Welcome to a new semester, a new academic year and a totally fresh series of events in Fine Arts! Even though it’s only September and the academic year has just begun, we’re already looking at a busy month of concerts, readings, guest lectures, exhibits, plays and discussions. Just for ease of reading, we’ve broken these down into our various departments.
Jeff Barnaby
• Orion Series in Indigeneity & the Arts: filmmaker Jeff Barnaby
7pm Monday, Sept 26 • UVic’s David Lam Auditorium (MAC A144) • Free
The Faculty of Fine Arts is kicking off our new Orion Series in Indigeneity & the Arts with a film screening and discussion featuring Mi’kmaq filmmaker Jeff Barnaby. Also a writer, composer & film editor, the award-winning Barnaby is best known for his 2013 debut film Rhymes for Young Ghouls, which earned accolades when it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. In addition to this public lecture, Barnaby will also be making a series of classroom visits during his week on campus.
Steven Price (C Centric Photography)
• Alumni book launch: Steven Price, By Gaslight
7:30pm Tuesday, Sept 13, at Munro’s Books, 1108 Government • Free
Noted poet, author & Writing alum Steven Price launches his latest book, the much-anticipated 19th century thriller By Gaslight. Breaking news: By Gaslight was just announced as being one of 12 books on the 2016 Giller Prize longlist! The buzz about this book has been building since 2014, when it was reported that price had signed a six-figure international book deal.
• Victoria Fest of Authors
Sept 21-25 • Various venues, prices
The Victoria Festival of Authors features 16 authors and four days of discussions, readings, book signings, workshops, and festivities in downtown Victoria. On the bill are celebrated Writing alumni Carla Funk, Steven Price, Yasuko Thanh, as well as former Southam Lecturer Richard Wagamese. Specific sessions will also be led by faculty member Bill Gaston (“The Latest Bag of Tricks: Humour in the Written Word”) and sessional instructor Marita Dachsel (“Between and Liminal: Writing Through the Lyrical Eye”).
Lorna Crozier
• Department of Writing Faculty Reading Night
7pm Wed Sept 28 • Hickman 105 • Free
Always a highlight of the year, the Department of Writing Faculty Reading Night acclaimed teaching faculty when they share new work at this popular annual reading night. This year’s guests include new poetry professor & alumnus Shane Book, plus faculty members Bill Gaston, Joan MacLeod, Tim Lilburn, Lorna Jackson, David Leach, Maureen Bradley, Lee Henderson, Kevin Kerr and the announcement of the recipient of the inaugural Lorna Crozier Scholarship—with Lorna Crozier herself in attendance!
• Open Word: poet Louise Bernice Halfe
9:30 am-12:30 pm Monday, Sept 26 • Fine Arts 203 • Free
7:30pm Tuesday, Sept 27 • Open Space, 510 Fort • By donation
Giving a haunting picture of Canada’s residential school legacy, poet Louise Bernice Halfe will read from her collection, Burning in this Midnight Dream. In addition to her UVic and Open Space readings, she will also be appearing at the Victoria Festival of Authors, where she will read (Sept 23) and hold a Masterclass (Sept 24). Released in spring of 2016, Burning in this Midnight Dream was written as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission unfolded. Halfe’s sometimes fierce, sometimes tender voice opens a window through which we can see ways colonial violence moves through families, communities, and lives.
• Visiting Artist: John G. Hampton
7:30pm Wed Sept 14 in Visual Arts A150 • Free
The first Visiting Artist of the season appears this week, as the long-running Visual Arts series returns with renewed energy and an expanded list of artists. Now hooked to a for-credit course, it will be great to see so many noted artists visiting campus in the months ahead. First up is John G. Hampton, who curates the group exhibit Why Can’t Minimal, running Sept 16-Oct 22 Open Space. The executive director of the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon, Manitoba, Hampton sets out to both challenge & engage the critiques of minimalism. In his hands, art history is witty, candid and speculative.
Cynthia Girard
• Visiting Artist: Cynthia Girard Renard
7:30pm Wed Sept 28 • Visual Arts A150
For over 20 years, Montreal-based artist Cynthia Girard-Renard has created a multitudinous universe where politics, identity and imaginary worlds come together through painting, sculpture, installation, poetry and performance. Her broad range of techniques encompass various forms and take an experimental and theatrical approach to the exhibition context, such as large format works, banners, scenic backdrops, costumes and accessories, mobiles, sound sculptures, support structures, and more.
• Art Exhibit: Mowry Baden Toroidal Yodel
Wed-Sat, 12-5, to Oct 8 • Deluge Contemporary, 636 Yates
Renowned sculptor & Visual Arts professor emeritus Mowry Baden presents the kinetic exhibit Toroidal Yodel, an extension of the artist’s ongoing interest in haptic sculpture. “I don’t want to burden the viewer with any exotic conditions,” he says in this interview. “I want the viewer to experience the sculpture as directly as possible.” With that in mind, Toroidal Yodel uses vortices to hurl palpable but invisible donuts of air at people interacting with it.
• Out of the Frame: Salish Printmaking
Celebration Event + Artist Roundtable, 1-4pm Saturday, Sept 24 • UVic’s Legacy Gallery, 630 Yates • Free
An afternoon event featuring an artist roundtable discussion with the artists from the current exhibit Out of the Frame: Salish Printmaking on the role of printmaking in their practices and new directions for printing taken up in the exhibition. The discussion will be moderated by exhibit curator, UVic’s Dr. Andrea Walsh, and will feature a guest talk reflecting on the production of prints by Salish artists given by independent scholar India Rael Young, followed by a celebration with the Tzinquaw Dancers.
Rande Cook at UVic (Photo Services)
• HIWEST Forum & Panel Discussion
6:30pm Friday, Sept 30 • UVic’s Legacy Gallery, 630 Yates • Free
Join Visual Arts Audain Professor Rande Cook and Visual Arts MFA student Hjalmer Wenstob, alongside artists Doug Lafortune & Lou-Ann Neel, at the HIWEST Forum & Panel Discussion—an event focused on celebrating, honouring and preserving Pacific Northwest Indigenous poles and monumental wood carvings. Poles and other monumental wood carving have been commissioned and installed throughout our region in recent decades, eliciting huge public interest and appetite to learn more about the traditions, practices and meanings. This event will help all of us delve deeper into the understanding, honouring, and caring for the poles/monumental wood carving that are so rich with cultural significance. Panel discussion curated by Dr Andrea Walsh, with a short talk by UBC Museum of Anthropology curator Heidi Swierenga.
• Mysterious Barracades: A concert for suicide awareness, prevention and hope
6:30pm Saturday, Sept 10 • UVic’s Phillip T. Young Recital Hall • Free
From sunrise in St. John’s, NL to sunset in Victoria, World Suicide Prevention Day will feature an 18-hour concert of hope and awareness gracing a westward sequence of stages across Canada and live-streamed on the internet. Featuring some of Canada’s finest musicians performing a unique variety of classical, jazz and aboriginal music, this event will encourage discourse and raise awareness of the mysterious barricades between mental illness and health. The Victoria program will feature UVic’s own Lafayette String Quartet, Suzanne Snizek (flute), Michelle Mares & Harald Krebs (piano), Colin Tilney (harpsichord), Sharon Krebs (soprano), Benjamin Butterfield (tenor) plus Ken Lavigne (tenor) and Victoria’s Louise Rose among others performing music by Dvořák, Couperin, Beethoven, Schubert, Smit and Lang. Local performer and radio documentary producer Rebecca Hass will MC the evening’s events.
The Lafayette String Quartet
• Faculty Concert: Lafayette String Quartet
2:30pm Sunday, Sept 18 • UVic’s Phillip T Young Recital Hall • $25
Join UVic’s beloved quartet-in-residence as they celebrate their 30th anniversary season. The Lafayette String Quartet will be performing Shostakovich – String Quartet No. 7, Op. 108, Schafer – Quartet No. 11, and Brahms – Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115 with guest clarinet Patricia Kostek. And you can read some 30th anniversary reflections in this Times Colonist article from the summer.
• Faculty Concert: South Indian Classical Music
8pm Friday, Sept 30 • UVic’s Phillip T Young Recital Hall • $10-$20 • Tune in here for the live broadcast.
UVic Jazz Studies professor Patrick Boyle is joined by Canadian-based percussionist/ composer/teacher Curtis Andrews for this evening of South Indian Classical Music. Andrews creates music that is informed by his many years of experience with West African, South Indian and jazz traditions yet transcends most categories. He is currently a PhD student in Ethnomusicology at UBC.
• These are just a few of the School of Music’s events this month—see their full concert lineup here.
• Student Alternative Theatre Company presents Dog Shit
12:45pm Wed-Fri, Sept 21-23 • Phoenix Theatre • $4 suggested donation
Each semester, SATCo—the Student Alternative Theatre Company—presents workshop productions of new plays, some written by Theatre students and some by Writing students. Dog Shit is the first production of the 2016/17 season, written by Caitlin Holm and directed by Kristof Melling.
Theatre student
Nicholas Guerreiro
• SATCo: O, Come All Ye Faithful
12:45pm Wed-Fri, Sept 28-30 • Phoenix Theatre • $4 suggested donation
Join playwright Nicholas Guerreiro—the winner of last year’s annual Times Colonist writing contest—and director Nadine Cordery for their new show. O, Come All Ye Faithful focuses on Rothko and Christine, two night employees of the 24-hour museum of controversial art, who receive an unexpected visitor the night of Christmas Eve.