News

DART graduate receives prestigious Erasmus Mundus scholarship

Wednesday, February 08, 2012 | By Brock University

Kasey Dunn in Phèdre. Department of Dramatic Arts (DART) in the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre. 2011.

Kasey Dunn (DART 2011), has been awarded the prestigious scholarship for the 2012-2013 Erasmus Mundus M.A. in International Performance Research programme. Upon completion, Kasey will receive three M.A.s from programs of study at University of Amsterdam, University of Warwick, and the University of Arts in Belgrade. The scholarship has a value of 36,000 euro. (CAD $47, 500)

Kasey was previously awarded the Brock University Leaders Award, the Brock University President’s Award, the national Canadian Millennium Excellence Award, J.F. Harding Prize in Theatre, the Jane Forrest Prize in Drama, and the Gertrude Milner Award in Drama. She completed an outstanding Fourth Year Honours Thesis project on theories of cognition and performance, with Professors Natalie Alvarez (Dramatic Arts) and Sid Segalowitz (Psychology) as supervisors. Kasey established the Lyndesfarne Theatre Projects Young Company in St. Catharines. In 2011 Kasey performed the lead role in the DART production of Racine’s Phèdre, pictured to the right.

Kasey is following in the footsteps of Victoria Mountain (DART 2007) as the second DART graduate to receive this prestigious scholarship.

Tags: Erasmus Mundus M.A., Kasey Dunn
Categories: Alumni, News
Looking for a unique Spring/Summer course? sign-up for Introduction to Physical Theatre

Thursday, February 02, 2012 | By Brock University

Theatre Beyond Words – object-based theatre and full-body mask

Looking for a unique Spring/Summer course? sign-up for a three week-long intensive Introduction to Physical Theatre taught by the resident theatre company of Brock University, Theatre Beyond Words, during the Spring session of 2012.

DART 2F04: Physical Theatre – Education through Collective Creation
Students will explore a wide range of physical theatre styles (mask, mime, pantomime, graphics, theatrical clown, and commedia dell’arte) by recreating a series of scenes from professional repertoire using masks, puppets, costumes and sets from international touring theatre ensemble and Brock Resident Theatre Company, Theatre Beyond Words. This is a 3-week intensive, full-credit course, running 6 hours per day, 5 days per week. There will be a final performance for invited friends, family and staff at the end of the 3 three weeks. As this is a practicum course, attendance at all classes is mandatory.

More information about this full-credit course may be found here. Enrollment is limited to 20 students. Don’t delay!
Applicants without previous theatre training at Brock University may enrol with permission of the instructor.

for more information contact dramatic.arts@brocku.ca

Here are some examples of the masks and object-based theatre used by Theatre Beyond Words:

And here’s a trailer for their current show on tour, created and performed by Brock students:

Tags: course opportunity, DART 2F04, masks, physical theatre, Tales from the Garden, The Potato People, Theatre Beyond Words
Categories: Current Students, News
Always loved the musical RENT!? Opening February 2nd for four performances only.

Thursday, January 26, 2012 | By Brock University

Always loved the musical RENT!? Brock Musical Theatre’s finest performers presented a fun-filled show that opened February 2^nd for four performances only.

RENT showcased the performing and producing talents of students in the Department of Dramatic Arts and the entire University community. The show was directed by Jessi Robinson with musical direction by Krystyna MacKay and choreography by Sarah Waller. Music was performed by local band Xprime.

Brock Musical Theatre is a university club with 19 cast members, as well as numerous production and volunteer crew members from several academic programs. BMT has been presenting music theatre to the Brock University community since 2005, showcasing such popular shows as Jesus Christ Superstar, Footloose, and Urinetown. Brock Musical Theatre president Karyn Lorence thanks the Brock University Student Union for their support of this production and BMT.

Tags: BMT, Brock Musical Theatre, musical theatre, RENT
Categories: Events, Plays
DART student honoured in the Brock Leaders Citizenship Society: CIBC creates an award for student leadership

Friday, January 13, 2012 | By Brock University

President Jack Lightstone with Brian Glenney, general manager, Imperial Service and Small Business, CIBC (right) and Aurora Di Fruscia, Financial Planning Consultant, CIBC Private Wealth Management, Niagara, and member of the Brock University Board of Trustees (left) with members of the Brock Leaders Citizenship Society.

CIBC has partnered with Brock to make an investment in the Campaign for a Bold New Brock that will help to support aspiring student leaders.
The $375,000 gift to the University will create the CIBC Leaders Award for incoming Brock students who have achieved exceptional academic success and demonstrated outstanding leadership and community involvement.
“This gift will help us achieve our goal of fostering the meaningful transformation of students, their communities and society at large,” President Jack Lightstone said.
Recipients of this new award will also become members of the Brock Leaders Citizenship Society, which was launched in 2009. The society is a group of remarkable students recognized for a combination of high academic achievement and for personal leadership capabilities.
DART second year student Colin Glavac (pictured, below) is a member of the Brock Leaders Citizenship Society. While at Brock, students like Colin continue to achieve academic success and develop their leadership abilities both inside and outside of the classroom.
They are involved in numerous community initiatives such as raising funds for Brock’s Shinerama campaign to help fight cystic fibrosis, staging a Seniors’ Valentine’s Day Prom at the West Park Health Centre long-term care home in St. Catharines, and co-ordinating a charity ball hockey tournament for the Alzheimer Society Niagara Foundation.
As an endowment, the funds provided by CIBC will support this award in perpetuity. The first presentation of the CIBC Leaders Award is expected to take place in the 2012-2013 academic year.

Seen to the right of President Jack Lightstone is second year Department of Dramatic Arts student Colin Glavac.

Tags: Bold New Brock, Brock Leaders Citizenship Society, CIBC, CIBC Leaders Award, Colin Glavac, Jack Lightstone
Categories: Current Students, News
Lion in the Streets

Thursday, January 12, 2012 | By Nikki Prudden
Written by Judith Thompson

Directed by Danielle Wilson
Designed by David Vivian

Lion in the Streets is a beautiful nightmare.
– Danielle Wilson, director

February 16, 2012 – 7:30 pm
February 17, 2012 – matinee 11:30 am AND 7:30 pm
February 18, 2012 – 7:30 pm

Adult $15 : Students/Seniors $12 : eyeGO $5 : Group Rates $10
Buy tickets at arts.brocku.ca

All DART Students receive ONE free ticket.

Lion in the Streets is a play in which the obsessions of the characters erupt forth in heightened, surreal and imagistic language. The young protagonist, a Portuguese immigrant to Toronto named Isobel, is a ghost in a purgatorial condition. She deftly moves in and out of critical, extreme moments in each of the characters lives while searching for the man who killed her seventeen years prior. Twentieth century music underscores the critical moments in these characters’ lives animated with contemporary movement inspired by dance company La La La Human Steps. This unique mixture complements and elucidates surreal moments while revealing Thompson’s brilliant, sparkling humor. The production embodies our contemporary quest for faith, truth, and a ‘state of grace’ while contending with the absurdity of daily life.

Lion in the Streets is written by award-winning Canadian Playwright Judith Thompson. Premiered at the Tarragon Theatre in 1990 the play won the Chalmers Outstanding New Play Award in 1991. Thompson’s plays embrace subconscious elements of human experience not often seen on stage, capturing audience’s attention across the country. Canadian theatre companies regularly perform her work, such as Soulpepper’s 2011 production of White Biting Dog at the Young Center in Toronto.Lion in the Streets continues to be one of Thompson’s most known and most popular plays. High School students will be confronted with daring subject matter which could provide context and relevance to their lives. The play explores themes of repressed violence and sexuality, the search for identity and the powerful nature of love and forgiveness. While the subject matter is dark, Thompson has crafted this exquisitely surreal play with moments of humor, hope and redemption or what she calls “moments of grace”.

Contemporary movement will be choreographed by Gerald Trentham, Artistic Director of Toronto’s Pounds Per Square Inch Performance company. Our production will showcase 8 second to fourth year Brock students, playing a total of 29 roles, with additional assistance from students studying the areas of production, stagecraft, design and directing.

With this production both Director Danielle Wilson and scenographer David Vivian look forward to honoring the wit and intelligence of our departed colleague, Dr Marlene Moser, a leading scholar of the oeuvre of Judith Thompson. Moser’s published thesis entitled “Postmodern Feminist Readings of Identity in selected works of Judith Thompson, Margaret Hollingsworth and Patricia Gruben” (Ph.D. Thesis, 1998. Graduate Center for Study of Drama University of Toronto) and the article “Identities of Ambivalence: Judith Thompson’s Perfect Pie” (Theatre Research in Canada, Volume 27 Number 1/ Spring 2006), explore themes of gender, narrative, identification of the subject and patriarchal abuse, dwelling upon their relationship to the stage, the language and how the audience will perceive them.

High School Teachers and Educators: please read this letter for detailed information about the production, curriculum ties, and student matinee booking.

Lion in the Streets: A Study Guide, is an introduction to our production, prepared by our Dramaturge and Third Year DART student, Erica Charles. Included are: 1) Collaboration, 2) Play Synopsis, 3) The Playwright: Judith Thompson, 4) Director’s Notes, 5) Designer’s Notes, 6) Isobel and her Lion, 7) Symbolism, 8) Images, 9) An Interview with Judith Thompson by Eleanor Wachtel, 10) Additional References, 11) List of Figures, 12) Endnotes and Bibliography.

Download your PDF copy of Lion in the Streets: A Study Guide
(PDF, 8.7 MB, remotely hosted)

Download a copy of the poster (PDF, 1 MB)

Buy tickets at arts.brocku.ca

Press:

“Dramatic Arts play explores the death of a young girl” – see the article in The Brock News

Photos:
Tags: Danielle Wilson, David Vivian, Judith Thompson, Lion in the Streets, Mainstage, plays
Categories: Events, Plays
Auckland Adventures: Joe Norris

Wednesday, December 21, 2011 | By Brock University

Professor Joe Norris with Kakali Bhattacharya, Chair of the Outstanding Book Award Committee of the Qualitative Research SIG of the American Educational Research Association.

In December 2011, Joe Norris spent two weeks in Auckland as a keynote for two separate conferences. During his stay, Joe presented a keynote paper on “Playbuilding as Research” at the 2nd Critical Studies in Drama in Education International Symposium at the University of Auckland. He also sat on a keynote panel during “Arts Based Research, Possibilities, Pedagogies, and Processes in Performance” during this time. He presented another keynote entitled “Reconceptualizing Self, Society and Narrative Constructions Through Critical Reflections on Personal and Cultural Narratives and Metaphors” which was presented at the “Evoking and Provoking Narrative and Metaphor in Education” symposium located also at the University of Auckland. He then provided a two-hour workshop called “Duoenthography: The Dialogic Meaning Making Through the Juxtaposition of Self with the Other” for all of his attendees.

Joe Norris’ book, “Playbuilding as Qualitative Research: A Participatory Arts-based Approach” was selected as the winner of the American Educational Research Association’s Qualitative Research SIG’s 2011 Outstanding Book Award. This book not only met all the criteria for the award, it exceeded every criteria. Norris bridges arts-based research, qualitative inquiry, and playbuilding grounded in rich theories and created dialogue for various social justice issues. The committee members (Linda Evans, Allison Anders and Kakali Bhattacharya – see in the photo with Joe Norris) exclaimed not only about the accessibility, utility of this book, but the ways in which this book challenged their thinking, made them imagine how the audience participation might look like at the end of the scenes, and created the fertile ground for much needed dialoguing. The committee was honored and privileged to review the works of such great thinkers as Valerie Janesick, Kathryn Roulston and Norman Denzin, change agents, and activists in qualitative research and are delighted to present Joe Norris with this years’ Outstanding Book Award.
Congratulations, Joe!

Tags: American Educational Research Association, Auckland, drama in education international symposium, Joe Norris, Kakali Bhattacharya, Outstanding Book Award, social justice
Categories: Faculty & Instructors, News
Another Successful Event for COMMOTION

Tuesday, December 13, 2011 | By Brock University

Commotioneers From Laura Secord Secondary School created and performed “On the Line”, a play about violence on and off the internet. Photo: Ron Gonzalez, David Chanthilath, Sarah Lundrigan-Randall, Matt Willms, Nathan Hammerling, Alexandra Li Tomulescu, Danielle Lauzon, Lianna Wouda, Jenna Ahle, Tannar Smith, James Thompson and Tanisha Medford

Commotion is a tri-generational program that trains emerging Brock Graduates to create theatre and work with high school students in the surrounding community. The program is run by Gyllian Raby, a Brock professor and Pablo Felices Luna, the artistic director for Carousel Players youth theatre in St Catharines. In reaching out to the local youth, this program is a vital resource to identifying and teaching the relationship between the creative process and group dynamics for Brock’s emerging artists.

Twice a week, for a twelve week period, the students engage in high-octane, personal and inventive processes that lead towards devising a one-act play for public presentation. The groups alernate their creative strategies between four compass points of resource exploration, scored improvisation, evaluation of cultural assumptions and participation with their surrounding community. Community members from cross-disciplinary backgrounds provided feedback to the students and attempt to illuminate the expressive voice of the group presentation as a whole. As a crucial aspect to the program, this process aims to unfold the interests and concerns that are the common denominator of the group, rather than those proposed by external media.

The presentations were held at the Courthouse Theatre in St Catharines between December 8th and 10th and were a great success!

Gyllian comments, “In the last two weeks of the program, the COMMOTION team helps the groups ‘weave’ their material into a one-act plays and rehearse for the production. The fact that the play script arrives so late can be nerve-wracking, but the final production is made possible by the trust the participants develop in their work and in one another, as well as the professional artistic support by Carousel Players. The young people we have worked with have taught us a great deal about collaborative processes, ownership and creative practice. They have inspired us.”

The COMMOTION Project is made possible by SSHRC: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Department of Dramatic Arts of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University, Carousel Players, TALK Niagara and approval from the District School Board of Niagara.

Tags: Carousel Players, Commotion, District School Board of Niagara, dsbn, Gyllian Raby, Laura Secord Secondary School, Pablo Felices Luna, SSHRC, TALK Niagara, youth
Categories: Events
Department Professors Attend the ASTR 2011 Conference in Montreal

Saturday, December 03, 2011 | By Brock University

David Fancy, the department Chair of the Dramatic Arts Program at Brock University, recently participated in the American Society of Theatre Research 2011 Conference in Montreal, Canada. David was part of the Theatre and Migrant Worker Group and presented his research paper entitled “Affective Assemblages: Migrant Worker Theatre” during the symposium. David’s contribution and effort to this research was well received by the conference patrons. His recent work with neXt Company Theatre has provided a similar awareness of Migrant Worker issues for the surrounding St Catharines community. Congratulations on your success, David!

For information on upcoming neXt Company Theatre projects please visit www.nextcompanytheatre.com

Tags: American Society of Theatre Research, David Fancy, migrant workers
Categories: Faculty & Instructors, News
COMMOTION AT THE COURTHOUSE: a three-year Partnership with Niagara Region Schools

Thursday, November 24, 2011 | By Brock University

Over the past three years, the COMMOTION partnership between six Niagara Region high schools, Carousel Players, the Department of Dramatic Arts of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University, and TALK Niagara (Teams of Adults Listening to Kids) has given 80 students an opportunity to create and perform six new plays.

Each group of high school students creates a play at their school through a 12-week drama program and presents it at the Sullivan Mahoney Courthouse Theatre. Brock University Professor Gyllian Raby and Carousel’s Artistic Director Pablo Felices Luna lead the project with the support of Bonnie Prentice from TALK Niagara, an umbrella group of 15 community organizations dedicated to youth concerns.

This month, 22 students from Governor Simcoe Secondary School and Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School are playing with different modes of creativity known as RSVP to build their characters, scenes and stories into two new plays. Blythe Barker, Jacqueline Costa, Caitlin English and Trevor Rotenberg, facilitators trained through Brock University’s Department of Dramatic Arts, have been working with students an estimated 240 hours at their schools since September 2011.

Free performances of the plays written and performed by these students will be held at the Sullivan Mahoney Courthouse Theatre in St. Catharines on Thursday, December 8, 2011, at 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.; Friday, December 9, at 9:30 a.m.; and Saturday, December 10, at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Reservations are required. For the free tickets, call Carousel Players at 905.682.8326 x 26.

“Now in the third year of COMMOTION, Pablo and I find it more invigorating than ever,” states Gyllian Raby. “Creating a show for this semi-professional production places enormous demands on these high school seniors, yet time after time they show themselves not only equal to the task but able to surprise everyone with their insights about, for example, the social pressures of the internet, abuses of authority, and balancing individual identity with relationships.”

Co-leader Felices Luna adds, “COMMOTION takes the excellent work done by Niagara’s drama teachers to a new level outside the classroom. We’ve worked with 58 students from E.L.Crossley Secondary School, Eastdale Secondary School, Laura Secord Secondary School and St. Catharines Collegiate. We thank drama teachers Jennifer Benson, Tracy Garratt, Karen Hancock, Rassika Malhotra, Brenna McAllister and Tracy Thorpe for welcoming us into their schools, for actively fostering creativity in their students and for their passionate commitment to drama at their school. There are many other schools and teachers we hope to work with in the future.”

The COMMOTION project is made possible by SSHRC: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Department of Dramatic Arts of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University, Carousel Players, TALK Niagara and approval from the District School Board of Niagara.

For tickets contact: Jane Gardner, 905-682-8326 x23 or jane@carouselplayers.com

Tags: Blythe Barker, Caitlin English, Carousel Players, Commotion, courthouse theatre, Governor Simcoe Secondary School, Gyllian Raby, Jacqueline Costa, Pablo Felices Luna, Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School, TALK Niagara, Trevor Rotenberg
Categories: Alumni, Current Students, Faculty & Instructors, News
DART Alumnus on the stage of The Grand Theatre

Sunday, November 06, 2011 | By Brock University

Eric Frank (DART 2011) was recently seen on stage in a production of To Master the Art at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario. It’s the story of Julia Child and the writing of her famous cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The play opens with Julia and her husband Paul’s arrival in France in 1948. Paul introduces her to fine French cuisine and she is completely smitten.

Professor Virginia Reh, who directed Eric in two mainstage productions at Brock, journeyed to London to see him in his professional debut and remarked, ‘In a production with 24 roles played by 10 actors, Eric proved a veritable chameleon, creating four very different vibrant characters. He was clearly comfortable in this professional milieu and his colleagues are enthusiastic about working with him.'”

Break-a-leg, Eric!

Tags: alumni, Eric Frank, Grand Theatre, To Master The Art
Categories: Alumni, News