has already traveled extensively and been handled a great deal.' A renovated museum During the treasure's stay in the U.K., its museum in Bayeux will be getting a major facelift costing tens of millions of euros (dollars). The doors will close to visitors from Sept. 1 this year, with reopening planned for October 2027, when the embroidery will be re-housed in a new building, encased on an inclined 70-meter long table that Verney said will totally transform the viewing experience. How, exactly, the treasure will be transported to the U.K. isn't yet clear. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. 'The studies required to allow its transfer to London and its exhibition at the British Museum are not finished, are under discussion, and are being carried out between the two governments,' Verney said. But he expressed confidence that it will be in safe hands. 'How can one imagine, in my view, that the British Museum would risk damaging, through the exhibition, this work that is a major element of a shared heritage?' he asked. 'I don't believe that the British could take risks that would endanger this major element of art history and of world heritage.' ___ Leicester reported from Paris.
Toronto Star
2 days ago
- Toronto Star
When Toronto loses a public event like Taste of the Danforth, it loses more than just a street festival
My band Rheostatics played Taste of the Danforth before the festival shuttered in 2023. For us, it was a riotous show. Kids across the street from the stage were dancing on low-rise apartment rooftops despite officials trying to wave them down. We had a running dialogue with the kids during our set; we called one of them Zeus and another Dionysus, and we listened as they shouted in response. The show was loud, the pavement was hot and everybody was unclasped in the way Torontonians are when they forget for a moment that they're in Toronto. A sea of bodies had transformed the neighbourhood, and just as we wrapped up, a traditional Greek band started playing two tents away. We drank beer and ate gyros to celebrate. There was a time when Taste of the Danforth, recently cancelled again this year, was a red dot on Toronto summer calendars: free to attend, with delicious food and drink and clever musical programming on offer. A relatively sober urban strip would become a bustling quasi-European thoroughfare; you'd see elders among the teens, interlopers from the west end making their annual pilgrimage to the east.
