Events

  • Exhibition – Silent Areas: The Spaces in Between, opens Feb. 15

    Brock Visual Art student Sarah Martin and Brock Visual Arts Alumna Caterina Stambolic present photographs and sculptures investigating the interruptions between mind and body.

    Exhibition: Thursday Feb. 15 to Saturday Mar. 24

    Regular visiting hours are Tuesday through Saturday 1-5 pm.

    Opening Reception: Thursday Mar. 8, 5 – 8 pm

    Location: Visual Arts Exhibition Space, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University

    15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines, ON

    This is a free community event!

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    Categories: Alumni, Current Students, Events

  • The Viva Voce! Choral Series welcomes back the Avanti Chamber Singers

    The Avanti Chamber Singers performing under the conduction of Rachel Rensink-Hoff from a previous Viva Voce! Choral Series concert in 2017.

    Special guests, The Walker String Quartet, joins the Avanti Chamber Singers at the St. Thomas Anglican Church on Saturday Feb. 17. Pictured from left to right is Anna Hughes (2nd violin), Faith Lau (viola), Gordon Cleland (cello) and Vera Alexeeva (1st violin).

    The Avanti Chamber Singers come back “With Strings Attached” for another round with Brock’s Viva Voce! Choral Series. This time around they’re bringing special guests, The Walker String Quartet!

    This concert will feature Ola Gjeilo’s Dark Night of the Soul, Eric Whitacre’s Hebrew Love Songs and Telemann’s Laudate Jehovam, with other works of love and longing by Lassus, Pearsall, Hassler and contemporary composers Laura Hawley, John Butler, Jared Tomlinson and Jonathan Quick.

    The Chamber Singers will bring their signature sound to the St. Thomas Anglican Church, 99 Ontario Street in St. Catharines, Saturday, Feb. 17 at 7:30 p.m. The group is conducted by their Artistic Director, Rachel Rensink-Hoff, who is also Director of Choral Activities and Assistant Professor of Music Education at Brock University.

    Advance tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for seniors and students, and $5 under the eyeGo program. They can be purchased at Thorold Music, 289 Glendale Ave., and Booksmart, 350 Scott St., or online.

    Tickets at the door will be $25 for adults, $20 for seniors and students, and $5 under the eyeGo program.

    Visit the Department of Music’s Concert Series page for more information.

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    Categories: Events, Faculty & Instructors, News

  • Jane Bunnett visits St. Catharines!

    The Department of Music presents Encore! Professional Concert Series

    CUBAN RHAPSODY

    with Jane Bunnett and friends.

    Friday, Feb. 9, 2018 , 7:30 p.m.
    Partridge Hall, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre,
    250 St. Paul St., St. Catharines

    Jane Bunnett looks back and presents some of the most elegant music from Cuba’s rich musical history. Performing music from the beginning of the 20th century until the present, this evening explores the rarely heard European influences in Cuban music by great composers such as Lecuona, Valdes Cervantes, etc., melding European classical styles with Jazz and Afro Cuban Rhythms.

    Tickets: $28.50† adults; $22.50† seniors/students;
    $12.50† child (14 and under); $5* eyeGo program.
    General Admission.
    † Includes the $2.50 FOPAC Cultural Capital Improvement Fund (CCIF);
    other applicable fees and taxes are extra. *No CCIF applied; other applicable
    fees and taxes are extra.

    Order tickets from the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre
    Box Office: 905-688-0722; 1-855-515-0722; firstontariopac.ca

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    Categories: Announcements, Events

  • Department of Dramatic Arts welcomes Playwright/Actor Damien Atkins

    Toronto based actor and playwright Damien Atkins will do a reading from his work followed by a conversation with students in DART 3P92 Scriptwriting

    Date: Tuesday Feb. 13

    Time: 10:30 am

    Location: STUDIO B MW247 Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts

    This is a free community event! All are welcome to attend.

    Damien Atkins is a playwright and actor who has performed across Canada and the United States. Playwriting credits include miss chatelaine (The Grand Theatre/Theatre Passe Muraille), Real Live Girl (Buddies in Bad Times/Manitoba Theatre Centre/The Grand), the adaptation (with Marjorie Chan) of Hisashi Inoue’s play In The Garden, Two Suns for Crow’s Theatre, Good Mother (Stratford Festival), Lucy (Canadian Stage Co./Ensemble Studio Theatre – NYC/Delaware Theatre Co.), The Mill, Part Four: Ash (theatrefront), The Gay Heritage Project (with Andrew Kushnir and Paul Dunn – Buddies in Bad Times Theatre), and We Are Not Alone (Crow’s Theatre/Segal Centre). He is the youngest playwright ever produced by the Stratford Festival. Damien has been nominated for nine Dora Mavor Moore Awards for acting and writing, including nominations for Best New Play for Lucy and The Gay Heritage Project. He has received the PRISM/UBC Creative Writing Residency Prize for Good Mother and a Dora for Best New Musical for Real Live Girl. Damien has been playwright-in-residence at UBC, Canadian Stage, Crow’s Theatre, and Factory Theatre, as well as a Guest Instructor at The National Theatre School.

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    Categories: Announcements, Events

  • Two new exhibits open at Rodman Hall, including the work of curator and alumna Emma German

    Always Vessels, an exhibit by nine contemporary Indigenous artists, runs Jan. 27 to March 11 at Rodman Hall. Pictured is Nadya Kwandibens’ work — Emergence Series: Sugar Bush Sessions.

    (Source: The Brock News | Friday Jan. 26, 2018 by Alison Innes)

    The works of nine Indigenous artists will be featured in one of two new exhibits opening at Rodman Hall Art Centre on Saturday, Jan. 27.

    Curated by Alexandra Kahsenni:io Nehwegahbow, Always Vessels features nine contemporary Anishinaabek and Haudenosaunee artists who express their art through a range of media, from beads to photography.

    Using a blend of traditional and modern approaches, the artists explore the processes of learning, making and analyzing how knowledge is transferred and made. The work, informed by contemporary translation of traditional knowledge, offers insight into the range of skills, techniques and knowledge unique to Anishinaabek and Haudenosaunee cultures.

    The exhibit explores how belongings and possessions are meaningful objects that have the ability to carry, hold and transmit memory across time and space.

    Nahwegahbow will speak about the exhibit Saturday at 2:30 p.m. as part of Rodman’s Hot Talk series.

    Also opening on Saturday is Up close and in motion, an exhibit from Rodman’s permanent collection of nearly 1,000 works dating back three centuries. Curated by Brock alumna Emma German (BA ’14), the year-long, regularly changing exhibit will highlight the collection’s purpose as a tool for research, study and interpretation.

    The first installation of this exhibit focuses on recent acquisitions of contemporary Canadian art, many of which will be displayed for the first time.

    What: New exhibits opening: Always Vessels and Up close and in motion.

    Where: Rodman Hall Art Centre

    When: Saturday, Jan. 27, 2 p.m.

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  • Dramatic Arts presents: The State of Our Art: Drama in Education and Applied Theatre in Ontario

    The Department of Dramatic Arts, Brock University and the Walker Cultural Leader Series presents:

    The Second Drama in Education and Applied Theatre Symposium.

    January 26 and 27, 2018

    Our world as we know it is rapidly changing, with scholars identifying present events as ‘post-normal’ (O’Connor and Anderson 2015). In this climate of anxiety and political uncertainty, how is the practice of drama in education and applied theatre a means to respond to and attempt to speak back to these times? The lectures and workshops will offer key insights into how our scholars use this practice to grapple with these issues.

    Featuring Julie Salverson (Queens University), Kathleen Gallagher (OISE), and workshops by by Professors: Kathleen Gallagher, Joe Norris (replacing Kathy Lundy as listed in the PDF), Julie Salverson, Larry Schwartz, and Belarie Zatzman.

    for more information download this PDF.    see the article in the Brock News

    Keynote: Friday, January 26 7:30pm
    Professor Julie Salverson, Queens University

    Marilyn I. Walker Theatre at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts

    All of us today, as scholars, artists and citizens, are challenged with listening to and telling forward the story of this home we call Canada. As we consider this task, where are the possibilities for change, for hope, and for honest listening – listening not to consume and extract (what scholar Dylan Robinson calls hungry listening) but to acknowledge and attend? I will talk about ways to think and feel about what it means to witness and respond to calls for justice as whole people who draw upon a rich variety of resources. How do all of us, individually and collectively, honour our own heritage, traditions and teachers? How do we bring these to the table and to how we live, work and attend? What do each of us offer to the conversation? This is about what it means to be “on the ground”, to negotiate the challenge to witness with the alarm and feeling of consequence that entails a meeting with a traumatized environment. I will draw on Karen Barad’s performative metaphysics, Donna Haraway’s “staying with the trouble” and E.V.Walter’s discussion of “places of experience” to re-imagine my ideas of foolish witness.

    Keynote: Saturday, January 27 9:00am
    Professor Kathleen Gallagher, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

    Marilyn I. Walker Theatre at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts

    In this keynote, I will use a case study of one research site in Lucknow, India, in my current multi-sited, applied theatre research, Youth, Theatre, Radical Hope and the Ethical Imaginary: an intercultural investigation of drama pedagogy, performance and civic engagement (2014-2019) to consider how drama can ‘speak back to these times’ if we deem- as some social innovation theorists do- the social world as made and imagined. How have the students in India, and how might we in our various pedagogical and creating contexts, use theatre to understand social systems and imagine a progressive sociality? In India, using drama, performance and critical dialogues, the work is both deeply political and radically hopeful through the ways in which it reorients, redefines and revisions the social world. Their classroom practice follows from a 19th century feminist theatre history, I will argue, that enables a transformative ambition, just what is needed in these harrowing global times. As democracies thin under populist and neoliberal regimes across most nation states, the young people and their teachers in India have long understood the power of collective opposition as a social practice and political resistance, but they have also seized upon drama and performance as the most powerful means to this end. Social innovation scholars have suggested that by harnessing what they are calling “collective intelligence”, it may be possible to dramatically improve societies’ ability to tackle seemingly intractable social problems. The students at Prerna school in India have positioned theatre as a “language of care” and a central tool for understanding the political economy and deconstructing the forces of oppression. It is time for all of us to harness the unimaginable, in our classrooms, on our stages, and in the street.

    Workshops: Saturday, January 27, 2018
    DART Studio A workshops: Julie Salverson (10:30 am-1:00 pm) / Belarie Zatzman (2:30-5:00 pm)
    DART Studio C workshops: Joe Norris (10:30 am-1:00 pm) / David Booth (2:30-5:00 pm)
    DART Studio D workshops: Larry Swartz (10:30 am-1:00 pm) / Kathleen Gallagher (2:30-5:00 pm)

    Julie Salverson, Queens University.
    10:30 – 1:00, Studio A
    Who we are as witnesses
    I have facilitated a few sessions this year based on a Quaker practice of holding a question in the light. The question for this workshop is: how can we live together better? I will speak for a few minutes about the deep preparation I require to enter the thorny territory of witnessing, the heritage, traditions and teachings that inform my work, and what a response to these times means to me. I will then invite people in the room to speak to this. There will be no direct interaction or discussion, this is about witnessing and listening.

    Joe Norris, Department of Dramatic Arts, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University.
    10:30 – 1:00 Studio C
    Reexamining Canadian History through Story Circles, Picture Interpretation, Tableaus, Choral Speech and Writing in Role
    Award winner for his publications in his pioneering work in playbuilding as research, duoethnography, a form of dialogic research, and alternative forms of arts-based assessment, Joe also devotes considerable time developing and piloting units of teaching the curriculum through drama. While this workshop will focus specifically on the Klondike, the approaches used can be applied to many curricular topics.

    Larry Swartz, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto.
    10:30 – 1:00 Studio D
    MORE THAN A PLAY
    This practical interactive workshop will demonstrate strategies for using minimal and dialogue scripts to enhance interpretation skills, to build community and to address social justice issues. Handout provided.

    Belarie Zatzman, Department of Theatre, School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design, York University.
    2:30 -5:00 Studio A
    Performing Objects
    In this workshop, we will consider participatory practices that can be used in history, art and drama classes, or in museum / gallery contexts. We will explore applied theatre strategies for examining and interpreting “performing objects” in order to help us construct our encounters with archival objects or artworks, from the present.

    David Booth, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto.
    2:30 -5:00 Studio C
    A Novel Approach to Drama
    This workshop will explore the Young Adult novel as a source and inspiration for improvised role playing leading to dramatic scene building. This genre of contemporary literature is written especially for our students, and explores issues of coming of age, relationships, social justice, and identity. As teachers, we can use the themes and events in these texts as stimuli for interpreting, exploring and inventing situations and scenarios as a whole class, working in groups and partners, as we construct our scenes into a playmaking conclusion.

    Kathleen Gallagher, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.
    2:30 -5:00 Studio D
    Verbatim Theatre: telling other people’s stories
    Physical, ethical, social, and artistic questions converge at the centre of Verbatim Theatre practice. This session will invite participants to explore and examine some of the techniques and practices that are currently in use, in the evolving genre of Verbatim Theatre. Part story-telling, part composite, part-mimicry, part invention, the work will invite critical discussion about the skills, the social value, and the creative impulses connected to this form of theatre-making. Extending its reach beyond theatre and performance, Verbatim has found a place, too, in social science research. Harnessed to ideas about power relations and ‘collaborative’, multi-vocal, qualitative research practices and forms of dissemination, this genre of theatre further opens up discussions about the ever-expanding defi nitions of research methodology.

    Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University
    A free community event, please register for the workshops:
    the-state-of-our-art-symposium-workshops.eventbrite.com
    (Maximum 20 per session)

    for more information download this PDF.

    Please note that limited parking is available at the MIWSFPA for guests and presenters on a first come, first served basis.

    Due to multiple event programming on the evening of Friday, January 26 please allow ample time to find nearby parking.

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  • Canadian Author/Artist Daniel H. Dugas delivers public lectures at Brock

    Daniel H. Dugas’ most recent volume, published in 2015.

    The programs Etudes en français (Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures), Interdisciplinary Humanities, Studies in Arts and Culture (Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts) and Studies in Comparative Literatures and Arts of Brock University are pleased to welcome Canadian author/artist Daniel H. Dugas for two public lectures!

    Dugas writes and creates art in a variety of forms. Technology, ecology, and economy are recurrent themes often explored in his work; poetry and video poetry are two favourite platforms. Whether his projects are first accomplished in French or English, Dugas’ motivations remain similar.

    In 2018 Dugas was awarded a major recognition on the Canadian francophone art/literary scene. He is the ‘Artiste de l’année en littérature’, a distinction awarded at the Eloizes 2018 by the ‘Association acadienne des artistes professionnel.le.s du Nouveau Brunswick’. Please see link below:

    ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1099324/les-eloizes-2018-une-celebration-reussie-de-la-culture-acadienne

    Public lecture in English: Thursday January 25, 2018

    Time: 2-3 pm

    Location: MW 156 (Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, 15 Artists’ Common, downtown St. Catharines)

    Dugas will talk about his individual and collaborative practice with a focus on the ecological work created in partnership with Valerie LeBlanc over several years.

    The artist’s talk will be in English.

    Canadian Author/Artist Daniel H. Dugas

    Canadian Author/Artist Daniel H. Dugas

    Conférence en français : vendredi 26 janvier 2018

    horaire : 1-2 pm

    lieu : PL 410, Campus principal (Brock University)

    Artiste numérique, poète et musicien, Daniel Dugas a participé à des expositions individuelles et de groupe ainsi qu’à plusieurs festivals et événements de poésie en Amérique du Nord, en Europe, au Mexique et en Australie. Son neuvième recueil de poésie L’esprit du temps / The Spirit of the Time vient de paraître aux Éditions Prise de parole.

    La présentation se fera en français.

    This is a free community event.  Tickets are not required.

    For more information contact Professor Catherine Parayre, cparayre@brocku.ca

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    Categories: Events, In the Media, News

  • A Special One Night Art Exhibition

    On January 17, students from Donna Akrey’s 3M90 Advanced Art Practices will be “transplanting their work into the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts building”. Everyone is invited to explore this one night exhibition between 4 and 9 p.m. Maps will be given out to help navigate the space to see the works – some easy to find, others more hidden.

    Invasive Species is a collection of self-directed works from third and fourth year students in the 3M90 ADVANCED ART PRACTICES course. This exhibition focuses on themes of information, architecture, the archive, regionality, subjectivity and objectivity, death, resilience, ecology, mental health, space, the institution, invasive and symbiotic species, and site-specific art. The works are comprised of painting, drawing, video, projection, animation, performance, and installation. All of the artists respond to the unique specificities and conditions of the facility and its site.

    Victoria Reid, visual arts student in Donna Akrey’s 3M90 course says her objective is “to personify objects in the architecture and space around us to show our connection to the architecture. I chose to do this in order to bring awareness to our relationship and contribution to the growing industrial landscape around us.”

    This event marks the mid-year point as the student progress to a final site-specific exhibition proposed to take over parts of downtown St. Catharines in April 2018.

    In order to provoke creativity and thought into this exhibition, Akrey asked her students, “if your work was to fit in this space (the MIW) and not the white cube – where might it go?” She says, “This allows the students to consider their work outside of the gallery and in effect pushes research further (as well as the logistics of mounting visual art in difficult spaces). The students have risen to it and are doing a great job.”

    Reid comments on what this course and the opportunity of this exhibition has taught her, “Through the process of making this work, I learned how to step outside my comfort zone and I learned that art can be art, even when in unconventional spaces apart from the gallery.”

    Donna Akrey is a part-time instructor of visual arts at Brock University. Her exhibition, Also Also held at Rodman Hall from February to April of 2017, was nominated for Exhibition of the Year: Budget Under $20, 000 (Monographic) Award by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries (OAAG). Her collaboration as a member of the Hamilton Perambulatory Unit was recently seen in the Downtown/s – Urban Renewals Today for Tomorrow: The 2017 Windsor-Essex Triennial of Contemporary Art.

    Isabella Domaradzki, artist, member of the organizational team for Invasive Species, and student in the 3M90 course says what she looks forward to most about this one night exhibition “is seeing our hard work in creating our art and planning this show come to life. We have learned so many valuable lessons throughout this experience that have shaped our identity as artists, and I think it will be exciting to visualize our growth and progress!”

    This one night exhibition is a free event held at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts from 4 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday Jan. 17. Refreshments and snacks will be served in the MIWSFPA lobby. Visit the Invasive Species Facebook event page to stay updated with this exciting event.

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    Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News

  • Exhibition: ART BLOCK: BAC on the Block opens Dec .6

    Work exhibited in last year’s edition of  ARTBlock: BAC on the Block exhibition.

    Members of the Brock Art Collective will host their third annual ARTBlock: BAC on the Block exhibition beginning Wednesday, Dec. 6 at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

    The group, comprised of MIWSFPA students, will showcase works completed on 6-inch by 6-inch panels and made with a variety of mediums. Most works will be for sale starting at $40.

    The opening reception will be held Wednesday, Dec. 6 from 6 to 9 p.m.
    The exhibition, held in the Visual Arts Exhibition Space, runs until Friday, Dec. 22.

    Regular visiting hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m.

    More information is available on ExperienceBU or Facebook

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  • Music presents the University Wind Ensemble: A MUSICAL MONTAGE

    The University Wind Ensemble enjoys a rich heritage of musical excellence, bringing together both university and high school students as well as members of the Niagara musical community to explore and perform major symphonic wind band works, both original and arranged.

    The University Wind Ensemble Series conducted by Zoltan Kalman

    featuring a Canada 150 Performance of Suite Canadienne composed by Michael Kositsky

    Led by conductor Zoltan Kalman, the ensemble explores major symphonic wind band works, both original and arranged. Includes a Canada 150 performance of “Suite Canadienne”: A Medley of Canadian Folksongs, composed by Michael Kositsky.

    Folksongs to be included: I’s the B’y / Un Canadien errant / Black Fly / Four Strong Winds / North West Passage / J’entends le moulin / Springhill Mine Disaster / Something to Sing About.

    Tuesday, December 5, 2017
    Time: 7:30 p.m.

    Location: Partridge Hall, First Ontario Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul Street, St. Catharines, ON

    Tickets: $12*; $5* child (14 and under); $5* eyeGo program. Free admission to current Brock students with valid student ID card. *No CCIF applied; other applicable fees and taxes are extra. † Applicable fees and taxes are extra.

    Available from the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre Box Office: 905.688.0722 or Long Distance Toll Free: 1.855.515.0722; online: firstontariopac.ca

    This is a special Canada 150 event.

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    Categories: Announcements, Events, News