Events

• Small Walker Press launches publications exploring music, choreography

  Wednesday, May 05, 2021 | By gminaker

  

  Image caption: The Small Walker Press has announced two new spring publications: Arc, a choreographed poem and Improvising Places / Improvising Time.

  Originally published in The Brock News on TUESDAY, MAY 04, 2021 | by Gillian Minaker

  The Small Walker Press (SWP) is announcing two new spring publications with an online book launch page.

  With in-person book launches still on hold due to public health restrictions, the innovative publishing house within Brock’s Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (MIWSFPA) opted for a virtual celebration.

  The online launch page features two new books: Arc, a choreographed poem written by Paul Savoie with accompanying choreography by Mélanie Mesager, and Improvising Places / Improvising Time with music notation by Devon Fornelli, creative writing by Thomas Ayouti and essays by Derek Knight and Matthew Royal. Graphic design for both publications was done by Bernhard Cella.

  The concept for the books, “music and choreography,” was outlined by Small Walker Press editors Catherine Parayre, Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, and Derek Knight, Associate Professor of Visual Arts. The creative texts were inspired by these themes, drawing on inspiration from participating artists incorporating dance, music and creative writing.

  The book launch page features excerpts from the publications as well as notes from both SWP editors.

  To learn more about The Small Walker Press, please visit the website.

  Tags: Catherine Parayre, Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, Derek Knight, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, MIWSFPA, Small Walker Press, STAC, swp
  Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Future Students, In the Media, Media Releases, News, Uncategorised

• Art residency “A River Rises” now on view

  Friday, January 15, 2021 | By gminaker

  

  Caption: Brown Homestead (Photo by Shawn Serfas)

  STAC’s Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture presents “A River Rises,” a collective investigation of a creative-writing piece, resulting in the creation of photography work, a recorded performance, an inverted sculpture, an experimental book, and more fiction writing. The project also documents the Brown Homestead, in close proximity of Short Hills Provincial Park and the oldest building in St. Catharines.

  View A River Rises here.

  To learn more about the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, please visit the STAC website.

  Tags: Catherine Parayre, Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, Derek Knight, Humanities, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, MIWSFPA, Nicholas Hauck, Shawn Serfas, STAC, STAC Research Centre
  Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Future Students, News, Uncategorised

• Join Studies in Arts and Culture for virtual open office hours

  Monday, November 30, 2020 | By gminaker

  

  Catherine Parayre, Director of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC) will be hosting virtual open office hours on:

  Wednesday, Dec. 2 2020, 1-2 p.m.

  Wanting to know more about arts and culture, arts management, careers in the field? Do you have questions about our STAC courses? For any question, or just to say hello, don’t hesitate to join Catherine Parayre, Director of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture on Wednesday 2 December 2020 from 1 to 2 pm.

  You are invited to call STAC Virtual Hour 2 Dec 2020 1-2 pm on Lifesize.

  Join the meeting: https://call.lifesizecloud.com/6623799
  Join the Lifesize meeting using Skype for Business: https://skype.lifesizecloud.com/6623799

  Click to call from Mobile (audio only)
  Canada: +1 (844) 572-5683,, 6623799#
  United States: +1 (877) 422-8614,, 6623799#
  United States: +1 (833) 881-5208,, 6623799#

  Call in by Phone (audio only)
  Canada: +1 (844) 572-5683
  United States: +1 (877) 422-8614
  United States: +1 (833) 881-5208

  Meeting extension: 6623799#
  Additional phone numbers: https://call.lifesize.com/numbers
  Other ways to call: https://call.lifesize.com/otherways/6623799

  Tags: Catherine Parayre, Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, STAC
  Categories: Events, News, Uncategorised

• Interiors, a new online exhibit from the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, now on view virtually

  Monday, September 21, 2020 | By gminaker

  

  (Image: Trieste 2, Derek J.J. Knight.)

  As part of its 2020-2021 programming, the Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture opens a virtual space on the theme of interiors, interiority, and confinement, the role they play in collective life and/or how they may be contested. The exhibit seeks to explore the shifting boundaries of intimacy and domesticity in a dynamic virtual space, presenting multi-disciplinary content and critical engagement.

  Interiors features the work of various artists, authors and musicians, and invites viewers to participate in creative activities.

  Curatorial Team: Alexandra Fraser, Marcie Bronson, Derek Knight, Catherine Parayre, Nicholas Hauck

  https://exhibits.library.brocku.ca/s/interiors/page/welcome

  Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture / Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture

  Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Future Students, In the Media, Media Releases, News, Uncategorised

• Join Studies in Arts and Culture for virtual open office hours!

  Thursday, September 10, 2020 | By dvivian

  

  Catherine Parayre, Director of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture will be hosting virtual open office hours on:

  Tuesday 15 September, 2020 (3-4:00 pm, EST)

  She will be available for:

  • advising and support;
  • course and program opportunities;
  • outreach, experiential activities, and professionalization;
  • or just to say hello and have a chat.

  Join the meeting on Lifesize: https://call.lifesizecloud.com/5312972

  Join the Lifesize meeting using Skype for Business: https://skype.lifesizecloud.com/5312972

  Click to call from Mobile (audio only):
  Canada: +1 (844) 572-5683,, 5312972#
  United States: +1 (877) 422-8614,, 5312972#
  United States: +1 (833) 881-5208,, 5312972#

  Call in by Phone (audio only)
  Canada: +1 (844) 572-5683
  United States: +1 (877) 422-8614
  United States: +1 (833) 881-5208
  Meeting extension: 5312972#

  Additional phone numbers: https://call.lifesize.com/numbers

  Other ways to call: https://call.lifesize.com/otherways/5312972

  Tags: advising, Catherine Parayre, office hours, STAC
  Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Future Students, News, Uncategorised

• Welcome to the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture: Orientation for 2020!

  Monday, September 07, 2020 | By dvivian

  

  (a screen shot from the welcome by STAC Major student, Maya Meyerman. Watch the video below.)

  ---

  Brock University is launching the first-ever Virtual Welcome Week.
  During this year of the pandemic the Orientation activities are all online.
  Watch the welcome below and visit the official Orientation page for all the details!

  ---

  The Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC)

  STAC Major student, Maya Meyerman has prepared this welcome message for you:

  Dr. Catherine Parayre, Director of the Centre, will be holding office hours on September 8th from 2-3 pm on Lifesize.
  Drop-in and say hi! (click here)

  Additional Office hours will be:

  • Tuesday 15 September, 3-4 pm
  • Wednesday 7 October, 2-3 pm
  • Tuesday 17 November, 3-4 pm
  • Wednesday 2 December, 1-2 pm

  Interiors, a curated virtual platform has been launched!  Interiors is the home of various creative projects by Affiliates of STAC’s Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture, also with student exhibitions. Check out our Outreach Activities: participate and be published on the site!

  ti< is an online journal (ISSN 1929-4336) that publishes creative work combining text and image. It is primarily interested in creative work by students, their instructors, as well as by artists and writers whose work combines literature and the visual arts. All languages are welcome, including endangered languages. No translation is needed. Next issue: March 2021. Submissions accepted until 15 February 2020. Please send to cparayre@brocku.ca https://journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/ti

  Check out the Advising Letter for more news about exciting opportunities at the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture!

  STAC Majors: more info and regular updates are available on Sakai on the tab titled… ‘STAC Majors’.  Add this tab to your Sakai courses.

  ---

  The Department of Dramatic Arts, Music, Visual Arts, and the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture are all part of the Faculty of Humanities.

  The Associate Dean, Dr. Neta Gordon, Professor of English, welcomes you to Brock University! She’s prepared an 11 minute video to introduce to you to the Faculty of Humanities:

  ---

  Michael Gicante is your Academic Advisor for studies at the MIWSFPA.
  He prepared this video for the April open House:

  ---

  Koreen McCullough is the Experiential Education Coordinator for the Faculty of Humanities.
  Watch her 3 minute presentation about Experiential Education opportunities at Brock University:

  ---

  The Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts

  Located at 15 Artists’ Common in downtown St. Catharines, the MIWSFPA is home to four academic programs. We are right next door to the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre on the main street of St. Catharines, St. Paul.

  Each program at the MIWSFPA is offering a special welcome to their students.  For example, if you are a beginning your studies as a major in Dramatic Arts, check out what that Department has scheduled for you and plan to join in the fun.  You are also welcome to join the activities of each program at the School even if you are only taking one course or beginning a minor program.  The activities and welcome messages from each program are listed below.

  Professor David Vivian, of the Department of Dramatic Arts (he teaches design and production for theatre), is the Director of the School:

  David will be hosting office hours on September 8, 2020, from 12-3:00 pm,on Teams.
  Drop in and say hi! (click here)

  ---

  We all wish you a very successful year at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts.

  Tags: 2020, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, MIWSFPA, ORIENTATION, STAC, studies in arts and culture
  Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Future Students, In the Media, News, Uncategorised

• CrissCross, a new student exhibition at the MIWSFPA

  Sunday, March 08, 2020 | By dvivian

  

  EDITOR’S NOTE: This exhibition is unavailable for viewing until further notice. It is closed as part of Brock University’s ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of students, faculty, staff and the community in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Please check here again.

  CrissCross, a new student exhibition at the MIWSFPA

  March 5 – 28
  opening reception: March 12th, 5 p.m.
  (This is also the reception for the Artist Talk by the Walker Cultural Leader, Landon Mackenzie.)

  VISA Gallery and Student Exhibition Space, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts, 15 Artists’ Common, St. Catharines, L2R 0B5.

  The gallery is open Tuesday-Saturday, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

  An exhibition by students from the Studies in Arts and Culture and Visual Arts programs. Our hybrid assemblages celebrate incongruity and unfettered associations. Whether abstract or figurative, paintings, or texts, they are intended to trigger reactions, prompt comparisons, and challenge the usual. Beyond the immediate effect of surprise, they provoke, their apparent disparateness nevertheless generates, on closer view, a semblance of overall coherence.

  Tags: CrissCross, STAC, studies in arts and culture, visa, Visual Arts
  Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Media Releases, News, Uncategorised

• Industrial Niagara, a new exhibition at Rodman Hall Arts Centre, on view March 7

  Thursday, February 06, 2020 | By dvivian

  

  (image: Shawn Serfas)

  EDITOR’S NOTE: This exhibition is unavailable for viewing until further notice. It is closed as part of Brock University’s ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of students, faculty, staff and the community in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Please check here again.

  Industrial Niagara
  March 7-22, 2020, Rodman Hall Art Centre, Brock University
  Saturday, March 14, 2-4 p.m. Speaker Series

  Industrial Niagara, an exhibition, brings together key works by members of the Research Centre, Studies in Arts and Culture, Brock University.

  Visual artists Candace Couse, Catherine Parayre, Shawn Serfas, Donna Szőke, and ARTIndustria share their insights by responding to the natural environs and the features that distinguish the presence, loss or history of industry in Niagara’s landscape. A combination of hinterland, cataract and escarpment, waterways and canals, hydro-electric generators and high tension wires, manufacturing facilities, factories, subdivisions and farmland, this is the first of a series of reflections or aesthetic interpretations on the meaning of locale (genius loci).

  

  download poster

  Curated by Derek J.J. Knight, with a speaker series programmed by Catherine Parayre, on Saturday, March 14.

  Visit the Industrial Niagara Virtual Gallery.

  See the video produced by YourTV Niagara, on March 16, 2020.

  EDITOR’S NOTE: The below event has been cancelled as part of Brock University’s ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of students, faculty, staff and the community in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

  Rodman Hall Art Centre will host a cultural event on Saturday, March 14, 2-4 p.m. featuring readings by award-winning authors Natalee Caple and Adam Dickinson as well as short reflections by Niagara residents on their observations, research or experience, from the impact of the Welland Canal to the generation of hydro-electric power: Clark Bernat, Derek Knight, Reinhard Reitzenstein, David Sharron, Penelope Stewart, and David Vivian.

  Open to members of the public this event is organized as part of the Research Centre’s outreach and to encourage future partnerships in an ongoing series of thematic projects.

  download the program for Industrial Niagara

  The Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture acknowledges the support of Brock University: Centre for Studies in Arts and Cultures, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Studies in Comparative Literature and Arts, Dean’s Office in Humanities, Research Services, and Rodman Hall Art Centre.

  New research centre fosters interdisciplinary approach to arts and culture
  [brocknews, alison innes. MONDAY, MARCH 02, 2020]

  The Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture (RCIACC) establishes a network of researchers and creators across Faculties at Brock and beyond the University. The research centre is part of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC).

  “STAC has an established reputation as an interdisciplinary academic centre and it was therefore logical to home an interdisciplinary research centre in the unit,” says Associate Professor Catherine Parayre, who led the initiative with Associate Professor Derek Knight and is the Centre’s new director.

  The Centre will engage with a broad range of creative expression, including visual arts, dramatic arts, music, creative writing and translation, book and graphic design, cultural heritage, and photography.The Centre includes faculty from Arts and Culture, Visual Arts, Dramatic Arts, Music, Curatorial Studies, French Studies, English Literature, Digital Humanities, and Education.

  The centre will be doing outreach at Rodman Hall Art Centre through exhibitions and talks and in collaboration with the Willow Arts Community.

  Tags: Adam Dickinson, ArtIndustria+, Candace Couse, Catherine Parayre, Clark Bernat, David Sharron, david vivian, Derek Knight, Donna Szőke, IACC, Industrial Niagara, Natalee Caple, Penelope Stewart, Reinhard Reitzenstein, Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture, RHAC, Rodman Hall Arts Centre, Shawn Serfas, speaker series, Welland Canal
  Categories: Announcements, Events, Faculty & Instructors, In the Media, Media Releases, News, Uncategorised

• Imagined Urban Gardens opens at Rodman Hall Art Centre

  Friday, January 31, 2020 | By dvivian

  

  Imagined Urban Gardens: Student Exhibition
  Jan. 30 – March 1, 2020

  

  download the poster

  Rodman Hall Art Centre
  109 St. Paul Crescent, St. Catharines, ON

  Responding to the explorations of urban architecture and its materials in Teresa Carlesimo and Michael DiRisio: more light than heat (on exhibition at the Rodman Hall Art Centre), Imagined Urban Gardens also reflects on today’s global warming and how we could live in the future.

  We dream of green spaces and pleasantly warm cities.
  Students in Visual Arts and Studies in Arts and Culture envision in text and image what could be in a livable world.

  See the YourTV Niagara video spotlight about this exhibition, featuring interviews with the artists and curators.

  Read the article by Bart Gazzola in The Sound STC.

  Tags: Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, Imagined Urban Gardens, RHAC, Rodman Hall, Visual Arts
  Categories: Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Media Releases, News, Uncategorised

• Donna Szőke presents ‘On Invisibility’, January 21 at the MIWSFPA

  Thursday, January 16, 2020 | By dvivian

  

  On 21 January, the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture welcomes artist Donna Szőke, Chair of the Department of Visual Arts and a member of the recently created Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture, as a Walker Cultural leader for 2020.

  Szőke will present an artists’ talk “On Invisibility” at 7:00 pm at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts of Brock University (MIWSFPA). This is a free community event and everyone is welcome to attend.

  Invisibility is this year’s theme at The Small Walker Press, a small press valuing interdisciplinary cooperation and the exploration of image and text, homed in the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC) at the MIWSFPA.

  Szőke creates expanded animation, media art, video, drawing, and collaborations. She investigates immanence, embodied perception, and the fluidity of lived experience.

  In her artist’s talk, she will present her work and her current book project The Dark Redacted in cooperation with author Gary Barwin, to be published in April 2020 by the Small Walker Press.

  In an excerpt from the forthcoming volume, editors Catherine Parayre and Derek Knight write:

  Donna Szőke thoughtfully investigates the fluidity of meaning and presence. Rather than elucidating a concept or an experience, she proposes a semi-abstract perusal of collective or intimate issues. Offering a reflection on the evocative instability of the biographical and the personal, and opting for an approach close to autofiction, her work constellates subtle possibilities and its scope defies the limitations of certainty. The artist is a compelling storyteller for whom the quest for meaning and the vagrancies of that search are more significant than plain facts. For The Dark Redacted Szőke proposes traces of a fragile story and never-faltering endurance. Her sequence of images alternates beautifully detailed natural life – a buffalo, intricate vegetation – and minimally sketched-out human presence and personal objects. As a result, her work addresses the viewers’ intuition and sensitivity to the environment.

  The event is presented by the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture 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.Join us on January 21, 2020 at 7-8:30 pm.  The presentation takes place in the Art & Val Fleming Smart Classroom (MWS 156), located on the lower level of the MIWSFPA.  Limited parking is available at the MIWSFPA, with additional parking nearby at the Garden Park/Carlisle Street Parking garage and adjacent lots.

  Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture: Walker Cultural Leader Artist’s talk
  ‘On Invisibility’, with Donna Szőke
  21 January 2020, 7-8:30 pm, MWS 156

  download the poster

  Tags: Barwin, Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, MIWSFPA, STAC, Szőke, visa, Visual Arts, Walker Cultural Leader, WCL
  Categories: Announcements, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Media Releases, News, Uncategorised