Pride is back! But in a way it never left. For thirty-eight years and counting, it has created space, galvanized communities, and united people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions. June’s AGO First Thursdays, in turn, creates space to celebrate the official 2018 launch of Toronto’s Pride Month.

Marking the occasion, in a headlining slot, is the one and only DJ Andy Butler, the musician behind Hercules & Love Affair, a platform for an inclusive, rotating series of artists and performers that collectively make this unique dance music project. Creating his own mythology, with its transformative powers and empowering ethos, he has garnered a dedicated following across the world and across various communities, undoubtedly thanks to unapologetic individualism and dance beats that cross from joy to heartbreak and back.

Elsewhere in the building, another collective of artists will express themselves through movement.  ILL NANA/DiverseCity Dance Company is a queer and trans multiracial dance company that embraces difference as strength. Committed to changing the landscape of dance by performing their stories on stage, the collective provides accessible education and performance opportunities for LGBTTIQQ2SA communities prioritizing people of colour, various body types, backgrounds, classes and abilities. Also part of the night is artist SUN SUN, a musician under Above Top Secret moniker, member of 88 Days Of Fortune Collective and fashion designer whose garments purposely don’t play with an intersection of male and female, but elevate the subject of gender to a non-binary, and whose artwork is equally vocal in re-establishing new structures of values and meaning.

Also on view will be a series of AIDS ACTION NOW! posters, a thematic selection of works from Out of the Vaults, with a special pop-up talk by Olivia Nuamah Executive Director of Pride Toronto, and a unique program designed by Hana Shafi, a.k.a. Frizz Kid, an artist and illustrator whose positive affirmation series fuses feminism, social justice and resistance.

Additional sounds will be offered by DJ Regina Gently, performer and musician, and Chippy Nonstop, DJ, artist, producer and community organizer, who in addition to her creative practice hosts and curates Intersessions workshops, an inclusive sound initiative striving for a balanced representation in event and music industries.

For all the latest details on First Thursdays programming, follow #AGO1st on Twitter and Instagram.