Anto Chan's Bio
Anto is a spoken word performance artist, writer, facilitator, entrepreneur, mentor, producer & caregiver. He began his arts career in 2007 after writing and reading a eulogy at his Gung Gung’s (grandfather) funeral. 2 Months later he performed his first Stand-up comedy set at Yuk Yuk’s in Toronto.
He has featured on Guelph Poetry Slam, Hong Kong Comedy Festival & the CBC’s the National. He produced “The 13th Story”, “Dare Storytelling”, and "FreeFlow Showcase” which supports the artist in each of us to open up, share intimate personal stories and build community support. In 2022, he founded and headlined the Canada Council for the Arts funded project “InnerGenerational: Trauma & Healing”, which explores ancestral roots through a variety of performance art. This project was presented at the National Arts Centre Ottawa 2023, Mississauga Multilingual Fringe Festival 2023 & Replay Storytelling in 2024. He previously produced and performed his show “Shed Talks” in the Toronto Fringe Festival 2016, his one-person show "Love So Far” at the Montreal Fringe Festival in 2019 and his headlining set from InnerGenerational at the Guelph Fringe Festival 2022.
He facilitated art events for the Art Gallery of Mississauga’s Border Crossings Project, Richmond Hill Canada Day and the City of Toronto StreetArt program. Cultural programming is incredible important to his career, he has facilitated events for Tea Base in Chinatown Centre, Hannia Cheng’s art gallery event “From Future to Past”, and co-facilitating a psychotherapeutic group for the Asian Community called “Coming home to yourself” with Keystone Psychology. He has been studying Expressive Art Therapy with Create Institute, running a men’s group called “The Art of Masculine” where we explored masculinity, femininity and infinity. He also supports the LGBTQ+ community by running a group called Getting Bi+ for Bisexual participants and performing for the Toronto Bi+ Arts Festival.
With his typewriter, he has been creating freeform poems since 2017, culminating in completing his poetry chapbook "Love So Far: Romantic Reflections", released in 2020. He has used this in-the-moment inspiration to include collages and typewritten works in the chapbook.
He is passionate about mentoring the next generation of artists to overcome personal obstacles, leading to sharing their stories authentically. He is a mentor for Nia Centre for the Arts for the Black artist community, running a grant writing group called the Accountabilibuddies, and has private mentees he works with on motivation, grant writing, and producing events. His life’s work is to create and support meaningful art that centre around the journey of growth, intersectionality, self-love and healing intergenerational trauma.
He enjoys the Toronto Raptors, skateboarding and adventures in nature.
