Brennan Clost and Michael Usling on love in Toronto's arts scene

At Fashion Art Toronto, Brennan Clost and Michael Usling stood out not just for what they wore, but for how they lifted each other up. One's a dancer and actor. The other's a designer and interdisciplinary artist. Together as a gay couple working in the arts, they've built something that stands out in a world often defined by ego and competition: a relationship rooted in genuine support.

"I've never had a partner this supportive," Clost said. No competition. Just encouragement. Just pride.

Clost's path to the spotlight came early and fast. At 16, the Burlington-born dancer was scouted at a competition by a talent agent who sent him for a trial audition for The Next Step. He was cast in one of the lead contemporary dancer roles — Daniel — and spent five seasons on the show that launched his career and brought nostalgia to a Gen Z audience who grew up watching it.

While the show aired, Clost studied at The Juilliard School in New York City, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Since then, he's built a diverse screen resume: Canada's Got Talent, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Netflix's Tiny Pretty Things (as Shane, a prominent role in the ballet drama), Fear Street: Prom Queen, and Canadian series like Heartland, Pretty Hard Cases, and Loathe Thy Neighbor.

"Tiny Pretty Things and The Next Step were both opportunities that felt like lightning in a bottle," Clost told Now Toronto. "I was the right age at the right time."

Usling, meanwhile, has built his reputation as a CAFA award-winning designer and interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto — creating work that sits at the intersection of fashion, visual arts, and storytelling. His accolades and creative vision have made him a fixture in Toronto's creative community.

But what's remarkable about the two together isn't their individual credentials. It's the ecosystem they've created around each other. In an arts world often characterized by competition for roles, funding, attention, and recognition, they've chosen a different model. They show up to each other's events. They celebrate each other's wins. They push each other creatively without the zero-sum thinking that can poison partnerships in creative fields.

Their relationship highlights something Toronto's LGBTQ+ creative community has long understood: that collaboration and genuine support aren't weaknesses — they're superpowers. The power of community, of showing up, of rooting for someone else's success as if it were your own.

As Pride Month unfolds across the city, stories like theirs — quiet, substantive, rooted in real partnership — remind us what the month is really about. Not the spectacle, though the spectacle is part of it. But the deep, unglamorous work of building lives and communities where love means actually showing up.