Jumblies Theatre was founded in 2001 by Artistic Director, Ruth Howard. Ruth’s work is inspired by various artistic traditions, including the British Community Play form, pioneered by the Colway Theatre Trust, and brought to Canada in the 1990s by Dale Hamilton. In bringing the community play form to Toronto, Ruth Howard and Jumblies Theatre, adapted it to reflect her evolving artistic interests and Toronto’s urban community realities. The company maintains community arts’ guiding principles of inclusive community engagement, a value that ‘everyone is welcome’, and a focus on artistic quality and respect for process and product.
Mandate
"Jumblies makes art in everyday and unexpected places, with, for and about the people and stories found there. Our art weaves into and grows out of life’s details and rituals; our community is open-ended and based on people doing something together. We dismantle boundaries and connect disparate elements. We create fleeting utopias with lasting ripples. We say 'everyone is welcome', and grapple with the implications – aesthetic, social and practical – of meaning or trying to mean it."
Practice
Jumblies has several intertwining strands: Jumblies Projects, creating and producing new works and multi-year residencies; Jumblies Studio, for learning, mentorship and professional; Jumblies Offshoots, maintaining collaborative and supportive relationships with communities, artists, and past projects; Jumblies At Large, forming partnerships to infiltrate community arts practice into the cultural mainstream. Jumblies Projects are typically residencies, which involve hundreds of community participants and dozens of professional artists from a range of disciplines and cultural traditions. Toronto residency neighbourhoods to date include South Riverdale, Lawrence Heights, Davenport-Perth and Central Etobicoke, Scarborough. The Jumblies Studio has several components, including mentorship, consultancy, seminars and symposia, print and digital resources and Artfare Essentials, an intensive week-long course on the principles and practices of art that engages with and creates community. Versions of Artfare Essentials and other related workshops have been delivered in Toronto and across Ontario and Canada with many partners. Jumblies has mentored many organizations and artists; welcomed many paid interns/apprentices; published two collection of essays ; and supported and incubated new projects. Former Jumblies interns have gone on to establish independent Offshoot organizations as legacies of Jumblies' former residencies in the Davenport West area of Toronto, Central Etobicoke, Scarborough, as well as other community arts projects and organizations in Toronto and Ontario, including , , , and .
Launched in 2007 as a training and mentorship program. Through the program, artists participate in workshops, learning sessions and apprenticeship opportunities in community arts.
