By Alison

At right: The new CIBC Lobby in Accolade East is lovely…so why can’t we stop thinking “red rum!”?
Full disclosure: Torontoist is a former Yorkie, having graduated from the Fine Arts department several years ago with all the requisite loving hatred. But our curiousity about the Fine Arts department’s brand spanking new Accolade Project overcame our lingering bitterness (not to mention our longtime dread of the 96A bus – at least it doesn’t go along Finch anymore), and so up we trekked to hell and gone Finch and Keele for the official ribbon cutting yesterday.
The Accolade Project, after years of seemingly endless construction (and upwards of $105 million), is finally complete – two new buildings for the Fine Arts department just bursting with much-needed additional studio and performance space. Accolade East houses the 325-seat Sandra Faire and Ivan Fecan Theatre, a 500-seat cinema, a 325-seat recital hall, and an art gallery, plus heaps of dance, theatre, and music studios, not to mention a gorgeous student lounge with huge windows, the likes of which we would have killed for as an undergrad. Accolade West has the student art gallery and more classrooms and computer labs.
There are tons of performances to catch in the new spaces all week, and no tickets are more than $15 (and some are free). The York Jazz Festival kicks off tonight and runs until Friday, with performances by ensembles led by some of the city’s top jazz musicians. In the art gallery, a retrospective of the work of Amsterdam-based photographer and video artist Fiona Tan runs until Sunday, and the student gallery has an exhibit of work by first year graduate students.
Torontoist already mentioned Theatre@York’s production of Not Wanted on the Voyage, but the theatre department is also putting student design work on display. A multicultural dance show opens the new theatre, and on Friday night the Film department is screening a a nifty selection of work by York alumni in the spiffy new cinema.