Established | 1977 |
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Location | Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street, Toronto, Ontario |
Coordinates | 43°38′49″N 79°25′03″W / 43.64694°N 79.41750°W |
Director | Cathy Jonasson |
Website | kofflerarts.org |
The Koffler Centre of the Arts is a broad-based cultural institution established in 1977 by Murray and Marvelle Koffler and based at Artscape Youngplace in the West Queen West area of downtown Toronto, Ontario. It is a Jewish cultural organization that presents a cross-disciplinary, contemporary arts program that encourages inquiry and exploration, and promotes an inter-cultural dialogue that engages its Jewish identity with diverse perspectives and global voices.
The Koffler Centre of the Arts has a history of over 37 years of excellence and innovation in arts and culture. Established in 1977 as part of the Bathurst Jewish Community Centre (BJCC) in the North York area of Toronto on Bathurst Street, the Koffler has grown to inspire and enlighten the Jewish community as well as the broader public of Toronto and beyond. Reflecting the vision of the founding Koffler family, the organization functions within the arts community as a professional, vital centre of the arts, and within the Jewish community of Greater Toronto as its pivotal cultural arm. On July 1, 2009, the Koffler was incorporated as an independent not-for-profit charitable organization.
Over its history, the Koffler has offered a rich array of education and learning programs, including private and group music lessons, dance classes, and a diverse variety of visual arts classes, including painting, drawing, stone sculpture/carving, mixed media, and ceramics. The Koffler's education programs are led by acclaimed local artists and instructors. The Koffler also serves public and private school students and their teachers through Koffler Gallery exhibition tours and workshops and reaches thousands in Toronto’s cultural community through lectures, concerts, off-site exhibitions, and literary programs.
The Koffler was home to the Jewish Book Fair (1977-2011), the Toronto Jewish Literary Festival (2012-2014) and the Koffler Chamber Orchestra (2005-2014).
In 2008, the Koffler Centre of the Arts was rebranded and restructured, with a multidisciplinary program department that ran complementary to the Koffler Gallery. Unlike the Gallery, with its mandate to exhibit, interpret, and document works of excellence in the visual arts, focusing on contemporary Canadian art and programming of interest to the Jewish community, the multidisciplinary programs focused more specifically on Jewish arts and culture from Canada, Israel and around the world.