Introducing the DART/MIWSFPA 2020-21 BIPOC Speaker Series. Conversations in which Black, Indigenous, and people of colour theatre leaders address issues of interest to the theatre community, and beyond.

The Department of Dramatic Arts and Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, supported by the Faculty of Humanities at Brock University, invite you to join on Zoom for this new virtual speaker series.

Please check back for announcements of future speakers.

PRACTICING EQUITY: ANTIRACIST STAGE MANAGEMENT WITH NARDA E. ALCORN

VIRTUAL EVENT DETAILS:
Tuesday, feb. 23
7 – 8:30 PM on Zoom

In this talk Narda E. Alcorn will share her evolving antiracist stage management practice, placing it in the context of her career, experience, and point of view. She will offer ideas and steps that others can take to cultivate antiracist practice and pedagogy.

Narda E. Alcorn (she/her) is a professor and stage manager who has worked on Broadway, Off-Broadway, regionally, and internationally. In 2019, Narda was appointed Chair of the Stage Management Department at Yale School of Drama. She is the co-author, with Lisa Porter, of Stage Management Theory as a Guide to Practice: Cultivating a Creative Approach.

CONSCIOUSNESS IN COLOUR: INTERCULTURAL SCENE STUDY FOR CONTEMPORARY CLASSROOMS WITH TANISHA TAITT

VIRTUAL EVENT DETAILS:
Tuesday, Jan. 12
7 – 8:30 PM on Zoom

Tanisha Taitt is Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre and a director/actor/playwright, musical artist, accidental essayist, and audiobook director with Penguin Random House Canada. In this talk she will focus on her work as a theatre and anti-racism educator.

Supported by the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation at Brock University in partnership with Niagara Community Foundations.

better relations

A virtual conversation over dinner with Keith Barker: Dora-Award-winning Métis playwright, director, and arts leader

VIRTUAL EVENT DETAILS:
Tuesday, Nov. 17
7 – 8:30 PM on Zoom

Keith Barker is a Métis artist from Northwestern Ontario. In this conversation Barker will talk about his work as artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts, Canada’s oldest professional
Indigenous theatre company; about his relation-based practice as an Indigenous theatremaker; and about how he is moving forward as an artist and community leader during the extended COVID-19 crisis.

“The best work comes from safe spaces. The only way I know how to create safe space is through good relations. In my artistic career the most impactful experiences always started with food,”says Barker. Attendees are encouraged to bring their evening meal and break bread with us during the event, along with Keith and interviewer Karen Fricker.

This is the second conversation in the DART/MIWSFPA 2020-21 BIPOC Speaker Series:
Conversations in which Black, Indigenous, and people of colour theatre leaders address issues
of interest to the theatre community, and beyond.

Presented by The Department of Dramatic Arts
Supported by the Faculty of Humanities and the Decolonization Committee of the President’s
Advisory Committee on Human Rights, Equity, and Decolonization (PACHRED), Brock University

If We’re Not Learning, What Are We Doing?

A conversation about working in
Canadian theatre with Jenna Rodgers

VIRTUAL EVENT DETAILS:
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7
7 – 8:30 PM on Zoom (see above link)
To register please email Gillian Minaker, MIWSFPA Communications Officer:
gminaker@brocku.ca

Jenna is a mixed-race Director and Dramaturg based on Treaty 7 Territory, colonially known as Calgary. She is the founding Artistic Director of Chromatic Theatre – a company dedicated to producing and developing work by and for artists of colour. Jenna is also the Dramaturg for the Playwrights Lab at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She is a passionate arts equity advocate; the Vice President of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for LMDA; and the Board Chair for Theatre Alberta. Jenna is a graduate of the NTS Artistic Leadership Residency (2020), a graduate from the Banff Centre’s Cultural Leadership Program (2019), a member of the artEquity National Facilitator Training cohort (2018), and a recipient of a 2018 Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Emerging Artists. She holds a MA in International Performance Research from the universities of Amsterdam and Tampere.

Recent Directing credits include Actually at Alberta Theatre Projects, Sherlock Holmes and the Raven’s Curse at Vertigo Theatre, Chromatic Theatre (我的名是张欣恩 (Gimme Chance Leh), Winners and Losers, Cowboy Versus Samurai); fu-GEN Theatre (Mixie and the Halfbreeds); Workshop West Theatre (Beyond the Darkness); Pape and Taper Theatre (Timmy, Tommy, and the Haunted Hotel); and Lunchbox Theatre (Let the Light of Day Through). She was selected as part of the 2020 Michael Langham Directors Conservatory at the Stratford Festival.