Haven Poster

Dance Event

Haven

A response, through dance and music, to the plight of the famine refugees commemorated in Ireland Park.

May 23, 2026 - May 24, 2026 | Ireland Park

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Event Overview

“Beautiful – complex, yet simple and elegant.” – Audience member

Haven is a response, through dance and music, to the plight of the famine refugees commemorated in Ireland Park and adjacent areas. It further reflects on immigrants and refugees world-wide, through time, including present day. Directed by award-winning Choreographer Terrill Maguire and featuring renowned singer and musician Patricia O’Callaghan, Haven showcases the artistry of seven dancers and three musicians. Haven Performances: Saturday, May 23 at 2:00pm Sunday, May 24 at 4:00pm The performances of Haven at Ireland Park are officially part of Doors Open Toronto 2026, which invites the public to explore Toronto’s unique buildings and sites free of charge. The 2026 theme is “The World in a City,” reflecting Toronto’s multicultural heritage and diverse architecture. The Canada Ireland Foundation is also taking part in Doors Open Toronto by offering guided tours of Ireland Park and providing the history of the Corleck - the Foundation's newly revitalized home beside Ireland Park.  

Haven Terrill Maguire: Choreographer, Dancer, Project Director Patricia O’Callaghan: Singer, Music Director Dancers: Sam Chaiton, Mairead Filgate, Derek Souvannavong, George Stamos and Oriah Wiersma Musicians: Patricia O’Callaghan, Miranda Mulholland and Tim Postgate Costume Designer: Sylvia Defend

Special Thanks To: Maryanne Marsh, John Gzowski, Julia Aplin, John Doyle and David Langer

Haven is Supported by: Toronto Arts Council and The Lindy Green Foundation

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Bios

Terrill Maguire

Choreographer, director, dancer

Award-winning choreographer/dancer/educator Terrill Maguire has had an extensive and varied career in the arts. Her creation, performance, and teaching life have spanned her native California, the USA, most of Canada’s provinces, and her long-time base, Toronto. She has danced in the UK, Ireland, and France. Her work has been presented in theatres large and small, on television and film; in trees and forests; fountains, galleries, city streets and historical sites, among other places. She has long committed to engaging people of all ages in creative interactions through community arts initiatives; as with her Inde Festivals of New Music/Dance collaborations. As a long-time movement educator and yoga teacher, she is an advocate for creative experiences for everyone. Maguire has a long history of intercultural and interdisciplinary collaboration, advocating for inclusivity and diversity in all her endeavors. She is an honorary member of the Kainai/Blood Nation, Blackfoot Tribe, of Alberta. In addition to numerous arts education initiatives in schools and communities, she has been a sessional faculty member of York University’s Dance Department since 2002. A recipient of various awards, commissions, and grants, in November 2022 she received the Robert Johnston/Canadian Artists Network’s Visionary Artist Award. In May 2025, Maguire, undertook her “Body in Landscape” research residency in Annaghmakerrig, Ireland.

Patricia O’Callaghan

Singer, Music Director

Singer Patricia O’Callaghan is something of a wandering minstrel, with seven solo albums and many interesting collaborations along the way. A speaker of French, Spanish, and German, her early recordings focused on European cabaret, but one of Patricia’s unique talents is the ability to blend a variety of languages and musical genres seamlessly together in her concerts, and to embody whatever style she is singing at any given moment. Since 2020, she has been studying Irish language and Sean Nós, and continues to work with Sean Nós singer, Gearóidin Bhreathnach. Patricia has recently become faculty at The Dan School of Drama and Music at Queen’s University, and at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity’s Evolution: Classical program. Her latest album, called Dark Butterflies, with music by David Braid, and with the Prague Epoque Orchestra, was just released in the fall of 2025.

Sam Chaiton

Dancer

Sam Chaiton is a dancer, author, and long-time social justice activist. He first trained in modern dance with the Toronto Dance Theatre and Martha Graham. In the early 70s he performed with TDT and with New York’s Erick Hawkins Dance Company. Sam was one of the Canadians who helped free Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the former Bob Dylan-celebrated American prizefighter serving a triple life sentence for murders he did not commit. This story, memorialized by Sam in Lazarus and the Hurricane, became a basis for Norman Jewison’s film The Hurricane starring Denzel Washington, with Liev Schreiber portraying Sam. The impact of growing up in Toronto as the son of Holocaust survivor parents who immigrated to Canada and remained silent about their past is the subject of Sam’s recent memoir, We Used to Dream of Freedom. Sam is delighted to be performing again and working with a wonderfully collegial group of artists.

Mairéad Filgate

Dancer

Mairéad Filgate (Toronto/Montreal) has created and performed nationally and internationally with many of Canada’s most celebrated dance artists. As a founding member of the award- winning collaborative trio Throwdown Collective, she spent 15 years performing and co- creating choreography for parks, forests, stages, runways, and film. Her outdoor site-specific choreography brings to light the beauty of the everyday, most recently in Le mur (2025) performed in Montreal’s Plateau neighborhood by seven local performers. With Shannon Litzenberger, she is the co-founder of PlaySpace, applying creative practice toward collaborative leadership, community health, and inclusive culture-making. Inspired by her time with Canada’s Danny Grossman Dance Company (2003-2008), Mairéad has conducted over 85 oral histories towards the publication of a book exploring the social, economic, political, and personal landscapes that influenced the company through a multitude of voices and perspectives. She is currently a Scholar-in-Residence at Concordia University’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling.

Miranda Mulholland

Musician

Miranda Mulholland is a JUNO nominated Canadian Singer and Fiddler. She is in high demand as a solo performer and as a collaborator. Dubbed the “Sweet secret weapon of Canadian Roots Music'' by Brad Wheeler at the Globe and Mail, her touring and recording credits include Great Lake Swimmers, Bowfire, The Jim Cuddy Band and many, many more. She has performed on over 100 albums as well as on TV show and film scores and in theatre. She runs a boutique record label called Roaring Girl Records which is the home to a select group of diverse artists.  Over the past decade, Miranda has emerged as one of the foremost Artist Advocates speaking at the WTO and WIPO in Geneva, CMW, MIDEM, Banff World Media Festival and was the first creator to take the podium at the Economic Club of Canada.  She was runner up to Margaret Atwood for Artist of the Year in the Globe and Mail, awarded the ABJ Fellowship for the Banff Forum and won International Leader of the Year from Women in Music Canada.Miranda serves as the Creative Culture Advisor for Music Canada. mirandamulholland.com

Tim Postgate

Musician

Tim is a Canadian banjoist, guitarist, and composer known for blending bluegrass, jazz, and contemporary folk influences into a distinctive, genrecrossing sound. A longtime presence in Toronto’s creative music scene, he has collaborated with notable artists across jazz, roots, and improvisational music including Howard Johnson, Jane Bunnett and Andy Milne. Through his work as a performer, bandleader, and educator, Tim continues to push the musical possibilities of the banjo in groups like So Long Seven, Cluttertones and Ronley Teper's Lipliners. He is about to release his first solo record in quite sometime called Stringbone.  He is also the founder and co-musical director of MondoBanjo: Wolfe Island's Festival of the Banjo.

Derek Sovannavong

Dancer

Derek is a dance artist based in Tkaronto (Toronto) and a graduate of Dance at York University. He has premiered solo work “this identity: woven” co-created with Peggy Baker, receiving a Dora-award nomination for Excellence in Choreography. He has also presented solo work “Woven Presence” created through mentorship and residency with Peter Chin. His work is heavily influenced by the immense care he has received from both these artists and holds much gratitude for their warmth and generosity. Souvannavong has performed in various works by Ballet Creole, Frog in Hand, Ronald Taylor Dance, Rumi Jeraj, and worked with artists Danny Grossman, Terrill Maguire, Laurence Lemieux, Tracey Norman, Emily Cheung, Yui Ugai, and Newton Moraes among others. Souvannavong is intrigued by traditional Lao dance forms and continues to explore relations between Lao and western contemporary dance, weaving together his Lao heritage into his work.

George Stamos

Dancer

Originally from Nova Scotia, George Stamos is an award-winning Montréal-based digital and performance artist whose works explore themes of resilience, play and transformation. George’s prolific career began as a solo dance artist in New York City in the mid 1990s, after he graduated from Holland's Amsterdam University of the Arts. In the early 2000s, he established himself in Montréal, where, as a sought-after dancer, George worked with many prominent choreographers in ensemble work and, as a choreographer/filmmaker, developed a unique and dynamic body of work over the past 25 years. Throughout his career, George has participated in creative projects across a wide range of cultural contexts that promote diversity through aesthetics and discourse. Currently, as a student in the Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology program at Yorkville University, George continues to reflect on how his art practice can serve communities in thoughtful ways that foster wellbeing, respect and compassion, as he builds his competencies as a psychotherapist. This is his first project dancing with Terrill Maguire.

Oriah Wiersma

Dancer

Oriah is an accomplished multidisciplinary artist described as “highly visceral” and “haunting.” Her work emerges from the body, and finds expression through dance, acting, circus, music, and writing.  A graduate of the York University Dance Program, her choreographic/stage works include: layers, a multidisciplinary solo commission for Young Lungs Dance Exchange Festival; the national tour of her solo isn’t this where, and The Spirit Garden, R. Murray Schafer’s epic outdoor musical drama. Oriah can be found performing alongside bands or interpreting for various choreographers. On screen, she has appeared in national commercials and music videos: Gone Baby Gone (Aysanabee), Always a Romantic (ZINNIA), Life (Shannon O’Donovan), and Once I Knew (Ptarmigan).

Sylvia Defend

Costume Designer

Sylvia Defend is an Associate Professor who teaches costume technology and history, and supervises student work in the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance. She has a broad theatrical background and has worked as a costume technician in theatre, dance, opera, and film. Sylvia has created costumes for many Canadian and Broadway shows, including Showboat, Ragtime, The Lion King, Mamma Mia, The Producers, Hairspray, Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, The Lord of the Rings, We Will Rock You, and Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Her educational research centers on historical manufacturing techniques and material culture, particularly fabric and clothing, and their societal influence. She values hands-on teaching, guiding her educational approach. She has received awards, including the Harold Award in 2018 for independent theatre artists, the 2016 AMPD Junior Faculty Teaching Award, and the Canadian Institute of Theatre Technology’s Education Achievement Award in 2015.

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