Events

  • Rescheduled sculpture-making workshop to be held March 27

    Brock Visual Arts student Emma Mary Sked will lead attendees in a free, fabric sculpture-making workshop that has been rescheduled to Wednesday, March 27 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in ST231 of the Library’s Matheson Learning Commons.


    (From The Brock News, March 22, 2019)

    After inclement weather put a halt to the third event in the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA) Wellness Series last month, students and community members alike will be able to unwind and explore their inner creativity at a new time.

    Participants in an upcoming MIWSFPA Wellness Series workshop will learn to make sculptures from scrap fabric.

    Brock Visual Arts student Emma Mary Sked will lead attendees in a free, guided workshop on Wednesday, March 27 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in ST231 of the Library’s Matheson Learning Commons.

    The event was rescheduled after a winter storm hit Niagara earlier last month.

    For this workshop, participants will learn how to transform scrap textiles into sculptures of their choosing.

    The Wellness Series, which is hosted by the MIWSFPA, features free monthly activities that promote well-being and the benefits of engaging in the arts.

    No previous art experience is required and all necessary materials will be supplied.

    The event is free, but registration is required at ExperienceBU or by contacting [email protected]

    For more information about the event and others in the series, visit the MIWSFPA Wellness Series web page

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    Categories: Events, News

  • Term to culminate in student art exhibitions at Rodman Hall

    Visual Arts students, from left, Gianna Aceto, Emma Mary Sked, Amber Williams, Cynthia Richards, Teresa Badgley and Sarah Martin will have their exhibitions on view in two back-to-back exhibitions beginning Friday, March 22 at Rodman Hall Art Centre.


    (From The Brock News, March 20, 2019 | by Sarah Ackles)

    After spending a semester immersed in studio practice, six Brock Visual Arts students are bringing two unique exhibitions to Rodman Hall Art Centre.

    At the Bottom of Everything runs from Saturday, March 23 to April 7 and features the work of Cynthia Richards, Emma Mary Sked and Amber Lee Williams. There will be an opening reception for the exhibition on Friday, March 22 at 7 p.m.

    The second exhibition, oh, that’s nice, features Gianna Aceto, Teresa Badgley and Sarah Martin. It will be on view from Saturday, April 13 to 28, with the opening reception taking place on Friday, April 12 at 7 p.m.

    The two exhibitions are the culmination of the VISA 4F06 Honours Studio course, where students engage in the entire process of art making, from concept and creation to exhibition.

    The course is a unique experiential learning opportunity that gives artists access to a dedicated studio space with professional mentors. The students learn the value of their individual work in a collaborative event and, upon graduation, become practising artists with practical experience putting on a show in a professional art gallery.

    Students in the course were mentored by Visual Arts Associate Professors Donna Szőke and Shawn Serfas.

    The students were also visited in studio by Acting Director and Curator Marcie Bronson, of Rodman Hall; Associate Professors Derek Knight and Amy Friend; Adjunct Professors Donna Akrey and Candace Couse; professional artists Alejandro Cartagena and Heather Hart; and Brock alumni Bruce Thompson (BA ’11) and Natalie Hunter (BA ’11), who all provided critique and insight to help students fine-tune and focus their work.

    Rodman Hall’s Administrative Assistant Danny Custodio and Installation Assistant Lauren Regier (BA ’14) also offered support and guidance.

    Exhibitions like these are a key part of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts’ mandate to build connections between the community and the breadth of talent and creativity at Brock University.

    “If collectively their goal is to develop a focused body of work from concept to public exhibition, then these two unique exhibits capture the exceptional vitality and daring of the emerging artist,” Knight said.

    Both exhibitions and opening receptions take place at Rodman Hall Art Centre, 109 St. Paul Cres. in St. Catharines.

    Gallery hours are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m.

    For more information, visit the Rodman Hall Art Centre website.

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    Categories: Alumni, Current Students, Events, News

  • Popular One Act Festival returns to Marilyn I. Walker Theatre

    Dramatic Arts students in the Directing II course are presenting a series of short plays as part of the upcoming One Act Festival on Friday, March 22 and Saturday, March 23 at the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre.


    (From The Brock News, March 18, 2019 | By: Sarah Ackles)

    Brock’s Dramatic Arts students will bring the intricacies of human interaction, the banality of small-town life and even the future of ‘designer babies’ to the stage in the upcoming One Act Festival.

    Opening at the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA) on Friday, March 22, the popular One Act Festival will stage eight student-led productions in a two-night run.

    A yearly endeavour, the festival puts students in the Directing II course in the spotlight as they bring a selection of one-act plays to life. The students are responsible for the entire production process, including the selection of a script, auditioning the cast, rehearsing, designing the show and co-ordinating with the Dramatic Arts (DART) production team on all technical needs.

    The course’s instructor, Mike Griffin, said the One Act Festival is one of his favourite parts of the DART program.

    An exciting mentoring process happens, he explained, as students from all years collaborate to create theatre under the leadership of the third-year directing class.

    “As the student actors and directors come together, they put into practice the skills they have been developing throughout their courses, which supports them as they teach each other, grow as artists and inspire the next round of future directors,” he said.

    This year’s productions are all being presented under the theme ‘Rise.’

    Lauren Reid, a third-year DART major and Director of On the Porch One Crisp Spring Morning, said the inclusive and collaborative nature of the One Act Festival makes for a valuable learning experience.

    “Everyone is so open and willing to help me with this great opportunity and to make it the best it can be,” she said. “I have a great team on all sides that are there to support me whenever I need help, and I think this course is a great way for people to explore different opportunities within the DART and theatre community, in general.”

    For second-year DART student Holly Hebert, the festival allows her to “actively participate in the growth of a production.”

    “As an actor in Winter Games, Director Chris Murillo had us engage in a number of exercises that built our relationships, our impulses and developed our One Act to become an incredibly stimulating process,” she added.

    The students encourage the community to attend, promising the roster of shows in the festival are “emotionally active” and will often have audiences “on the edge of their seats.”

    The One Act Festival runs on Friday, March 22 and Saturday, March 23, at 7:30 p.m. each night. All shows take place in the Marilyn I. Walker Theatre of the MIWSFPA at 15 Artists’ Common.

    Admission is pay-what-you-can at the door.

    For more information on the 2018 One Act Festival, visit the Current Season page on the DART website.

    One Act Festival 2019

    Inside the Department of the Exterior
    Directed by: Josh Loewen
    Playwright: Philip Hall
    Actors: Jared Geden, Samantha Rideout

    Another Sense
    Directed by: Rina Wilkins
    Playwright: Melissa Major
    Actors: Madison Andrews, Bianca Taylor

    Winter Games  
    Directed by: Rachel Bonds
    Playwright: Chris Murillo
    Actors: Alex Sykes, Holly Hebert, Leah Rantala

    The Worker
    Directed by: Rachel Frederick
    Playwright: Walter Wykes
    Actors: Paige Hunt-Harmon, Asenia Lyall, Diego Blanco

    Baby Factory  
    Directed by: Tyler Simpson
    Playwright: Stephen Bittrich
    Actors: Tristan Holmes, Luke Huffman, Meryl Ochoa, Nathan Rossi, Elizabeth Martin

    Nightstand  
    Directed by: Uchenna Edozie-Egbuna
    Playwright: Fergus Church
    Actors: Molly Lacey, Luca D’Amico

    One Night Fran
    Directed by: Frances Johnson
    Playwright: Adam Szudrich
    Actors: Kristina Miller, Aly Markov, Sarah Rowe

    On the Porch One Crisp Spring Morning
    Directed by: Lauren Reid
    Playwright: Alex Dremann
    Actors: Alexandra, Chubaty Boychuk and Joanna Tran

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    Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Department/Centre News, Events, News

  • One-night-only performance set for Encore! trio

    Trio Amore, including Erika Reiman, Gordon Cleland and Christine Chesbrough, will perform on Friday, March 22 at 7:30 p.m. in Partridge Hall of the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in downtown St. Catharines.


    (From The Brock News, March 19, 2019 |By: Jaquelyn Bezaire)

    Guests attending the next Encore! Professional Concert, presented by Brock’s Department of Music, will be the first to hear Trio Amore perform on stage.

    The trio is coming together for a one-time performance titled Clara’s Love Triangle on Friday, March 22 at 7:30 p.m. at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in downtown St. Catharines.

    Comprised of cellist Gordon Cleland, pianist Erika Reiman and violinist Christine Chesebrough, the group has arranged a concert featuring works by Clara and Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms.

    With it being the bicentenary of Clara Schumann’s birth, the group thought this was the perfect time to play her trio. Brahms was a protégé and friend of the Schumanns, so the performers felt that adding Brahms’ Op. 8 to the repertoire was a fitting choice.

    “The fascinating relationship between Brahms and the Schumanns would also be an interesting angle for the audience,” Cleland said. “The musicians would all have known each of the pieces the other wrote and were probably mutually inspired by each other.”

    Although the musicians aren’t a full-time trio, they have played together in the past and enjoyed working together while preparing for their upcoming concert.

    “I think this concert is a great opportunity for us and we are grateful to be able to present these wonderful pieces in a fantastic hall,” said Reiman. “The repertoire promises to be full of drama, memorable melodies and originality.”

    Trio Amore will perform on Friday, March 22 at 7:30 p.m. in Partridge Hall of the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

    Tickets are on sale now through the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre’s box office.

    For more information on upcoming performances, visit the Department of Music’s website.

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  • Canadian poet Adam Dickinson to reflect on human impact to our environment in upcoming Author Talk March 18

    (From The Brock News, March 15, 2019 | By: Sarah Ackles)

    Join Brock Associate Professor Adam Dickinson as he uses poetry to explore the dramatic impact humans have made on Earth’s climate, geology and biological makeup.

    Presented by the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC), Dickinson’s talk will be the next presentation in the Walker Cultural Leaders Series. It will take place on Monday, March 18, from 8 to 9 p.m., in room 211 of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA).

    “Writing in the Anthropocene: Poetics and the Environment” will focus on the intersections between poetry and science as a way of exploring new ecocritical perspectives and alternative modes of poetic composition.

    Catherine Parayre, Director of STAC, said Dickinson is a fitting artist to welcome to the Walker Cultural Leaders Series this year because of his involvement with the Centre’s new Small Walker Press.

    Officially launching this spring, the press publishes books by artists and authors working together on a given theme.

    “The Small Walker Press is publishing works on the theme of environmental degradation this year, and Adam Dickinson’s work perfectly aligns with it,” explained Parayre. “He was inspired to write his contribution to the press after a walk he took with artist Lorène Bourgeois at Glenridge Quarry in the Fall of 2018.”

    Dickinson is an award-winning poet whose work has been featured at prominent international literary festivals such as Poetry International in Rotterdam, The Harbourfront International Festival of Authors in Toronto, and the Oslo International Poetry Festival in Norway.

    He is perhaps best known for his work The Polymers (2013), which was a shortlisted finalist for the Governor General’s Award for English-language poetry at the 2013 Governor General’s Awards, the 2014 ReLit Award for Poetry and for the 2014 Trillium Book Award.

    He is also the author of Cartography and Walking (2002), Kingdom, Phylum (2006) and Anatomic (2018).

    His poem “My Fear of Being Eaten” will appear alongside art by Lorène Bourgeois in the forthcoming Quarry, to be published by The Small Walker Press later this year.

    His upcoming author’s talk is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

    For more information, please contact Catherine Parayre at [email protected]

    Generously funded by Marilyn I. Walker, the Walker Cultural Leader series brings leading artists, performers, practitioners and academics to the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University. Engaging, lively and erudite, these sessions celebrate professional achievement, artistic endeavour and the indelible role of culture in our society.

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    Categories: Announcements, Events, News, Walker Cultural Leader Series

  • Student performances to wrap Music@Noon season

    Voice student Marcus Tranquilli (right) performed last semester with professional accompanist Gary Forbes as part of the RBC Foundation Music@Noon Recital Series in the Recital Hall of the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.


    (From The Brock News, March 8, 2019)

    It’s time once again for Brock University Music students to take over the stage as part of the Music@Noon Recital Series.

    For the next five weeks, guests will hear performances by voice, guitar, piano and instrumental students.

    The next performance of the series, which features piano students, will take place Tuesday, March 12 in the Recital Hall of the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, and will be followed by additional student performances on consecutive Tuesdays.

    Instrumental students will perform March 19, followed by voice, guitar and piano students March 26, and piano students April 2.

    Brock’s instrumental students will close out the season on April 9. This performance was rescheduled from Feb. 12 due to inclement weather.

    Thanks to the generous donation of the RBC Foundation, Music@Noon is a free one-hour concert that occurs most Tuesdays at noon during the academic year. All are invited to join the Department of Music in the Recital Hall of the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in downtown St. Catharines.

    For more information on upcoming concerts, please visit the Department of Music Website.

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    Categories: Current Students, Events, News

  • MIWSFPA host to roughly 60 high school arts teachers

    Visual Arts teachers were led through an Indigenous art workshop led by Brian Kon.


    On Feb. 15, the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts hosted more than 60 Dramatic Arts, Music and Visual Arts teachers from the District School Board of Niagara (DSBN).

    Organized by Recruitment and Liaison Officer, Madison Roca, and NCDSB Arts Consultant, Teri Cristelli, the teachers were led through various workshops as part of their professional development day.

    “Many of the teachers had said it was the best professional development day they’d ever had,” said Cristelli.

    Among the different workshops were two visual arts workshops, the first on Indigenous art led by guest Brian Kon, followed by a session led by Visual Arts Assistant Professor Amy Friend on cyanotypes.

    There was also a Dramatic Arts workshop led by Dramatic Arts Chair Joe Norris and music workshop led by guest Kevin Hamlin from Yamaha Canada, held in the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

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  • Brock alumna returns to speak with VISA students

    Brock alumna, Natalie Hunter, spent the afternoon with VISA 4F06 students as they discussed their upcoming exhibitions. Back row from left: Teresa Badgley, Amber Williams, Shawn Serfas, Sarah Martin
    Front row from left: Gianna Aceto, Emma Hutchison-Hounsell, Cynthia Richards, Natalie Hunter


    On Feb. 7, Brock Visual Arts students in the VISA 4F06 Honours course were visited by Brock alumna Natalie Hunter (BA ’11) to discuss their upcoming exhibitions that begin in March. Hunter and the students discussed the pieces they are working on and how to move forward in order to create a cohesive exhibition. During each student’s session, they received a small piece of translucent film that Hunter used in her exhibition, Staring into the Sun, which is currently on view at Rodman Hall Art Centre.

    During her time at Brock, Hunter was part of the VISA 4F06 Honours course, where students work all year to put together an exhibition in Rodman Hall. Staring into the Sun features photo-based sculptures and installations that explore the relationship between memory and physical space. The exhibition runs until April 28.

    At the Bottom of Everything, the first of two Visual Arts Honours exhibitions, runs from March 23 to April 7, with the opening reception on Friday, March 22 at 7 p.m. at Rodman Hall.

    The second exhibition runs from April 13 to 28, with the opening reception on Friday, April 12 at 7 p.m. at Rodman Hall. More details to come.

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    Categories: Alumni, Current Students, Events, News

  • String quartet returning to the Music@Noon stage

    The Walker String Quartet performed last season as part of the RBC Foundation Music@Noon Recital Series and will return to the stage March 5.


    (From The Brock News, March 1, 2019)

    The final faculty and guest recital of the Music@Noon season will feature the Walker String Quartet.

    The group will take to the Recital Hall stage in the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in downtown St. Catharines on Tuesday, March 5.

    The Department of Music’s quartet in residence works with local students in high school string programs to share their love for music while promoting Brock’s Music program.

    The quartet will play Brahms’s String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2, one of the milestones of the romantic string quartet repertoire.

    Formed in 2016, the Walker String Quartet is now comprised of violinists Vera Alekseeva and Anna Hughes, violist Faith Lau and cellist Gordon Cleland.

    Music@Noon is a free one-hour recital series that occurs most Tuesdays at noon during the academic year. The Department of Music invites all staff, faculty, students and those from the community to attend.

    For more information on upcoming performances, visit the Department of Music’s website.

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    Categories: Department/Centre News, Events, News

  • Enter to win FREE King Ubu Tickets

    Enter the Marilyn I Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts social media contest for your chance to win one pair of free King Ubu theatre tickets, valid for any event date from March 1-9 !

    Details:

    • Share a picture of your favourite fictional theatre character to your Instagram story by midnight on Thursday, Feb. 28
    • Must include the hashtag #KingUbuContest and tag @miwsfpa
    • You must follow the @miwsfpa or have a public account to be entered
    • We will select one winner at random from all valid entries to receive two complimentary King Ubu tickets. Winner can use their two free tickets for one performance of King Ubu between March 1-9, provided ticket has been validated in advance of the showtime.

    Eligible showtimes:

    Friday, March 1, 2019 @ 7:30 PM
    Saturday, March 2, 2019 @ 7:30 PM
    Sunday, March 3, 2019 @ 2:00 PM
    Friday, March 8, 2019 @ 11:30 AM
    Friday, March 8, 2019 @ 7:30 PM
    Saturday, March 9, 2019 @ 7:30 PM

    Winner will be chosen from all eligible entries and contacted on Friday, March 1 with details on how to redeem their two free tickets.

    No purchase necessary. Odds of winning depend on number of entries received.

    Contact [email protected] for more details.

    Categories: Announcements, Events, News, Uncategorised