Events

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

  Monday, October 17, 2011 | By Brock University

  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.

  Tags: General Brock Soiree, Soiree
  Categories: Events

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

  Thursday, September 29, 2011 | By Brock University

  

  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
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  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

  Tags: Dylan Mawson, Milutin Gubash, special performance, Tanisha Minson, Which Way to the Bastille?
  Categories: Events

• DART on BROCK TV

  Tuesday, March 01, 2011 | By Brock University

  Professor Virginia Reh speaks about life in theatre and the production of Phèdre that was performed by students of DART in the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre in February of 2011. Video interview from the series University People by BROCK TV. (click image to play)

  Tags: Brock TV, Phèdre, university people, Virginia Reh
  Categories: Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, News, Plays

• Phèdre

  Tuesday, February 01, 2011 | By Brock University

  Phèdre

  Written by Jean Racine
  Translated by Ted Hughes
  Directed by Virginia Reh
  Designed by David Vivian

  Feb. 17, 18, 19, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.

  Student Matinee: Friday, Feb. 18, 2011 at 01:00 p.m.

  adults $15.00
  students and seniors $12.00
  $5.00 matinee for Brock students and staff

  The myth of Phèdre is one of the most powerful in all of classical mythology. Believing her absent husband Theseus to be dead, the Queen confesses her obsession for stepson Hippolytus, thus entering a nightmare world and spinning a tale of passion that unwinds with disastrous consequences.

  Held at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, call the Centre for the Arts Box Office, 905-688-5550, ext. 3257 for tickets.

  High School teachers and Educators: A description of the play and the performance is available for download (3 mb, PDF). Subjects include: The Play, Artistic Direction, Curriculum Ties, Student Matinee Booking, Study Guide/School Outreach.

  Phèdre: A Primer, is an introduction to our production, prepared by our Dramaturge and Fourth Year DART student, Spencer Smith. Included are:
  1) Collaboration, 2) Play Synopsis, 3) Director’s Notes, 4) Scenographer’s Notes, 5) The Playwright: Jean-Baptiste Racine, 6) The Translator: Ted Hughes, 7) Family Tree, 8) The Myths: Theseus, Phaedra, and Hippolytus, 9) The Labyrinth of Lexicon: People and Places, 10) The Many Faces of Phaedra, 11) Dramaturge’s Notes, 12) List of Figures, 13) Bibliography.

  Download your PDF copy of Phèdre: A Primer (PDF, 16.1 MB, remotely hosted)

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  Media:

  See the article in The Brock News

  

  Professor Virginia Reh speaks about life in theatre and the production of Phedre that was performed by students of DART in the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre in 2011. Screenshot from a video interview in the series “University People”, by BROCK TV.

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  Tags: Emma Bulpin, Eric Frank, Kasey Dunn, Mainstage, Phèdre, plays
  Categories: Events, Plays

• Earp Dance at Brock Nuit Blanche 2010

  Wednesday, December 08, 2010 | By Brock University

  For those of you unable to attend Nuit Blanche Brock this year, check out the short video above to see dancers Shannon Perugino and Jessica Goncalves of the Department of Dramatic Arts perform on the beautifully lit top floor of Earp Student Residence at Brock University.   The original piece was performed every half hour from 6pm to midnight on the chilly night of December 3, 2010, to audiences outside on the street below as part of Nuit Blanche Brock 2010. 

  Performed by Dramatic Arts students Jessica Goncalves and Shannon Perugino; Sound Op: Matthew Viviano; Tech and Design Support: Doug Ledingham and David Vivian; Conceived by Natalie Alvarez. Choreography by Jessica Goncalves, Shannon Perugino and Natalie Alvarez.

  Tags: David Vivian, Doug Ledingham, Dramatic Arts, Earp Dance, Earp Residence, Jessica Goncalves, Matthew Viviano, Natalie Alvarez, Nuit Blanche Brock, Shannon Perugino
  Categories: Events

• COMMOTION AT THE OLD COURTHOUSE – YOUTH ISSUES TAKE THE STAGE

  Sunday, November 28, 2010 | By Brock University

  (Source: Carousel Players)

  COMMOTION will give 23 Niagara students an opportunity to perform two new plays that they’ve created over a 12 week drama enrichment program at their high schools and present it at the Sullivan Mahoney Courthouse Theatre from December 9-11, 2010. Thanks to support from TALK Niagara (Teams of Adults Listening to Kids) and Bonnie Prentice, students from 8 high schools all over Niagara will see these plays created by students from Eastdale Secondary School and Laura Secord Secondary School. Free performances at the Old Courthouse are Thursday, December 9th at 10 am and 12:30pm, Friday, December 10th at 10am and 12:30 pm, and Saturday, December 11th at 7pm. For ticket information call Carousel Players at 905-682-8326 X26.

  The play On the Line by Laura Secord Secondary School students tackles the influence of technology and media on young people, bullying and family relations. Students from Eastdale Secondary School have created the play Squawk: Flippin’ the Bird which explores the use and abuse of authority, decision-making and issues of identity. Both plays open up new doors for discussion with teens on what happens on the internet, the social pressures they face, and they encourage students to share stories with their peers about their own experiences. Roxolana Chwaluk, Caitlin English, Brandon Pachan and Trevor Rotenberg, facilitators trained through Brock University’s Drama Department have been working with the students an estimated 240 hours at their schools since September 2010.

  “The characters, scenes and stories from the plays evolved from improvised scenes created by the students and developed through a play building process called RSVP. In Commotion, we start exploring resource materials, like umbrellas or ironing boards, and allow the stories, issues and insights to emerge from this work” said COMMOTION leader Pablo Felices Luna, Artistic Director at Carousel Players. “The COMMOTION program is led by Professor Gyllian Raby with designers Michael Greves, Joe Lapinski and Doug Ledingham. We thank drama teachers Tracey Garratt from Eastdale Secondary School and Tracy Thorpe from Laura Secord Secondary School for welcoming us into their schools, for actively fostering creativity in their students and for their passionate commitment to drama at their school.”

  This is the second year of the three year COMMOTION project and involves Carousel Players, Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts and TALK Niagara (Teams of Adults Listening to Kids). Last year 35 students from E.L. Crossley Secondary School and St. Catharines Collegiate participated in the program. COMMOTION is made possible by SSHRC: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and approval from the District School Board of Niagara to work with participating high school students on the project.

  Tags: Carousel Players, Commotion, courthouse theatre, Gyllian Raby, Pablo Felices Luna, TALK Niagara
  Categories: Events

• Blood Relations

  Tuesday, October 12, 2010 | By Nikki Prudden

  Written by Sharon Pollock

  Directed by Danielle Wilson
  Designed by Kelly Wolf

  November 11, 12, 13, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
  Student Matinee: Friday, November 12, 2010 at 1:00 p.m.

  “Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks…” In June of 1893, Lizzie Borden stood trial for the brutal murders of her father and stepmother, thus inspiring the popular children’s rhyme. Borden was acquitted but the crime was never solved. So did she, or didn’t she?

  Held at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, call the Centre for the Arts Box Office, 905-688-5550, ext. 3257 for tickets.
  Adult $15 / Seniors $12 / Students $12 / Groups $10 / eyeGo $5
  Presented by the Department of Dramatic Arts.

  Please see the MEDIA RELEASE

  High School teachers and Educators: A description of the play and the performance is available for download (3 mb, PDF). Subjects include: The Play, Artistic Direction, Curriculum Ties, Student Matinee Booking, Study Guide/School Outreach.

  Blood Relations: A Primer, is an introduction to our production, written by our Dramaturge and Fourth Year DART student, Spencer Smith. Included are: 1. Production Synopsis; 2. Lizzie Borden: The Legend; 3. Veins of Blood Relations; 4. Director’s Notes; 5. Sharon Pollock: The Playwright; 6. Collaboration; 7. List of Figures; 8. Bibliography.

  Download your PDF copy of Blood Relations: A Primer (PDF, 10.3 MB, remotely hosted)

  Tags: Blood Relations, Danielle Wilson, Kelly Wolf, Lizzie Borden, Mainstage, plays, Sharon Pollock
  Categories: Events, Plays

• Lyric Canada 2010

  Sunday, September 12, 2010 | By Brock University

  LyricCANADA 2010 – Thursday, October 21 through Saturday, October 23, 2010.

  Brock University, St. Catharines ON (daytime program)
  Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake (evening program)

  Lyric Canada 2010 is an inaugural international conference consisting of one Keynote presentation, two Plenary presentations, Moderated Roundtable, 14 presentations by scholars and practitioners, and 15 Showcase presentations involving composers, librettists and performers.

  Lyric Canada 2010 will bring together creators of lyric theatre in Canada and abroad with scholars whose research does or could encompass their work. In this context the term “lyric theatre” encompasses a wide range of dramatic works in which sung text is an integral part. Thus it includes cabaret, musicals, operetta, opera and all points in between.

  By uniting a transnational group of researchers and creators of lyric theatre, we intend to develop a network from which to draw inspiration, expertise and experience for anyone pursuing research or production of this unique art form.

  Why is this an important event?
   This is an innovative ground-breaking project that nobody else is doing.
   For the Department of Dramatic Arts and the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts this conference broadcasts Community Outreach and collaboration with the Shaw Festival, our major international collaborator in cultural creation and industry in the Niagara Peninsula.
   We are fostering the development and enrichment of Pedagogical Experiences and Institutional Relationships.
   We are bringing internationally known Composers and Writers to share their creative intelligence and experience with the Brock and Niagara communities.

  SHOWCASE PRESENTATIONS AT THE SHAW FESTIVAL

  A special component of the conference program will be the presentation of new and recent works in the Lyric CANADA 2010 Showcase. The Shaw Festival is a major collaborator in this project, facilitating three evenings of presentation of new and recent works in the Lyric Canada 2010 Showcase program in the Studio Theatre at the Shaw Festival. Details of the Showcase program are available on the website lyriccanada.ca. The program includes:

  Leslie Arden One Step Forward 
  Tapestry New Opera: Tapestry’s Creative Process: Marjorie Chan, Writer in Residence as hostess; A writer/composer team from the most recent LIBLAB; 2 Opera Briefs (10 minutes)
  Paul Sportelli, Jay Turvey, and members of the Shaw Company Maria Severa
  Bram Gielen, Tracy Michailidis, with the Summerworks hit Biggish Kids
  among other established and new artists on the Canadian and American lyric theatre scene.

  Tickets to the Showcase performances are available through the
  Centre for the Arts Box Office at Brock University boxoffice.brocku.ca
  (search for lyric)
  905.688.5550 x 3257 (within local region only) or 1.866.617.3257 (outside local region)
  Cost: $25.00 for one evening program; $65.00 for all three evening programs

  PLENARY SPEAKERS

  Stewart Wallace (the composer of Harvey Milk and The Bonesetters Daughter) is coming from Texas en route to China to present the Keynote speech: FATE! LUCK! CHANCE! Adventures in Opera Making

  Sarah Schlesinger, Chair of Graduate Musical Theatre Writing at the Tisch School of Arts (NYU), Sarah is a multiple award-wining lyricist and librettist – her works include The Ballad of Little Joe, Prairie Songs, and Swing Shift. Sarah will be speaking about nurturing and training the next generation of writers and composers in lyric theatre. We are also programming a pedagogical experience between herself and students of the Departments of Music and Dramatic Arts wherein students of Brock can learn from this powerhouse writer in lyric theatre in an intensive workshop moment.

  Our very special guest Canadian Plenary speaker is Jim Betts, Canadian composer, lyricist, and librettist (Colours in the Storm, Thin Ice, Shooting of Dan McGrew), and author of Field of Stars: Songs of the Canadian Musical Theatre (2004) and Field of Stars: More Songs of the Canadian Musical Theatre (2008) (Toronto: Northern River Music). Jim’s provocative presentation is entitled Why Canadians Can’t Write Musicals (And Why Almost No One Else Can, Either)

  PANEL PRESENTATIONS

  Thirty panel presenters from Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States complete the wealth of the panel program to be presented at Brock University.

  A selection of the three-day program includes:

  JOINT SESSION:
  Robert Walsh, composer will present From the Ashes: The development of lyrics in The Forbidden Phoenix, with Wayne Strongman and Tapestry New Opera, Toronto speaking about their production Iron Road

  JOINT SESSION: Kathryn Harvey, University of Guelph’s L. W. Conolly Theatre Archives and Francesca Marini, Stratford Festival, ON, will speak about the challenges of archiving performance, particularly musical theatre, and the wealth of their respective archival collections.

  Mel Atkey, London-based author of Broadway North: The Dream of a Canadian Musical Theatre will speak about his new volume: A Million Miles from Broadway: Musical Theatre from a Universal Perspective

  Julie Salverson, Queen’s University, ON will present Opera meets clown and the Atomic Bomb . . . The development of Shelter 

  Sheldon Rosen, Ryerson University, and Darren Russo, McGill University, will present Hansel & Gretel: Typographic Play

  Please see the online programme schedule at lyriccanada.ca

  The Conference may be attended in whole or in part. Members of the public are welcome to the conference or only attend the evening performances at the Shaw Festival.

  Conference Registration is available at the conference website lyriccanada.ca
  Cost: $150.00 to 290.00 depending upon program and including the Showcase program.

  questions or inquiries, please contact:

  Marie Balsom, Communications
  Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University
  Niagara Region | 500 Glenridge Ave. | St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1
  [email protected] | T 905 688 5550 x4765 | F 905 378 5712

  Your hosts for LyricCANADA 2010:

  Professors Virginia Reh (Dramatic Arts)
  [email protected]

  David Vivian (Dramatic Arts/Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture)
  [email protected]

  LyricCANADA 2010 is produced with the generous support of:

  Brock SSHRC Institutional Grant (BSIG)
  The Humanities Research Institute of Brock University
  The Marilyn I Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts
  The Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture
  The Department of Dramatic Arts
  The Department of Music
  Centre of Teaching, Learning and Educational Technologies, at Brock University

  and our special collaborator
  The Shaw Festival

  Hospitality vehicle provided by St. Catharines Mazda

  website: lyriccanada.ca
  general enquiries: [email protected]

  Tags: conference, David Vivian, Lyric Canada, Lyric Canada 2010, music theatre, Shaw Festival, Virginia Reh
  Categories: Announcements, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Media Releases, News

• In the Soil: Niagara’s Homegrown Arts Festival 2010

  Wednesday, May 05, 2010 | By Brock University

  

  DART students, graduates, and faculty participated in the second annual In the Soil: Niagara’s Homegrown Arts Festival. The festival featured 70 events in 11 venues in St. Catharines and area.

  Click on the logo for more information.

  Tags: In the Soil
  Categories: Events

• Theatre at Brock embraces BIG LOVE

  Wednesday, January 27, 2010 | By Brock University

  

  From left: Sadie Isaak, Rebecca Durance-Hine, Jacqueline Costa. Photo credit: Bethany Scholl

  Performance Dates:

  Thurs., Feb. 11, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
  Fri., Feb. 12 at 1 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
  Sat., Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m.

  Location: Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, Brock University, 500 Glenridge Avenue in St. Catharines, Ontario

  Tickets: $15 adults; $12 seniors & students; $10 groups; The Department of Dramatic Arts is proud to be a partner of eyeGo to the Arts, encouraging high school students to attend live performing arts through an innovative $5 ticket program.
  Announcing $5 Friday! – attend the matinee performance on Fri., Feb. 12 at 1 p.m. for only $5 – available to holders of Brock ID cards.
  Available at the Centre for the Arts Box Office, 905-688-5550, ext. 3257, or e-mail [email protected].

  Charles Mee’s contemporary look at Aeschylus’s Greek tragedy The Suppliant Women is an astonishingly fresh take on an age-old story: love versus power.

  BIG LOVE tells the story of fifty brides (all sisters) who flee from arranged marriages to fifty grooms (their cousins) who pursue them across the sea to Italy. Three of the brides seek asylum in an Italian family’s villa. When their hosts are unable to negotiate their way through the moral predicament and allow the forced marriages, the brides make a murderous pact to kill their husbands on their wedding night. One of them fails to kill. Who betrayed whom?

  Director Gyllian Raby states, ”I am drawn to the play because it has the scale of a Greek tragedy, but it is dressed in the global culture of today. Mee invites a wild post-modern performativity, but his story is so deeply sourced in western culture that it is very accessible.” Designer Karyn McCallum has set our production in an installation suggestive of a temple-gymnasium where the body wrestles with the spirit. Mattel’s gendered Ken and Barbie dolls hang from the lighting grid and punch-bag mannikin forms are anchored to the stage floor. A deeply passionate movement score with choreography from Gemini nominated Director and Award winning Choreographer Allen Kaeja conveys chaotic savagery and the tenderness of love, as well as the dark endurance of the survivor.

  BIG LOVE showcases the talents of students in Brock University’s Department of Dramatic Arts undergraduate acting classes: Rebecca Durance-Hine, Jacqueline Costa, Sadie Isaak, Rob MacMenamin, Corey Mehlenbacher, Trevor Ketcheson, Jen Bender, Chris Boyle, Michael Pearson, Eric Frank, Dylan Mawson and Kasey Dunn.

  BIG LOVE exhibits the extremes of passion as it explores two impossibilities: love and forgiveness. Performed on stage at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, Brock University, performances are held on Thurs., Feb. 11, 2010 at 7:30 p.m., Fri., Feb. 12 at 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Sat., Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m.

  Such productions by the Department of Dramatic Arts are a key part of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts’ mandate in building connections between the community and the breadth of talent and creativity at Brock University.
  Media Day: Thurs., Feb. 4, 2010 at 6 p.m. held at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, Brock University.

   

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  Tags: Big Love, Mainstage, plays
  Categories: Events, Media Releases, News, Plays