Sponsors & Partners

Festival Sponsor

Audiopollination Guelph

Audiopollination Guelph is an event series featuring community-curated freely improvised creative music. A sister show to the long-running Toronto series of the same name, artists perform at Audiopollination by signing up online into a trio of folks they have likely never met before. Running since May 2022, it is a space to experiment, develop new artistic methods and connect with other artists on and off the stage. Everyone is invited to sign up and perform: all ages, skill levels and artistic backgrounds including visual artists, dancers and poets are welcome! Sign up for future shows by checking out our instagram page @audiopollinationguelph!

Audiopollination has been a beacon of connection and sound-making in the Toronto free improv scene for over 10 years, and in 2022, the Guelph branch emerged and has been inviting musicians, artists and freaks to meet and experiment together ever since. Anyone can sign up to play in Audiopollination, regardless of experience with improvisational music, and all are welcome to attend and witness! The next official Audiopollination Guelph showcase is December 11st, 2025. “A Taste of Audiopollination Guelph” will feature two sets by local regulars of the community-curated improvisational music series, in a duo and a trio never before seen or heard.

Festival Sponsor

The College of Arts at the University of Guelph

The College of Arts is a diverse place, home to the Performing and Fine Arts and the Humanities, including Modern and Ancient Languages, English, Theatre, History, European Studies, Music, Visual Arts, Philosophy. We’re also home to the Bachelor of Arts and Science (BAS) Program, as well as other interdisciplinary programs which connect these various fields.

The College of Arts is at the heart of the University of Guelph. A third of all undergraduate students at the University of Guelph are in the BA program. From the first year BA to the final year of the PhD, the College of Arts offers a wide range of opportunities for excellent training in the fundamental knowledge skills needed for the world beyond the university. We also offer an array of courses of interest to students in the sciences, the social sciences, and beyond.

Partnering Organizations and Co-Presenters

CFRU 93.3 FM

CFRU aims to provide a complete service to the community. We provide access to the media to groups and individuals who would otherwise have little access through mainstream media outlets. By doing so, we reflect the diversity of the community. We engage, inform and entertain our listeners, we empower and teach our volunteers, and we support all of the great people doing cool things around Guelph. We raise awareness of community activities, events, and concerns. We introduce new ideas and perspectives. CFRU will not broadcast materials intending to subject any group or individual to hatred or contempt on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, gender and gender representation, age, real or perceived socio-economic status, mental or physical ability, sexual orientation, citizenship status, or source of income, unless necessary to provide context within a larger issue.

www.cfru.ca

Festival Sponsor

IICSI

The International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) is a partnered research institute, funded through a SSHRC partnership grant, that investigates how improvisation can improve life. IICSI’s mandate is to create positive social change through innovative scholarship, impactful arts events, and community-oriented activities. Our Institute works with scholars, students, creative practitioners, and community partners to practice and study improvisation as a model for social change. This research has resulted in the development of new technologies for making sound; large-scale celebratory community gatherings; numerous publications, including hundreds of articles published through our Institute’s peer-reviewed journal; workshops for youth; artist talks; and academic conferences. The University of Guelph also offers graduate programs in Critical Studies in Improvisation, which arose from years of IICSI’s award-winning, arts-based research and training. Since 2020, IICSI has put on the annual IF Festival, presenting improvisational artists of all disciplines from around the world.

The project team for the Institute includes 75+ researchers and 65+ community partners around the globe, as well as several Student Research Assistants and core staff members. The Institute has key sites at University of Guelph, McGill University, Memorial University, University of Regina, Carleton University, the University of British Columbia, Queen’s University Belfast (N. Ireland), and 17, Institute of Critical Studies (Mexico). 

The Institute was founded in 2013 and builds on funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), as well as contributions from the host institution, sites, and many partners.

Festival Sponsor

Musagetes

Musagetes is an international organization that makes the arts more central and meaningful in people’s lives, in our communities, and in our societies.

Wet Sounds is a performance and conversation series hosted by the Musagetes Foundation in Guelph that centers artistic practice from within a queer and/or feminist framework. The series invites artists to share how they see their work in the context of the interconnected, cascading crises unfolding around us —climate chaos, genocide, fascism, an erosion of democracy, and multiple sites of oppression and resistance—and the crises of meaning that underpin these rapid shifts.

Festival Sponsor

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) is the federal research funding agency that promotes and supports postsecondary-based research and training in the humanities and social sciences.

Festival Sponsor

University of Guelph