Articles by author: Brock University

  • General Brock’s October Soiree for 2011 a brilliant success!

    Monday, October 17, 2011 | By

    Students from the Department of Dramatic Arts along with their colleagues in the Departments of Music and Visual Arts entertained almost 350 guests and dignitaries in period costume at the General Brock’s October Soiree, held Saturday October 15, 2011.  More than $110,000 was raised, fifty percent of which after costs will accrue to scholarships in support of students in the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    Douglas Kneale, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, remarked “To judge from the comments of guests during the evening, it was universally acknowledged as the best Soiree yet, with a high degree of talent and professionalism in our re-enactors, emcee Derek Ewert, and all the singers and dancers.”

    See the Cogeco TV news item which includes on-camera interviews with several Brock spokespeople.

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  • Rotary Club makes donation to Brock’s downtown arts project

    Thursday, September 29, 2011 | By

    The effort to move Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts into downtown St. Catharines received a major boost today when the Rotary Club of St Catharines donated $100,000 to the project, the largest single gift in the club’s 91-year history.

    The announcement came at a ceremony at the vacant textile mill that will be extensively renovated and expanded to house the new school. The project is a key piece of one of the most important redevelopment initiatives ever to take place in downtown St. Catharines.

    Rotary Club President John Crossingham said his colleagues realize the Brock downtown project is a critical opportunity to invest in the city’s future.

    “Our members come from all across the community,” said Crossingham. “We’re here today to show that Brock’s project is something the community can get behind, and we hope Rotary’s decision prompts others to step up and help make this opportunity a reality.”

    Crossingham said gifts like this are possible because of the support Rotary receives for fundraising efforts such as Ribfest or the annual Rotary TV Auction, which takes place this year Nov. 24-26.

    The contribution was warmly welcomed by University officials, who see Rotary’s decision as an important public endorsement of the plan to relocate more than 500 students and faculty into the city centre, revitalizing a downtown that has been in decline for many years.

    “I can tell you that Brock is ecstatic today,” said Douglas Kneale, Dean of Humanities and a member of the team overseeing the project. “This shows the power of partnership. We recognize that this is a huge commitment for Rotary to make, and we are thrilled they are helping to make this project come true for the benefit of the entire community.”

    Due to be open in 2014, the Brock project is half of a major collaboration that will see the Walker School situated adjacent to a public Performing Arts Centre being built by the City of St. Catharines.

    For the University, moving Walker School downtown will enrich the student experience, free up much-needed space on Brock’s main campus and help spark economic and cultural renaissance across the Niagara community.

    Alongside other support, the Brock project is made possible because of $26.2 million provided by the Ontario government’s Open Ontario program to create new jobs and growth.

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    Categories: News

  • Special performance: Which Way to the Bastille? at Rodman Hall

    Thursday, September 29, 2011 | By

    Image: Milutin Gubash, The Hotel Tito, 2010. Lambda color print (24" x 50"). Image courtesy of the artist.

    Image: Milutin Gubash, The Hotel Tito, 2010. Lambda color print (24″ x 50″). Image courtesy of the artist.

     

    MILUTIN GUBASH
    The Hotel Tito
    September 16 – December 30, 2011
    Opening Reception: September 15, 2011, 7 -9 pm
    Curated by Shirley Madill

    In collaboration with Musee d’art de Joliette

    Special performance:  Which Way to the Bastille?
    Following the premier on September 15 the second of eight short performances by students of the Department of Dramatic Arts (DART) occurs September 23, 2011 after 12 noon. Tanisha Minson and Dylan Mawson, senior students in the DART program have collaborated with the artist and faculty of DART to create a brief interpretation of the text during the course of the exhibition.  The performance will function as a dramatic evocation of the principal tenets of the artist’s and the curatorial program.

     

    Performance are scheduled for:
    Thursday, September 15, evening, at the opening reception.
    Friday, September 23, 12 noon, last day of the artist’s residency
    Thursday, September 29, 6:30 pm
    Saturday, October 15, 2:30 pm
    Thursday, October 27, 8 pm
    Sunday, November 6, 2:30 pm
    Friday, November 18, 11:30 am
    Saturday, December 3, 2:30 pm

    The exhibit in brief:
    Milutin Gubash has pursued a multidisciplinary practice revolving around video, photography and performance since 2002. This ten-year survey of work by Milutin Gubash includes a residency project with the Department of Dramatic Arts and the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University. Beginning with the work titled, Re-Enacting Tragedies While My Parents Look On, the exhibition includes various works that focus on daily-life occurrences with historical and philosophical narratives. Gubash is interested in exploring how individuals and ideas can overwrite commonly held perceptions of landscape, politics and expectations of representation.
    www.milutingubash.com
    —-
    The exhibit in detail:
    Milutin Gubash has pursued a multidisciplinary art practice revolving around video, photography and performance since 2002. He first made a name for himself in 2003 with the webcast project Re-Enacting Tragedies While My Parents Look On, in which he “re-created,” with his parents, various tragic news stories reported in the Calgary Herald. Gubash plays the part of the victim, dressed in a dark suit that now has become a signature for the artist.

    By layering daily-life occurrences with historical and philosophical narratives, Gubash is interested in exploring how individuals and ideas can overwrite commonly held perceptions of landscape, politics and expectations of representation. His imagery portrays the same individuals (family and friends) living absurd situations or experiencing actual moments of psychological reflection. Together, the Gubash family and friends create a dreamscape of funny and sincere gestures while experimenting with their own relational identities. Gubash often insists on creating multiple contexts within which to engage his series of mini- narratives. By locating his own performative gestures at the scenes of such events, Gubash dares to heighten his personal psychological inquiry and that of his collaborators.

    This exhibition includes a selection of works produced over the past ten years with emphasis on the recent interconnected projects: Which Way to the Bastille?, These Paintings, and Hotel Tito.

    During a residency with the Department of Dramatic Arts, Brock University, Gubash worked with Associate Professor David Vivian, Associate Professor Dr. Natalie Alvarez, and a company of selected students to develop a “live animation” of Which Way to the Bastille? Situated as an ongoing and regular interpretation of the text during the course of the exhibition, the performance will function as a dramatic evocation of the principal tenets of the artist’s and the curatorial program. Associate Professor Catherine Parayre (Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures) of Brock University will lead an upper-level course in text and image based around this exhibition under the auspices of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    A version of this exhibition will also be seen at the Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa; Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; and the Musée d’art de Joliette, Quebec.

    Milutin Gubash was born in Novi Sad (Serbia) and has been living in Montreal since 2005.

    Shirley Madill
    Exhibition Curator

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    Categories: Events

  • Rotary Club makes record donation to Brock’s downtown arts project

    Sunday, September 11, 2011 | By

    John Snowling, Douglas Kneale and ohn Crossingham

    (Source: The Brock News, Thursday, September 29, 2011. Photo: John Snowling, past president, Rotary Club of St. Catharines, and chair of the club’s major grants committee; Douglas Kneale, Dean of Humanities; John Crossingham, president, Rotary Club of St. Catharines.)

    The Rotary Club of St. Catharines has donated the largest single gift in its 91-year history to Brock University.

    The $100,000 donation will benefit the effort to move the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts to downtown St. Catharines. The announcement came at a ceremony in the vacant textile mill that will be extensively renovated and expanded to house the new school.

    Rotary Club President John Crossingham said his colleagues realize the Brock downtown project is a critical opportunity to invest in the city’s future.

    “Our members come from all across the community,” said Crossingham. “We’re here today to show that Brock’s project is something the community can get behind, and we hope Rotary’s decision prompts others to step up and help make this opportunity a reality.”

    Gifts like this are possible because of the support Rotary receives for fundraising efforts such as Ribfest or the annual Rotary TV Auction, which takes place this year Nov. 24 to 26, Crossingham said.

    The donation is “a historic one, and an emotional one,” said Douglas Kneale, Dean of Humanities and a member of the team overseeing the project.

    “I can tell you that Brock is ecstatic today,” he said. “This shows the power of partnership. We recognize that this is a huge commitment for Rotary to make, and we are thrilled they are helping to make this project come true for the benefit of the entire community.”

    Due to open in 2014, the Brock project will relocate more than 500 students and faculty to the city centre. It is half of a major collaboration that will see the Walker School situated adjacent to a public Performing Arts Centre being built by the City of St. Catharines.

    Alongside other support, the Brock project is made possible because of $26.2 million provided by the Ontario government’s Open Ontario program to create new jobs and growth.

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    Categories: In the Media, News

  • a new program from cSTAC and the Faculty of Business in 2011: Concentration in Cultural Management

    Thursday, July 21, 2011 | By

    The Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (cSTAC) will be offering a new program that brings together learning opportunities from two leading Faculties at Brock University – the Faculty of Business and the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts of the Faculty of Humanities.

    The Concentration in Cultural Management, a new collaboration with the highly-regarded Faculty of Business, will begin in the autumn of 2011.  This is the ideal program for students who seek to graduate with employable skills as Cultural Managers in diverse fields of arts and culture, including music, the visual arts and dramatic arts.  Together with their interdisciplinary or single-discipline studies in arts and culture students may pursue service-learning or practicum experiences with professionals and organizations in the Niagara Region.  Required upper-level courses taken at the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture include Arts Management; Arts, Heritage and Culture: Public Policy and Governance; Producing a Performance Event, or Creating social value from material culture. Courses taken within the Faculty of Business include: Introduction to Business,  Marketing Management, Organizational Behaviour and Design, Human Resources Management, Entrepreneurship, Personal Financial Planning and others related business topics.

    Read the information sheet for this exciting new Concentration for 2011.

    contact the Director of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture for more information (David Vivian), or the Academic Advisor for the Faculty of Humanities, Alisa Cunnington.

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    Categories: Department/Centre News, News

  • Brock University receives $500,000 gift from TD

    Thursday, June 02, 2011 | By

    7668(Source: The Brock News, Friday, September 17, 2010)

    Donation will go towards enhancing Brock’s environmental studies program and to support the development of downtown arts school

    Today, Brock University received a significant donation from TD Bank Financial Group of $500,000 as part of the Campaign for a Bold New Brock.

    The two-fold gift will help create the TD Bursary for Environmental Studies as well as support the economic revitalization of downtown St. Catharines through the new Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    “Brock is moving full steam ahead with the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts downtown campus in partnership with the City of St. Catharines and its multi-venue arts complex,” said Brock President Jack Lightstone. “We are pleased that TD is joining us to renew downtown St. Catharines and help students pursue a higher education and the Brock Both Sides of the Brain experience.”

    “Our donation to Brock University will encourage student innovation, creativity and community involvement while contributing to a stronger future for St. Catharines,” said TD Deputy Chair Frank McKenna. “We’re very proud to be investing in our future environmental leaders and helping to create a modern downtown arts and learning hub.”

    The TD Bursary for Environmental Studies will provide grants to full-time Brock students demonstrating financial need while pursuing a degree in Environmental Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences or studies to reduce the impact of humankind’s footprint in the world through the Faculty of Mathematics and Sciences.

    TD will donate $250,000 over five years towards this award. Brock will apply for matching funds through the Ontario Trust for Student Support (OTSS) program to maximize the award’s endowment at $500,000.

    The Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts downtown campus will receive $250,000 to help realize the unique joint venture between Brock and the City of St. Catharines to build a stunning, multi-venue arts and learning complex. The impact of the gift will assist in breathing new life and activity into the urban core, stimulating the creativity and economy of the city and region and beyond.

    On the fifth floor of the historic Canada Hair Cloth building, Brock will build the TD Roof Terrace. It will have a spectacular southern view of the first Welland Canal route and the Twelve Mile Creek green space looking toward Brock’s Schmon Tower on the top of the Niagara Escarpment.

    The TD Roof Terrace will serve as an informal learning student lounge and refreshment area for the more than 500 students and 40 faculty and staff who will study, teach and work at the school. Additionally, this outdoor area will provide a space for local community and university receptions and other functions.

    In total, the TD gift, when combined with Government of Ontario matching funds for student awards, will result in a $750,000 investment in a Bold New Brock.

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    Categories: Media Releases, News

  • Theory and Practice of Drama in Education with JONOTHAN NEELANDS Six-day intensive course

    Friday, May 06, 2011 | By

    j-neelands_3THE DEPARTMENT OF DRAMATIC ARTS
    DART 3V90: Theory and Practice of Drama in Education with JONOTHAN NEELANDS
    Six-day intensive course: Monday, July 25 – Saturday, July 30, 2011

    Through a combination of workshops, demonstrations, reflections, and lectures, this course examines models for the planning and teaching of process drama. It will provide the opportunity for students to examine the community effects of drama and its role in our personal and social development. This half-credit course will be intensely practical and relevant to teaching the full age range of children through to adults. The learning experiences will be supported by readings and other materials developed for sustainable learning.

    Jonothan Neelands is an internationally renowned drama-in-education professor who has written extensively about the use of drama as a learning medium. He has worked with teachers of all age groups, assisting them in understanding how they may employ process drama techniques in teaching a variety of subjects. He is the National Teaching Fellow, Chair of Drama and Theatre Education and Director of Teaching and Learning in the Institute of Education at the University of Warwick and an associate of the CAPITAL Centre for creativity and performance in teaching and learning, a joint initiative between the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and the University of Warwick. This project aims to improve the quality of Shakespeare teaching at all ages through an ensemble and rehearsal room pedagogic approach.

    A part of the Department of Dramatic Arts Visiting International Professor program, we are pleased to offer students the opportunity to study with someone of Dr. Neelands’ caliber.

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  • Director of cSTAC and DART Professor honoured for his contribution to the City of St. Catharines

    Wednesday, April 20, 2011 | By

    Pictured left to right are Professor Debra Maclauchlan and Associate Professor Peter Vietgen (Faculty of Education), Associate Professor David Vivian and Assistant Professor Virginia Reh (Department of Dramatic Arts, Faculty of Humanities)

    Pictured left to right are Professor Debra Maclauchlan and Associate Professor Peter Vietgen (Faculty of Education), Associate Professor David Vivian and Assistant Professor Virginia Reh (Department of Dramatic Arts, Faculty of Humanities)

    Associate Professors Peter Vietgen (Visual Arts Education in the Department of Teacher Education, Faculty of Education) and David Vivian (Department of Dramatic Arts and the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Faculty of Humanities) were each presented with three Volunteer Recognition Certificates from the Government of Canada, the Province of Ontario, and the City of St. Catharines, at the 23rd Annual Volunteer Recognition Night co-sponsored by the City of St. Catharines, the St. Catharines-Thorold Chamber of Commerce, and the Henry of Pelham Family Estate Winery.

    Professor Vietgen was nominated by the Niagara Artist’s Centre for his contribution to the Public Art Advisory Committee of the City of St. Catharines. Professor Vivian was nominated for his service over four years as Chair of the Culture Committee of the City of St. Catharines.  Both Committees of Council are actively engaged in developing new policy, advocacy, funding, recognition and opportunities in the arts and culture sector, contributing to the creation of stimulating and sustainable culturally-rich lives in the city of St. Catharines.

    Given annually, the Volunteer Recognition Awards recognize those outstanding volunteers whose unselfish and dedicated service to an organization has made a significant difference in the community. Nominations are open to youth and adult volunteers, who are presented with their awards at a banquet hosted by the Mayor and councillors in April. This year the banquet was held at the Quality Hotel Parkway Convention Centre on Tuesday, April 19, 2011.

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    Categories: Faculty & Instructors, News

  • A New Spring Session course from the Department of Dramatic Arts: DART 1F01: Acting for Non Majors

    Sunday, February 06, 2011 | By

    img_6810cr-220dart_minor_infosheetv2-flatheader-sm

    Are you interested in Acting, but not a Dramatic Arts Major?
    OR
    Are you a Primary/Junior Concurrent Education Student looking for an introductory course in Acting?
    OR
    Are you looking for an active, engaging Spring Intensive Course?

    DART 1F01: Acting for Non Majors

    Monday, May 2 – Friday, May 13, 2011
    M T W TH F  9:00h  – 16:30h  TH 141

    This course is a rigorous introduction to acting for non majors. There are no pre requisites and no restrictions.

    Contact dramatic@brocku.ca for more information, ext. 5255
    Brock University

    DEPARTMENT OF DRAMATIC ARTS

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    Categories: Department/Centre News, News

  • Marlene Moser Memorial Scholarship

    Monday, December 27, 2010 | By

    The Department of Dramatic Arts lost a cherished colleague and friend, Dr. Marlene Moser, on December 21, 2010.  In her honour we have established the Marlene Moser Memorial Scholarship. To contribute to this Scholarship please send donations to the attention of Norm Bradshaw, Faculty of Humanities, Brock University. The cheque or gift should be made out to Brock University and indicate Marlene Moser Memorial Scholarship. All donations are eligible to be matched dollar for dollar by the provincial government.

    For more information please contact Norm Bradshaw .

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    Categories: Department/Centre News, Faculty & Instructors, News

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