UMFM Special Broadcasts
October 13, 2020: send + receive v22 - Olivia Shortt
photo by Alejandro Santiago
Olivia Shortt (she/her/hers/they/them/theirs: Anishinaabe from Nipissing First Nation)is a Tkarón:to-based multi-disciplinary performing artist. They are a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, noisemaker, improviser, composer, sound designer, curator, and producer. Many firsts for Olivia include their film debut playing saxophone & acting in Atom Egoyan’s 2019 film Guest of Honour; their Lincoln Center (NYC) debut with the International Contemporary Ensemble; their Australian debut performing with keyboardist Jacob Abela in Melbourne; and recording an album two kilometres underground with their duo Stereoscope in the SnoLAB (a Neutrino Lab in Northern Ontario, Canada).
They were selected as a Metcalf Performing Arts Intern in Producing with Nightswimming and Signal Theatre and were mentored by Brittany Ryan. They have also been named a 2020 cohort member of Why Not Theatre’s ThisGEN Fellowship and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s Emerging Creators Unit. Their most recent works include writing their first string quartet ‘the body remembers’ as part of the JACK Quartet’s inaugural 2020 JACK Studio in NYC, composition and sound design for ‘Welcome To My Underworld’ (Director Judith Thompson in collaboration with Soulpepper), as well as composition and sound design for ‘Brain Storm’ with Lucid Ludic Productions and Why Not Theatre. As an activist, they are alumni of the 2018 cohort of the artEquity facilitator training program (New Orleans, LA), as well as the 2019 Toronto Arts Council’s Leaders Lab and was a lead organizer and co-founded the Toronto Creative Music Lab (TCML).

Artist | Song | Album |
---|---|---|
Olivia Short C | Shad Fly Season |