Eighteen months ago, Lori Starr, LEFT, packed her bags and moved her family from Los Angeles to Toronto to take the helm at the Koffler Centre of the Arts.
Starr is Koffler Centre’s executive director and the vice-president of culture, a new position, for the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto.
Established by Murray and Marvelle Koffler in 1977, the Koffler Centre of the Arts was created to enrich the people of Toronto through arts education and exhibitions.
This year, Starr and Tiana Koffler Boyman, the centre’s president, are steering it in new directions. “The institution is being rebirthed with a new mission statement – to create a more civil and global society by fostering mutual understanding through the exploration of arts and culture,” Starr said.
To support their efforts, the Koffler Centre of the Arts will host a gala on May 4, presenting an evening of international ballet stars at the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts.
The seventh annual Stars of the 21st Century, under the artistic direction of Nadia and Solomon Tencer, features classical and contemporary ballet dancers from Germany, Lithuania, Russia, Spain and Vienna. The show includes principal dancers from the National Ballet of Canada and a world première by the Israel Ballet company to commemorate Israel @ 60, featuring dancers Nina Gershman and Alexander Utkin.
No stranger to the arts, Starr was former senior vice-president of the Skirball Cultural Center and director of the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles, as well as having held senior management positions at the J. Paul Getty Museum and at the J. Paul Getty Trust for more than 15 years.
Programs at the Koffler Centre of the Arts are based on a multi-disciplinary approach with an emphasis on Jewish themes in a Canadian context and feature filmmakers, writers, comedians, musicians, dancers and painters.
“Here within our curving spaces,” an installation by Montreal artist Karilee Fuglem, opens at the Koffler Gallery on May 15.
The exhibit “Makom: Seeking Sacred Space,” more than 30 photographs of Jewish sacred sites from Montreal to Morocco by David Cowles and David Kaufman, begins at the gallery on June 1.
An Israeli film festival, presented by iToronto, is on at the centre this fall and, coming next spring, a celebration of Russian culture through film and art, music and food.
“I am indebted to Tiana Koffler Boyman’s efforts to create the Koffler Centre of the Arts as an independent agency of the UJA Federation and to her parents for their generosity in envisioning an arts centre as a key component of Jewish life in Toronto,” Starr said. Toronto has a “unique Jewish community that’s a model for other cities, with the most progressive, robust and visionary federation – the United Jewish Appeal – that’s ahead of its time.”
To reach out to people in the community, the Koffler Centre “embraces” everyone, building on the notion of welcoming the stranger, she said. Through the recognition of differences, “people are valued as individuals and become part of something greater.”
With Starr’s belief that the “essence of an institution can be taken anywhere,” the Koffler Centre recently celebrated the release of Chana Rothman’s CD We Can Rise at the Gladstone Hotel, to attract the under 40 crowd. Plans for more off-site concerts include the Italian-Czech Connection Mother’s Day Concert with the Koffler Chamber Orchestra at the Toronto Centre for the Arts on May 11.
“We create a sense of community through the notion of culture – it’s the lens through which we examine what people value,” Starr said. “Culture is the soul of who we are. Once we do this, great things happen.”
For Stars of the 21st Century tickets, visit www.ticketmaster.ca. Call 416-872-1111 for gala patron tickets; to be a gala sponsor, contact Tobi Liederman at 416-636-1880, ext. 271, or e-mail [email protected]. Gala sponsors attend private functions before and after the performance at 8:00 pm. For more information about the Koffler Centre, visit www.kofflercentre.com.