MORE ABOUT RIVER

River Oliveira (They & He pronouns) is a Queer, Trans, & Disabled multidisciplinary artist, writer, musician, and technician based in Toronto, Ontario. River graduated from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies where he focused on performance, theatre production, and design. He wears many hats as a performer, playwright/creator, writer, musician, sound designer, and producer. 

 

The work River has done thus far has ranged from classical, established works to new, experimental pieces. However, the themes they are most interested in exploring in their work are those of queerness, grief, survival, and community in collaboration with others. He is also interested in how theatre as well as art in general can be used as a tool for healing and radical change. Additionally, they are interested in work that is able to create a dialogue between physical performance, and abstract design. They enjoy and wish to create theatre that sees all aspects and roles involved in its creation as integral - a living being - rather than theatre that treats design as something that exists only to serve the performers and vice versa. 

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Over the past six years, River has done work with Buddies in Bad Times, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille,  Seven Siblings Future Theatre Festival, Alumnae Theatre’s New Ideas Festival, Toronto Fringe’s TENT Program, Paprika Festival’s Design Lab, Nightwood Theatre’s Young Innovators Unit, among others.

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In collaboration with Max Cameron Fearon (dramaturg/director), he is currently working on a show, How the Wolf Says Goodnight, which explores relationship violence between queer & trans people through the lens of folktales. 

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On a separate note, River has been writing music since he was given his first guitar at twelve years old. The music that he writes falls into the genre of ambient and folk. They also recently got around to buying a proper mic, and are slowly recording all of the music they’ve written to be posted on their Bandcamp under the name whatever river. River will (COVID-19 willing) have an EP out by the end of the year. Please check back for more details soon. 

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For more information, feel free to take a peek at his Artistic Resume below or get in contact via the form on this website.