2023
About the Program
Who’s joking? And more importantly, who’s laughing
TAIWANfest invites local comedians to share laughs ranging from a wide variety of topics. Overwhelmed with news on your multiple devices? Tired of the daily grind? Leave your worries at the door and bring your open mind! In the spirit of Taiwan and its freedom of speech, comedy is where lines are blurred and conversations are explored.
Catch Toronto’s best comedians as they take the stage at TAIWANfest for a hilarious night of standup comedy. Featuring comics seen on Just For Laughs, CBC, Roast Battle Canada, SiriusXM and more!
Danish Anwar is an award-winning comedian and a trendsetting producer known for selling out shows worldwide, from iconic venues like The Comedy Store in LA to the ultra-cool Tokyo Comedy Bar in Japan where he has become a recurring favourite.
Danish has worked with comedy titans like Dave Attell, Russell Peters, and Paul Provenza. He’s performed at prestigious festivals like Just For Laughs, Zoofest, & Magners International Comedy Festival in Bangkok, and created the global comedy sensation Your Hood’s A Joke, playing in LA, NYC, Tokyo and Toronto, expanding to Barcelona and Amsterdam in 2023.
Danish boasts multiple appearances on TV & Radio, such as CBC comedy specials Truth Bomb, Fish Out Of Water, & Truth To Power, regular appearances on morning TV, CBC’s The Debaters & Laugh Out Loud, and the award-winning documentary “Stand Up Toronto”, commissioned for Canada’s 150th anniversary celebrations.
He also writes for CBC’s Because News, one of Canada’s most popular radio shows with a million weekly listeners.
Ronald Hae is a comedian based out of Mississauga. His act is centered around Asian culture, life as a teacher, and his family. He started his comedy training at The Second City in Toronto. He has performed at the Brantford Rising Stars Festival, been featured on Sirius XM radio, and made his Just for Laughs Toronto debut in 2022.
Ronald is also the host of a bi-weekly podcast called The Teacher Hotline. The show was recently ranked the #6 Educational Podcast for Teachers in Canada. You can listen to him on Apple, Spotify, Google, and all podcast platforms every Monday.
Zabrina Douglas is a Canadian stand-up comedian who broke through to wider success in 2020 as the headliner of Laughter from the Frontlines, a virtual comedy show organized by Daniel Woodrow’s Unknown Comedy Club featuring frontline health care workers performing comedy and storytelling about coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.
She subsequently produced the show Things Black Girls Say, and her comedy album Things Black Girls Say: The Album received a Juno Award nomination for Comedy Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2023.
Dave Burke is a stand-up comedian based in Toronto. He recently recorded a CBC TV Gala at the 2022 Winnipeg Comedy Festival and performed at Massey Hall. Dave has appeared at the Boston Comedy Festival and his debut album Sexual Cactus can be heard on SiriusXM Radio. Dave performs at Yuk Yuk’s comedy clubs across Canada, and has written and performed for Your Hood’s a Joke at JFL Zoofest.
From the Curating Team
Curating community performances at TAIWANfest is like painting a self-portrait, constantly questioning Taiwanese culture's role in a Canadian festival. With these community performances, we aim to foster cross-cultural dialogue and break down ethnic barriers, highlighting Canada’s diverse society.
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TAIWANfest Toronto is grateful to be held on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, that is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We acknowledge our privilege to be gathered here, and commit to work with and be respectful to the Indigenous peoples of this land while we engage in meaningful conversations of culture and reconciliation.