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Lisa Anita Wegner

“I make stuff and sometimes write about it”

Tag Archives: dada

October 23, 2026 Haus Special Announcement

Intangible Adorations: Experience The Icon was commissioned by Post Script Patio and was a headliner at Rendezvous with Madness Festival 2019. Created by artist Lisa Anita Wegner and director Scott White it is a social experiment, film and performance series.Closing night included Celebrity and Anonymity: An Artist Talk with Lisa and Scott and Q&A moderated by Lisa McKeown.

Featuring key members of Lisa’s Performance Art Salon and 5 masked celebrities.

Pictured is the artist surrounded by director Scott White (front) , filmmaker Ciaran Federico, (top left) and her Salon- KC Cooper, (left) Meek, Amy L (behind) and Ava Emily (right). Photo by Sean Patenaude.

The series was nominated for six Broadway World Awards (2018-22) and a Governor General Nomination in Media for Wegner (2023).

https://workmanarts.com/rwm-archive-events/intangible-adorations/

https://www.broadwayworld.com/toronto/article/Celebrities-In-Disguise-Tackle-Mental-Health-In-INTANGIBLE-ADORATIONS-EXPERIENCE-THE-ICON-20191001

https://www.broadwayworld.com/toronto/article/Celebrities-In-Disguise-Perform-At-The-Toronto-Fringe-In-The-Icon-Experience-20190624

Scott took on the intense scheduling, booking and sneaking celebrities into our Post Script Patio Tent and into Workman Arts. All the Icons signed Non Disclosure Agreements (NDAs).

All these years later we have something to share with you.

We can now disclose that improv teacher and Performance Art Salon’s own KC Cooper performed as The Icon on one of the performances when a celebrity had to cancel at the very last minute. KC saved the day with such an outstanding Icon performance not one of the Salon recognized her! A true star!

While it is unclear, which celebrity KC replaced, there were rumours that it could have been any one of the celebs interested in the idea of anonymity put forward by the piece. The mystery of who they were are still protected by NDAs, but we can confirm that, on one night, KC donned the morph suit, saved the performance, and gave the audience a star turn.

KC pictured performing a duet with Lisa.

White background with black art deco text that reads Haus of Dada with a sharp leaf-like shape in the middle.

A big thank you to our very own KC Cooper!

October 23rd 2026

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July 21, 2025 Artist Statement 2025

Lisa Anita Wegner is a Toronto-based filmmaker, performer and interdisciplinary artist known for visionary work that bridges film, performance art and immersive multi sensory installation. A creative force with deep roots in alternative storytelling, Wegner builds immersive experiences that explore identity, altered states, and the area between reality and fiction.

Wegner’s practice includes film, video installation, durational performance, and expanded cinema. Her work often centers on themes of transformation through the lens of what she calls “Realistic Confabulation”: an intentional mixing of autobiographical truths with fictionalized personas, alternate timelines and imagined worlds.

Wegner is the Artistic Director of Mighty Brave Productions since 1999 and Artist in Residence at Haus of Dada since 2013. She has raised significant public and private funding for her large-scale art projects and proudly pays her team full CARFAC rates. Her commitment to access, representation, and fair labour underpins her entire artistic approach.

Her most recent body of work, Elsewhere, formerly known as Intangible Adorations, is a touring installation experience reimagined without live performers. The Elsewhere short film (https://youtu.be/JhRHP30rYO0) stands as a haunting artifact of that world.

Known as much for her mentorship and curatorial vision as for her creations, Wegner is a generous community leader. Her collaborators describe her as a boundary-pushing visionary whose work is as emotionally raw as it is conceptually rigorous.

Wegner’s artistic taglines include: “Lifting the Veil to Elsewhere” and “Finding Authenticity Through Artifice.” Her artist demo https://youtu.be/JHpG6kmrQbo.

Wegner’s personal assistant and in-house producer kermit@mightybraveproductions.com 

Photo Credit Lisa Anita Wegner 2018. Shot at Workman Arts and featuring Ashley Hurlock.

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April 25, 2017 Road to Human Realignment

“I am working on a performance film series called Metamorphosis Human Realignment. This physical stretching practise has changed my life and now through that doorway I am creating a piece in which I tell the truth with my body. I am very excited about this work.”

After speaking at Open Show Toronto about two of my therapy videos I have become even more aware of the clear path my body of work is taking.

I created the Fictitious History of the Haus of Dada as a therapeutic art practise and the bulk of my film and performance work has stemmed from it. After using persona and then the Dada movement as parameters I now feel compelled to strip everything down and tell my story with my body. I’ll talk a bit about that in a moment.

I started here in 2008 when I was still very sick. I made this Eva and Bobby video series in my home with iMovie and started to find my voice

 

 

 

Mama Dada was going to host the installation but that didn’t feel right. Thin(k) Blank Human was born that night.

The work progressed with a library of videos like Marry The Night

A Collaboration with Steve Weiss and Leslie Barton

A solo performance at The Mod Club in Toronto

Thin(k) Blank Human: Metamorphosis is a performance piece by artist Lisa Anita Wegner (haus of dada) and musician Ray Cammaert (Pink Moth). It began as an extension of Wegner’s Trauma Therapy and represents a safe place in the search for one’s self after complete annihilation. It is both a confirmation of vitality and a call to action. The piece explores male and female layers of the neutral self and uses vibration of sound to assist in the expression of terror, hysteria, madness, resilience and joy on the journey to re-birth.

 

After this metamorphosis I realized that I will always continue to embody Thin(k) Blank Human but as for my personal artistic through line I have come through the structure of relying on artifice to find authenticity. My current work is based in realigning my chronically tight psoas muscles which have caused a leg length discrepancy and making my physical body unstable and chronically crooked. After going to a stretch class of Mary-Margaret Scrimger’s at Pursuit I understood the power of stretching my body and how I felt different immediately. Now every day I stretch for at least 10 minutes, some studio days I stretch up to three hours. In this stretching and realignment I am finding myself and who I really am as an artist without all the performance bombast that I so enjoy.

I am working on a nude performance / film series called Metamorphosis Human Realignment. This physical stretching practise has changed my life and now through that doorway I am creating a performance to tell the truth with my body. I am very excited about this work. It’s also the first time I am not sharing as I go.

LAW

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September 1, 2016 Canadian Performer Refuses To Show Face

In Toronto Canada, an arrogant performance artist declares themself amazing while refusing to show any facial expression.

Photo by Ashley Hurlock for Akhilanda Collaborative
Photo by Haus of Dada
Photo by Angela Chao
Photo by Haus of Dada
Photo by audience member at Black Cat Artspace
Photos by Angela Chao
Photo by Haus of Dada
Photo by Haus of Dada
Photo by Steve Weiss
Photo by Anandam Dance Theatre for Body Break
 

When we reached out to the haus of dada for comment we received the following message in German via telegraph from curator Fritz Snitz. “The Ubermarionette only does private performances for close friends, artists and cherished audience members and is not interested in speaking with you peoples.” -Ritzy Fritzy

Artist Would Rather Give Ownership of Her Work to Those Who Inspire, Than Those Who Can Pay.

Performance Artist’s Perceived Gender Affects Audience Reaction 

 

 

 

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January 10, 2014 Papa Dada: Rewriting Haus History Lab Experiment Day 1

I have a vision of creating myself as a whole family. Father, mother, self, sister, brother, child. I saw it as a silent black and white film series telling the fictional history of the Haus of Dada. The beginning is the meeting of Mama and Papa Dada. Mama Dada is an artist and Papa is a romantic fool who does everything Mama’s love. He is in love with the reflection of himself in her.


Slow is the new fast, so I decided to break this down to tiny pieces. Today I found a look and the beginning of Papa. He turned out silly and vain feeling like the bastard child of The Burger King and Dali. I think I’m onto something. Papa’s musical uncle is Klaus Nomi.

Screen Shot 2014-01-11 at 12.11.50 AM

With this act, I activate the history of the Haus and so Papa Dada is born. Happy Birthday Papa I look forward to meeting you soon again.

Screen Shot 2014-01-11 at 12.09.19 AM

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January 9, 2014 Haus of Dada Laboratory Experiments 2014

Art Right Now
or
Current Projects and Collaborations:
  • Haus of Dada Happening Series: unadvertised pop-up projections installations
  • Sleight of Gesture, interactive digital magic show in collaboration with Vincent John Vincent of GestureTek
  • LAW of TRANSFORMATION: research. Video series with live gallery transformation by hair and makeup artist Wanda MacRae.
  • You are Mother Nature. A performance art and interactive projection showMoment Factory Me: Dada Dreams Laboratory video series
  • Ongoing body of pixel paintings
  • Daily video experiments
  • Ongoing body of collages with found objects
  • Ongoing series of self portraits: moving + still
  • Flash Mob concept creation and execution
In development:
  • My Favourite Mistake: White Tragedy Feature Film
  • Welcome to Your Guidance System: Inner.Space
  • Neverwet on White: You are The Artist
  • A collaboration with Istavan Cantor

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January 3, 2014 They’ve forgiven my mistakes: If you listen carefully, there is music in the silence

I had my first projection happening on New Years Day. It was -19 degrees outside and I had a flu that had knocked me almost senseless. I had set up and tested the equipment the day before when I had my wits about me, so I decided to go ahead with it as planned. And I’m very glad I did.

I had my first projection happening at haus of dada on New Years Day 2014. I showed rear projections out the large front windows at the Haus of Dada, to surprise some passerby. It was -19 degrees outside and I had a flu that had knocked me almost senseless. I had setup and tested the equipment in advance so I decided to go ahead with it as planned. I’m very glad that I did. 
 
 
I cancelled my camera person because I thought I might be contagious. I was woozy on cold and flu medication and had to set my alarm for ten to 7pm to turn on the set up. When I tested it I didn’t watch all the way through there are some pieces with words and when they came up in the program I realized I didn’t flip to rear projection so it was really a show for me, lying on the couch in the main room. Sweating, coughing and buzzed on flu meds.
 
I was intending to have a few folks inside the main room to watch with me, but I was in so shape to receive anyone, so locked the outside door. I set up a camera in the locked porch. I forgot that camera batteries don’t do well in a deep freeze.
 
So I watched the program from inside, in silence (nauseous headache required silence) and I appreciated again how my video work is like my visual diary. The vids I showed were all made in the last six months and it was a walk down memory lane for me. I am happily reminded my art is really for me.
 
Watching the smaller screen with the sped up process videos of me working was interesting. When I’m actually working I go out of myself and lose time and space. Watching me making stuff is surreal: I know it’s me but I don’t have a specific memory of it.
 
There was deep freeze and black ice on the sidewalks. I left one window without a screen so I could look out. One person, possibly still drunk for new years eve, yelled that they could watch my videos forever. I was the most interested in the walk by traffic and their response to an unexpected light show. I will definitely be doing an ongoing of series of these unexpected unadvertised happenings.
 
Two days later I woke up at 6am. I still feel gross but I can’t sleep and decided to write this. I am happy.
 
 
 
It happened
I saw
Redemption
LAW
 
 
 

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December 16, 2013 Outside the Haus: New Year’s Day Dada Happening

Two experiences brought this idea together:
 
On Hallowe’en I put up some Roscoe Tough White Diffusion in the front Window of the Haus of Dada. It makes a terrific crisp rear projection both inside and out. I played clips of black and white monster movies and the scariest scenes from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Even before the sun set it was nicely visible from the street and I was surprised that even on such a rainy night people stopped and watched for longer than I expected. Some came back several times and some sent other family members.
 
On Nuit Blanche I did a performance projection installation where I was a 25 foot Queen at the corner of Queen Street West and University Ave. It was interesting to have huge walking by audience and again I was surprised how long people stood watched and interacted with me.
 
So I had an idea for a Happening. I think that is a perfect term for what I have in mind. On New Years Day from 7pm to 11pm I will project a selection of my Moment Study Videos out the large front window of The Haus of Dada.
 
I made an invite on Facebook, for some folks who have expressed an interested in seeing my video studies projected. But I’m not sending out invitations like a usual event, I am more interested in the experience of the passerby. I will set up a GoPro camera to catch the silhouettes of viewers.
 
I am keen to see what happens.
Image
 

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