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)
Brock TV, Phèdre, university people, Virginia Reh
Categories: Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, News, Plays
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.
Marlene at the Humanities Research Institute Symposium in December, 2006
It is with deep sadness and grief that we share with you the news of our dear colleague Marlene Moser’s passing on the evening of December 21, 2010.
Marlene’s courageous five year battle with breast cancer developed into metastasis this past summer. Her condition started to deteriorate rapidly Monday morning and she was admitted to the Juravinski Hospital Tuesday morning and passed away peacefully Tuesday evening surrounded by all of her family.
Marlene has been a member of the Brock Community since 2000. During her tenure as professor, researcher, creator, Director and Chair she provided leadership and love to her colleagues and students in the Department of Dramatic Arts. She was instrumental to the development of the Department as a site of luminous and rigorous investigation of theatre praxis. Her mentorship of five colleagues through tenure and promotion is but one facet of her legacy to the future of our research, pedagogy, and community. Her presence in the burgeoning theatre scene of St. Catharines was only recently curtailed as she focused her creative energies to meet the challenge of cancer – the vision of her initiatives remains undiminished and in our hearts.
Marlene fought this cancer with such strength, courage and determination. The Department greatly mourns her passing.
for more information please see her web page
see the Brock News article here
Information about the visitation and an upcoming celebration on January 4th, 2011 is found in the obituary in the Hamilton Spectator. Here are the details:
Family and friends may gather at the BAY GARDENS FUNERAL HOME, 1010 Botanical Drive, BURLINGTON, on Tuesday, December 28th between 2-4 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. A celebration of Marlene’s life (reunion) will take place on her birthday, January 4th at the Royal Botanical Gardens at 2 p.m.
There is also an online Book of Condolence at the above webpage.
The department will host a memorial event in the new year, with details to come. Download the PDF for the Department of Dramatic Arts’ celebration of her life here.
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 [email protected], 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.
Name: Derrick de Kerckhove
Location: Naples, Italy
How did you know Marlene?: I directed Marlene’s Phd. thesis
Your comments: Since I have been away in Europe most of the time since 2008, having lost touch with Marlene a couple of years after she passed her oral – brillantly – I had not heard this heartbreaking news. I remember her elegance, intelligence, determination and freedom of spirit. This is the kind of loss that sinks deep in a community. My best wishes for the recovery of this community.
if you wish to submit a comment or share a memory about Marlene, please contact [email protected]
DART faculty, in memoriam, Marlene Moser
Categories: Announcements, Faculty & Instructors, News
Assistant Professor Virginia Reh in the DART Props Shop
Canadian musical theatre is a little like Canadian film and Canadian writing. It takes place in our own backyard, but our brightest stars are often hidden from public consciousness.
Virginia Reh is on a mission to change that.
An assistant professor of Dramatic Arts, Reh is the driving force behind an upcoming conference called Lyric CANADA 2010 from Oct. 21 to 23. David Vivian, associate professor and director of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, is also an organizer.
With the conference, Reh hopes to push Canadian musicals and opera into the minds of academics and the general public. That way, she said, more people will write about it. More people will study it. And most importantly, more people will know that it exists. (See the full article here.)
DART, DART faculty, David Vivian, musical theatre, STAC, The Brock News, Virginia Reh
Categories: Faculty & Instructors, News
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]
(Source: The Brock News. Thursday, September 9, 2010)
Imagine a tourism experience where you pay to spend hours pretending to illegally cross the American border from Mexico.
You trudge through muddy fields under the blare of gunfire. You run exhausted through sewer tunnels. You are placed, scared and blindfolded, in the back of a truck, only to end up where you started — at a restaurant, gift shop and main office, and people telling you to enjoy your stay.
This is the new trend in post-9/11 dark tourism, a term that describes the act of visiting the sites of tragedies as a tourist. This experience is called immersive simulation, and Natalie Alvarez, assistant professor of Dramatic Arts, is writing a book about it.
Alvarez has received $23,449 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for her research project, “Enactments of difference: immersive simulations and performance from training to dark tourism.” Alvarez will study two types of immersive simulation: that experienced by tourists, and that experienced by soldiers who train in increasingly popular model villages to prepare them for overseas interaction with foreign cultures. Included in that is investigating how performance techniques are used in counterterrorism and intelligence training.
One dark tourism experience Alvarez will study is that of El Alberto, Mexico, where the community has been depleted by immigration to the U.S. Mexicans pay $20 (U.S.) each to be taken on an overnight fake U.S. border crossing. Ironically, the popularity of the adventure tourism has rejuvenated the town’s economy. Alvarez has twice experienced the tour, which she describes as frightening and surprisingly political, given that it’s billed as adventure tourism.
“It started with a rousing speech by members of the community about how the work is an homage to those who lost their lives crossing the border,” she said. “We sang the Mexican anthem, followed by the sounds of sirens in the distance of the U.S. border patrol and shouts telling us to start running.”
Other examples include a recreated Stalin-era Gulag prison camp in Lithuania, where people pay to spend a day as prisoners. In Liepaja, Latvia, tourists stay overnight in a naval jail.
Alvarez will also visit simulated villages used to train soldiers for duties in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a recreated Afghani village in Norfolk, England, and simulated Iraqi villages in California and Arizona, where actors are recruited to play insurgents and civilians.
Demand for these simulations has skyrocketed since 9/11, she said.
“A lot of performance scholars and performance artists talk about the border hysteria and the kind of war on difference that evolved from 9/11,” she said. “There seems to be a desire to rehearse encounters with the cultural ‘other’. I want to know what kind of anxieties are being played out in these scenarios.”
While on the surface, immersive dark tourism and immersive military simulation seem unrelated, “there are intersecting themes that make them worth putting together in conversation,” she said.
Alvarez will spend the next two years traveling and observing these simulations, followed by a year of writing.
Alvarez, who is cross-appointed to Liberal Arts, joined Brock in 2006. She currently serves as a co-editor of the Canadian Theatre Review’s Views and Reviews and has two forthcoming edited books: Fronteras Vivientas, an anthology of Latina/o-Canadian plays, and New Essays on Latina/o-Canadian Theatre and Performance. Both are published by Playwrights Canada Press.
Links:
• Natalie Alvarez faculty page
• Full list of Brock’s SSHRC recipients
• Past “researcher of the month” profiles
DART faculty presented at the recent CATR (Canadian Association for Theatre Research) conference (part of the SSHRC Congress, or “Learneds”) at Concordia University in Montreal (May 2010).
PSi16 Performing Publics was held in Toronto June 9-13. Professor Natalie Alvarez and graduate Victoria Mountain of DART were on the Program Commitee.
The IFTR (International Federation for Theatre Research) 2010 World Congress Cultures of Modernity occurred in July in Munich, Germany. DART Professors David Fancy and David Vivian were both part of the conference program. See the official website for information.
The Department of Dramatic Arts welcomes Joe Norris to the Department as of July 1, 2009. Joe has had a long history of teaching in, through, and with drama both at the secondary and post-secondary levels and is eager to serve the Ontario educational theatre community. Please see the attached PDF for more information about our new colleague.
DART faculty, Joe Norris
Categories: Announcements, Faculty & Instructors, News
In February 2009 Associate Professor Gyllian Raby was awarded a very significant SSHRC Research and Creation Grant in the Fine and Performing Arts for her project Devised Theatre with Youth in Niagara Schools. Gyllian’s project draws on her RSVP research and is in collaboration with Carousel Players of St. Catharines.
Services for Students with Disabilities awarded Associate Professor David Fancy the Making A Difference Award from the Services for Students with disABILITIES department in the Student Development Centre. The award was presented in April of 2009.
In 2008 our part-time instructor in Drama in Education and Society – Suzanne Burchell – received this award.
Associate Professor David Vivian was awarded the 2009 Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching (Faculty of Humanities), presented at the 2009 June Convocation.
Part-time Instructor and recent Limited Term Appointee Helen Zdriluk was awarded the Best Practices Recognition Award, 2008 by the Brock Centre for Teaching, Learning and Educational Technologies (CTLET).