In 2017, collaborators Erum Khan and Erin Brubacher created the collective Generous Friend under the governing principle, how things are made shapes what is made.* Generous Friend projects insist on a keen attention to process, engage with multidisciplinary forms, house intersections of culture and demographics, and making performance situations that create conversations that would not otherwise happen — putting people in rooms together who might not have the occasion to share space and place.

The performance collective’s inaugural project was NOOR, a play written by Erum and directed by Erin, reimagining the relationship of 13th-century poet Rumi and his muse Shams through an urban contemporary, Canadian, queer context. The play evolved into a concert, live installation and performance experiment in a museum context, hosted by the Aga Khan Museum. Subsequent to NOOR, Generous Friend has sought to house border-crossing projects such as Offers & Answers: A Field Guide for Creative Collaboration in Digital Spaces (in partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University, Nightswimming Theatre, and Soulpepper Theatre), and Talk To Me (SummerWorks Lab).

The collective has had a rotating roster of artists that have included: Liz Peterson, Toronto’s electronic music duo LAL, Anwar Khurshid, Veda Hille, and others.

Generous Friend has been supported by The Toronto Arts Council, The Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.


* With thanks to our friend Cara Spooner for her collaboration in this articulation.