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).