News

• Exhibition: Permanent Vacation

  Sunday, October 29, 2017 | By dvivian

  

  This exhibition will showcase a select group of recent Brock University Alumni: Katie Mazi, Jenn Judson, Matt Caldwell, Alex Muresan, Jessica Wright and Ben Mosher. As these emerging artists expand ideas and develop new work, they continue to recognize the value of the St. Catharines arts community and the impact it has on their practice. It was here at Brock University that their first investigations began and it was at Rodman Hall (2014/2015 & 2015/2016) that their first professional group exhibitions came to fruition. These artists will exhibit new and exciting work they have been producing as they navigate and emerge into the art communities locally and beyond the region. The exhibition will be curated by Asta McCann Brock alumni (Studies in Arts and Culture).

  Additionally, Alumni music students: Grace Snippe, Annie Slade, and Kurt Dunn will be performing for the night of the reception.

  Exhibition: Saturday, November 4, 2017 to Friday, December 1, 2017

  regular visiting hours for the Exhibition Space are Tuesday through Saturday from 1-5 p.m
  for additional times see: gallery webpage    gallery facebook page

  Opening Reception: Friday, November 10, 2017, 7:00 – 10:00 p.m.

  Location: Visa Gallery, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University

  A free community event.

  Tags: alumni, exhibition, Permanent Vacation
  Categories: Alumni, Events, News

• PANTALONE’S PALACE, DART’S First Mainstage for 2017-18, opens October 27!

  Wednesday, October 25, 2017 | By dvivian

  

  Pantalone’s Palace

  Love and power collide in this fun-filled, fast paced physical comedy.

  Written and Directed by Mike Griffin

  Set & Costume Design by: Kelly Wolf
  Lighting Design by Chris Malkowski
  Sound Design by: James McCoy
  Mask Maker: Gina Bastone
  Assistant Direction by: Helena Ciuciura

  Hardworking Columbina just wants to enjoy the majestic Wooers’ Woods in peace after a long day’s work, but the greedy business tycoon Pantalone is scheming. When Columbina discovers his plot to build the biggest casino in the world, she knows she must take action. Armed with her wits and her lovesick friends, she aims to set things right in this fun-filled, fast paced, physical comedy that explores the meeting of contemporary life and classical Commedia dell’Arte.

  When: October 27 – November 4, 2017
  FRIDAY, OCT. 27 & SATURDAY, OCT. 28 at 7:30 pm
  SUNDAY, OCT. 29 at 2:00 pm
  FRIDAY, NOV. 3 at 11:30 am & 7:30 pm
  SATURDAY, NOV. 4 at 7:30 pm

  The Department invites teachers and educators to bring their students to see this exciting new production of Commedia dell’arte.
  Read the Special Invitation to learn more.

  See the article in the Brock News.

  See the teaser video.

  Marilyn I. Walker Theatre at the
  Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts
  Limited paid parking onsite

  Purchase tickets at the FirstOntario PAC Box Office
  905.688.0722 or online firstontariopac.ca
  Tickets: $18 Adults|$15 Seniors/Students| $5 eyeGo | $12 Groups
  *Applicable fees and taxes are extra

  Tags: commedia dell'arte, dramatic arts, mainstage, Pantalone's Palace
  Categories: Events, News

• Brock University engages with community at Burlington Performing Arts Centre

  Wednesday, October 25, 2017 | By dtemprile

  

  Brock University Dramatic Arts faculty and students engage with young theatre artists and teachers at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre

  This past Tuesday Oct. 17, the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts participated in “Career Day – Life in the Theatre Industry” at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre. This event welcomed approximately 150 students/teachers from seven different schools and three different district school boards.

  The day consisted of interactive workshops and demonstrations to explore the many diverse careers available in the theatre industry, a live theatrical performance, and the opportunity to have one-on-one conversations with representatives and students of the leading college and university programs offering performance and production related theatre courses. It was a great opportunity for students to delve into the vocations of the theatre world in a creative and experiential manner.

  Throughout the day many teachers mentioned how successful the event was and how it fits so successfully into the secondary curriculum.

  The MIWSPFA looks forward to meeting these young artists again when they apply for future studies at Brock University!

  Tags: BPAC, Brock University, Burlington performing arts centre, dart, drama in education, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, miwsfpa, production and design, stagecraft
  Categories: News

• Donna Szoke’s work featured in New Media Caucus.

  Tuesday, October 24, 2017 | By dvivian

  

  Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Visual Arts, Donna Szoke’s work is discussed in the on-line journal New Media Caucus in an article by Lisa Moren, Professor of Visual Art and Graduate Program Director of Intermedia + Digital Art, MFA Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County [UMBC]. Her interactive video installation and all watched over by machines of loving grace is a humorous intervention in the dystopian reality of contemporary dataveillance and societies of control.

  Image courtesy of Tim Nohe.

  Tags: dataveillance, digitial, Donna Szoke, intermedia
  Categories: Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, News

• Speaker provides chilling reminder of Canadian slave history

  Tuesday, October 24, 2017 | By dtemprile

  

  Charmaine Nelson, far right, spoke on Colonial Print Culture and the Limits of Enslaved Resistance on Oct. 19 as part of the Walker Cultural Leader Series. She is pictured here with Department of Visual Arts Professors and event organizers, pictured from left, Keri Cronin, Linda Steer and Amy Friend.

  (Source: The Brock News, Thursday, October 26, 2017 | by: Alison Innes)

  Charmaine Nelson worked to paint a picture for the audience, one that detailed the experiences of Canadian slaves and the horrors they endured throughout history.

  The renowned scholar, known for her groundbreaking contributions in the fields of black Canadian studies, visual culture of slavery, and race and representation, delivered the first 2017-18 public lecture of Brock’s Walker Cultural Leader Series on Oct. 19.

  Her address drew more than 150 people who gathered at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in downtown St. Catharines to listen to her presentation, Colonial Print Culture and the Limits of Enslaved Resistance: Examining the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Fugitive Slave Archive in Canada and Jamaica.

  A professor of Art History at McGill University, Nelson has published seven books and held a number of prestigious research chairs across North America. She is currently the William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University for 2017-18.

  As the first and currently only black professor within the discipline of Art History at a Canadian university, Nelson, through her website, is an advocate for the field of Black Canadian Studies.

  Her latest research, which she shared in her talk, attempts to understand the black experience in Canada by examining fugitive slave advertisements for details about the process of creolization in slave minority (temperate) and slave majority (tropical) locations in the British Empire.

  Nelson explained how she reconceptualizes fugitive slave ads — once produced by slave owners seeking to recapture their runaways — as portraits of enslaved people. The ads can provide information on a group of people who often leave no record of their own, she said.

  These portraits, however, are imperfect, since the subject is an unwilling participant and the depiction is written by the white slave owner. In addition, only slaves considered sufficiently valuable were pursued through advertising.

  Fugitive slave ads provided detailed racialized descriptions of enslaved people, including complexion, hairstyle, clothing, language, accents and bodily marks. In some cases, the ads offered rewards for the recapture of a fugitive slave, encouraging white participation in the criminalization of fugitive slaves.

  While the ads provide a portrait of enslaved people, they are also a lop-sided truth, Nelson explained. Some owners maligned fugitives with sweeping generalizations about their character, while others detailed specific crimes the enslaved person was alleged to have committed. Such descriptions helped associate blackness with slavery and criminality.

  Nelson draws on a variety of archival sources in her research to flesh out these portraits, tracing fugitive slave stories through estate ledgers, bills of sale, poll tax records and workhouse and jail ledgers.

  Nelson’s talk also explored the link between print and slave culture. Printed newspaper ads in the 18th and 19th century permitted white slave owners to assert their ownership over long distances.

  Although printers facilitated slavery by asserting rights of white people to own slaves, the abolitionist movement eventually used the same fugitive slave ads, with their references to injuries, scars and branding, to show the horror of slavery.

  As Nelson pointed out, many Canadians are unaware of Canada’s history of enslaving black and indigenous peoples.

  “Slavery is not a black history,” she explained, “but a multi-racial, transatlantic history. Who were the slave owners, the ships’ captains, the printers, the jailers?”

  The narrative of the Underground Railway, which Canadians eagerly embrace, spanned a period of about only 30 years, Nelson explained. She went on to challenge listeners to consider why the preceding two centuries of slavery in Canada have been erased from history.

  In concluding her talk, Nelson encouraged the audience to change the lens through which they see history. The opportunities in the field of Canadian slavery history are immense, she said, while directing her words to students. Since so few people are studying the black Canadian experience, there are many contributions to be made.

  The talk is part of the 2017-18 Walker Cultural Leaders Series, organized by Professors Keri Cronin, Linda Steer and Amy Friend the Department of Visual Arts and funded by the generous legacy of Marilyn I. Walker.

  The author, Alison Innes, has assembled her live tweets about the lecture at Storify.

  Tags: Amy Friend, Charmaine A. Nelson, Charmaine Nelson, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, keri cronin, Linda Steer, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Walker Cultural Leader Series
  Categories: News

• Brock co-led research to study police training in mental illness

  Monday, October 02, 2017 | By dvivian

  

  Dr. Natalie Alvarez, an associate professor in the Department of Dramatic Arts

  (Source: The Brock News, Wednesday, September 13, 2017 | by Cathy Majtenyi)

  It’s the heat of the moment. A person in mental health distress is waving a knife in the air, yelling or screaming or perhaps even silent. A police officer is on the scene.

  What happens next?

  It’s a question that undoubtedly will come up in Toronto police Constable James Forcillo’s appeal trial, which started Monday. Forcillo was convicted of attempted murder for the 2013 shooting of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim on a Toronto streetcar.

  It’s also a question that Brock University researchers Natalie Alvarez and Yasmine Kandil are exploring in their research on how to use theatre to train police officers.

  

  Dr. Yasmine Kandil

  Alvarez, an associate professor in the Department of Dramatic Arts, along with Yasmine Kandil, an assistant professor in Dramatic Arts, are co-leading a study that will create and evaluate the effectiveness of a type of scenario-based police training grounded in problem-based training methods the team refers to as ‘forum scenarios.’

  In forum scenarios, a scene is played out for an audience. The scene is then performed again, but an audience member can step in to intervene by making different choices, creating a different outcome and changing the way a particular issue is viewed or dealt with. It’s a form of teaching and learning that promotes the principles of procedural justice.

  Theatre educators Alvarez and Kandil of Brock’s Department of Dramatic Arts, and Wilfred Laurier forensic psychologist Jennifer Lavoie, alongside their cross-Canada team with specializations in mental illness and de-escalation training, are partnering with the Durham Regional Police and collaborators from the Ontario Police College.

  The federal government’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council has awarded the team a $310,960 grant to carry out the four-year study.

  “Experiential learning through forum methods is much more effective in integrating knowledge, being able to apply that knowledge and retain it long term,” says Alvarez. The study builds on Alvarez’s upcoming book that examines the use of immersive simulations in a variety of training and educational contexts.

  Experts involved in the scenarios aim to teach police officers how to recognize behavioural characteristics of various mental illnesses that may present barriers to communication in high-stakes encounters, the impacts and consequences that certain actions will have on the person in crisis, and how to de-escalate volatile situations.

  “We want to recreate situations where the officer perceives a situation where there’s an imminent threat, they’re under extreme stress, and they have to make refined, ethical judgments in that moment of stress,” says Alvarez.

  The team will also address mental health stigmas and misconceptions.

  For Alvarez, the research is not just academic.

  “My oldest sister suffers from schizophrenia and she’s become an advocate for the rights of people living with mental illness,” says Alvarez, adding that her sister frequently gives talks to RCMP officers on the subject.

  Tags: dramatic arts, miwsfpa, natalie alvarez, Police Training, SSHRC, Yasmine Kandil
  Categories: Announcements, Department/Centre News, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, Media Releases, News

• Celebrated scholar Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson visits Brock University

  Tuesday, September 26, 2017 | By dtemprile

  

  Walker Cultural Leader Series and Canada 150 present:

  Colonial Print Culture and the Limits of Enslaved Resistance: Examining the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Fugitive Slave Archive in Canada and Jamaica, 

  a public lecture, reception, and book signing by Dr. Charmaine Nelson

  Dr. Charmaine Nelson is a Professor of Art History at McGill University. Her current research project juxtaposes fugitive slave advertisements, portraiture, and genre studies from Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Jamaica, to examine differences in the visual dimensions of creolization between slave minority and slave majority sites of the British Atlantic world. In 2016, she was named as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. Most recently, Nelson has been appointed the William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University for the 2017 – 2018 academic year. Dr. Nelson will present her research in a public lecture as a part of Visual Arts’ Walker Cultural Leader Series programming.

  The lecture abstract and presenter’s bio is available at Eventbrite.

  See the article in the Brock News.

  Thursday October 19, 2017

  Lecture Time: 7:00 pm.

  Note: The lecture will be followed by a reception and book signing at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

  Location: The FilmHouse, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul Street, St. Catharines

  This is a free community event. Reserve your seat with tickets available at Eventbrite.

  Groups are welcome! Contact Professor Linda Steer lsteer@brocku.ca for orders of more than 10 tickets.

  —

  The event is presented by the Department of Visual Arts for the Walker Cultural Leader Series, generously founded by Marilyn I. Walker.

  The Walker Cultural Leader series brings leading artists, performers, practitioners and academics to the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University. Engaging, lively and erudite, these sessions celebrate professional achievement, artistic endeavour and the indelible role of culture in our society. Please join us. This education program is generously founded by Marilyn I. Walker.

  Tags: Book signing, Canada 150, Colonial Print Culture, downtown St. Catharines, Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, free, Lecture, Reception, visual arts, Walker Cultural Leader Series
  Categories: Announcements, Events, News, Walker Cultural Leader Series

• Material Girls opens at Rodman Hall

  Thursday, September 21, 2017 | By dvivian

  

  Soheila Esfahani is one of 25 artists featured in Material Girls, an exhibition that opened Sept. 14 at Rodman Hall. She is pictured with her work, Cultured Pallets: Persian.

  (originally published in The Brock News on WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2017 by Alison Innes)

  Women have claimed the spotlight at Rodman Hall this fall with a new large-scale exhibition.

  Material Girls — all about women taking up space — brings together work by 25 Canadian and international artists from across all artistic disciplines and cultural backgrounds. The exhibition, which opened Sept. 14, explores how material processes and ideas of excess relate to the feminized body and gendered space.

  “At Rodman Hall, we strive to be an agent of social change, presenting exhibitions that have resonance within our community, while engaging with dialogues beyond it,” says Rodman Hall Curator Marcie Bronson. “Among the issues our curatorial team took into consideration when planning to present Material Girls is the reality that our community is ranked one of the worst places in Canada to be a woman.”

  Niagara is considered one of the worst places in the country for women to live. A 2016 review by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives ranked St. Catharines 19 out of Canada’s largest 25 metropolitan areas in terms of women’s education, health, personal security, economic security and positions of leadership.

  Women who are working in Niagara are earning 75 per cent of what men make for the same work. Out of all the communities surveyed, Niagara has the lowest level of full-time female employment, despite women being more likely than men to have completed higher education. Women are also underrepresented in leadership roles in government and business.

  “It is our hope that this exhibition and related programming will spark not only dialogue, but more importantly, action to affect the positive and lasting change that is necessary to close the gender gap and reach our city’s vision of being dynamic, innovative, sustainable and livable,” Bronson explains.

  Hosting the exhibition in Rodman’s historic domestic space is particularly meaningful.

  “The show Material Girls has inserted itself into the house, and has re-imagined this domestic space in a way that pulls the focus towards women,” explains Gallery Assistant Lauren Regier. “This is especially significant as there is little known about the Merritt women — Mary Benson Merritt and Maud Hudson Merritt — both of whom seem to have resided in the house longer than their respective husbands.”

  Rodman Hall has partnered with YWCA Niagara to present an outreach program that invites girls in Grades 10 to 12 to explore visual arts materials within the themes of taking up space and the feminized body. Participants in Power Girl Material Girl will create a collaborative installation that will be on view at Rodman Hall beginning Nov. 17 and wrapping up alongside the full Material Girls exhibition Dec. 30.

  The exhibition, for which tours are available Saturdays at 2 p.m., is curated by Blair Fornwald, Jennifer Matotek and Wendy Peart of the Dunlop Art Gallery, a unit of the Regina Public Library.

  Tags: Lauren Regier, Marcie Bronson, Material Girls, Rodman Hall Art Centre, visual arts
  Categories: Alumni, Department/Centre News, In the Media, News

• Dramatic Arts alumna honoured with Faculty of Humanities Distinguished Graduate Award

  Thursday, September 14, 2017 | By dvivian

  

  Brock alumna and puppeteer Sarah Argue will be giving a talk about her business at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts on Friday, Sept. 15, before being honoured at the Alumni Recognition Reception on Saturday, Sept. 16 as part of Homecoming weekend.

  (Source: The Brock News, Wednesday, September 13, 2017 | by Alison Innes)

  With a little felt and a lot of talent, Sarah Argue (BA ’06) has created a career for herself in the world of puppetry.

  Through her business, Rock the Arts, the Brock dramatic arts alumna has been touring across Canada with her crew of unique characters sharing shows about compassion, enjoying the little things in life and the power of choice.

  She will return to her alma mater Friday, Sept. 15 to share insight into her professional puppet company. The presentation will take place at 1 p.m. in Studio A of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts. All members of the Brock community are invited to attend.

  Argue is in town to receive the Faculty of Humanities Distinguished Graduate Award, to be presented on Saturday, Sept. 16 during the Alumni Recognition Reception held as part of Brock’s Homecoming weekend.

  It has been seven years since Argue launched her successful business after quitting what she described as a “normal job” — working as a program co-ordinator for the City of Ottawa — to pursue her passion.

  She taught herself how to make the felt creations and began taking her show on the road.

  Argue now has a roster of 80 puppets that she uses to perform shows in schools, libraries and theatres. She has also produced a children’s CD and currently has multiple projects on the go, including a film, children’s book and book to support other artists wanting to build their own careers.

  Argue credits the diverse theatre experience she received at Brock — where she performed in The Crucible and directed a Norm Foster play, among other productions — for preparing her for the stage.

  “I didn’t realize at the time what a gift it was,” Argue said of her Brock degree. “I didn’t realize what a well-balanced degree I was getting in theatre.”

  Her time as an undergrad had her touch on lighting, acting, directing and costuming — all beneficial to her career. That experience gave her the confidence to walk into any theatre and comfortably speak to the techs in charge about how her show is set up.

  Argue’s love for creating puppets is matched only by the experience of giving them a voice and watching them evolve into life-like characters.

  Turning her passion into a business hasn’t always been easy, but Argue has relied on the support of other artists. Puppeteer Noreen Young, from Under the Umbrella Tree, has been a mentor to Argue, helping her learn how to pitch to networks and encouraging her to keep going when times get tough.

  Workshops with puppeteer Trish Leeper of Muppets fame have introduced Argue to the idea of puppetry on camera, guiding her toward more film work, including the #IHopeFor awareness campaign for childhood cancer.

  “You need a lot of support from other artists to keep going,” Argue said, while expressing her desire to pay that sentiment forward.

  Carol Merriam, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, said the Faculty is pleased to recognize Argue with the Distinguished Graduate award.

  “The skills that she learned in her studies in dramatic arts and the creativity, enthusiasm and drive that were fostered at Brock have led her to create her own niche,” she said. “Hers is the kind of success we hope and expect from graduates of Brock.”

  Tags: Distinguished Alumni, dramatic arts, puppets, Rock the Arts, Sarah Argue
  Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Department/Centre News, News

• Brock University Annual Homecoming Weekend and Ontario 150 Presents … A Free SESQUI Virtual Reality Experience

  Tuesday, September 12, 2017 | By jmacanuel

  

  Saturday, September 16, 2017 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
  Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, 15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines, Ontario

  SESQUI, in collaboration with the James A. Gibson Library’s Makerspace, will be bringing a free Virtual Reality Experience to the Marilyn I. Walker Campus. The VR experience features 5-minute stories about Canadians who are shaping their world through creativity.

  Visitors can also make their own Sesquatch, allowing Canadians to explore their identity in an interactive and playful way.  Alongside virtual reality, the Makerspace will also be showcasing some of the emerging technologies, such as 3D printing, robotics, and circuitry, available at the James A. Gibson Library.

  Tags: 3D printing, Brock University Homecoming Weekend, Makerspace, sesquatch, SESQUI, virtual reality
  Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Department/Centre News, Future Students, News, Uncategorised