Women’s music will take Toronto

Women in Song: La Vuelta (The Return) features 14 of Toronto’s most celebrated global music and dance women performers, from Canada, Spain, Iran, Cuba, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Greece, and Colombia.

They’ll take the stage together for the first time on March 27 at Lula Lounge at 7:30 pm, to celebrate the return to live music, the return of spring, and the return of togetherness and unity.

The stacked evening features four incredible lead singers: Lady Yetunde (Cuban Salsa), Aviva Chernick (Contemporary Ladino Folk), Shirley “La Pili” Pincay (Flamenco/Latin), and Dimitra Kahrimanidis (Traditional Greek).

Percussionist Naghmeh Farahmand and tar player Padideh Ahrarnejad will also take the stage, bringing a Persian flair to the evening, as on March 27 we also celebrate Nowruz, or Persian New Year.

All of the singers are also skilled musicians or accompanists, and musical director Demetri Petsalakis is orchestrating an evening filled with joyful collaborations and improvisations.

The evening will also feature performances by six incredible Toronto dancers and choreographers, including Dailyn Martinez (salsa), Anuka Toma(belly dance), Virginia Castro (flamenco), and a special surprise guest dancer.

This event is produced by FabCollab, a new arts collective born during the pandemic that has been producing live concerts viewed by tens of thousands of people around the world, all while creating paid work for BIPOC women performers. As venues closed and artists grew desperate for performance opportunities, FabCollab began producing hybrid online and in-person arts events that actually work — their last Toronto-based event reached more than 44,000 viewers.

 FabCollab’s team was integral to the organization of WITH UKRAINE, a fundraiser organized entirely by women that took place this past Friday at the Opera House (featuring Measha Brueggergosman, Jim Creegan of the Barenaked Ladies and dozens of others) and raised $34,000.

FabCollab was started in June of 2020 by Jewish-Indigenous singer and dancer Tamar Ilana.  Tamar started FabCollab with other Toronto performers after noticing how artists — and particularly BIPOC women artists — were losing work and becoming isolated from their peers and audiences due to the pandemic. For Tamar, the answer was to start an organization that would keep these artists connected to each other and to their audiences through live online events, concerts, shows and interviews, and then to transition to in-person programming as soon as the pandemic permitted.

FabCollab has been able to provide paid work to almost 100 women artists since the pandemic began. They have also connected almost 100,000 members of the public with these same women artists, introducing new audiences to the powerful work of BIPOC women artists.

FabCollab’s next live event, Women in Song: LA VUELTA, will take place at the Lula Lounge on March 27 and will be livestreamed by the National Arts Centre and others. It will be FabCollab’s first event with a live in-person audience since Omicron reared its head last year.