ART | Habit
The Luminato Festival begins today with 16 events happening throughout the city on stages, in cinemas and at galleries. Berlin artist David Levine brings his installation Habit to this year's Luminato festival in an attempt to blend reality television with scripted performance art. Inside a specially constructed home designed by Marsha Ginsberg, three actors portray roommates as they improvise around real-time situations while reciting a script written by playwright Jason Grote. Video feeds will edit together a television drama that challenges perceptions of reality TV versus scripted entertainment while this brilliant performance piece displays "real world" art to its audience.
OCADU (100 McCaul Street) 11AM Free

FILM | Dabaang Free Screening
To gear up for the upcoming International Indian Film Academy Awards, which take place in Toronto at the end of this month, Yonge-Dundas Square will transform in celebration of Bollywood filmmaking this weekend. As part of CIBC Celebrates the IIFAs, trivia games and dance competitions will get audiences riled up all day but the main event happening tonight is the screening of the IIFA-nominated film Dabaang. Abhinav Singh Kashyap's 2010 action movie about a corrupt Indian police officer that falls in love is nominated for 13 awards at this year's event. Having already received critical acclaim, this international hit will be free to view for the public as an unofficial welcome to the Indian filmmakers, crews and actors who will soon be flocking to the city for the awards ceremony.
Yonge-Dundas Square (10 Dundas Street East #122) 7PM Free

CULTURE | Nerd Nite V: No Snappy Subtitle
Nerd alert! Nerd alert! For those that enjoy the nerdier things in life, Nerd Nite is back! Beginning the night with a trivia game, the evening's focus will be on two presentations, the first featuring Building Science expert Rick Roos, who will discuss the conflict between nature and interior space and how Mother Nature may actually contribute to global warming. Following Roos will be D.T. Cochrane, a social scientist who will lecture on how the diamond industry plays a large role in the war machine. With such interesting and unique topics being presented, this event is strictly for information gatherers with a nerdy edge.
Tranzac Club (292 Brunswick Avenue) 7:30PM Free

ART | VIDEODROME
Jubal Brown, dropFRAME Video and Apocalypse Tomorrow come together to present this one-night only exhibit at MOCCA, celebrating audio-visual culture as a part of the Luminato Festival. VIDEODROME's aim to display television excess is presented with layers of music, visuals and lighting as 18 individual producers have linked these elements in an installation and live video performance for the YouTube generation. What is being described as a fast-paced, chaotic art show, VIDEODROME will give insight through sensory experience into the human tendency toward over-indulgence.
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (952 Queen Street West) 8PM $10

FUNDRAISER | The Great Gatsby Annual Summer Moon Dance by the Lake
The annual Summer Moon Dance by the Lake returns with a roaring 1920s theme inspired by The Great Gatsby. A 3-course dinner prepared by Chef Steffan Howard will be served and there will be live Big Band music following a dance lesson so that attendees can show off their Charleston dancing skills. With prizes, raffles and a large silent auction, the evening will be a sophisticated affair that will take place in a venue overlooking Lake Ontario at night. Flapper dresses and feathered headbands, gangster pinstripes and black ties are encouraged in support of the Epilepsy Cure Initiative.
Palais Royale Ballroom (1601 Lake Shore Boulevard) 6:30PM $125

OTHER EVENTS ON OUR RADAR

• The South Asian Comedy Showcase
• David Lester, The Listener & Broken Pencil #52
• The Wall Unit
• My Name is Raj

Have an event you'd like to plug? Submit your own listing to the blogTO Toronto events calendar or contact us directly.

For Toronto movie showtimes, view our Movie Listings section.

Photo by alicia den Ouden in the blogTO Flickr Pool