World premiere of climate disaster play at Phoenix Theatre

by | Sep 9, 2024 | Alumni, climate, donor, Faculty, Research, Theatre, Writing

People across Canada came together to help one another during recent climate disasters, and now Neworld Theatre and the Climate Disaster Project are bringing those true-life stories to the stage. Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Survivor Stories is the first full-length documentary theatre production based upon on-the-ground climate disaster reporting and will have its world premiere at the Phoenix Theatre from September 16-21.

Working with interview transcripts from hundreds of British Columbians on the frontlines of climate change, Vancouver’s internationally renowned Neworld Theatre has painted a portrait of 30 ordinary people living in extraordinary times — and a province under pressure from the impacts of climate change.

 “British Columbians have experienced so much loss because of the heat, fire, smoke and floods that have afflicted us,” says Alen Dominguez, Neworld managing director. “But what stood out to our playwrights was how people supported one another through those disasters—and the need for more support from people in power.”

 

 “Climate change is happening in the here and now,” says Climate Disaster Project founder Sean Holman, also the Wayne Crookes Professor in Environmental & Climate Journalism with the Department of Writing. “People know that, regardless of what they think is the cause — and they want to talk about the impacts it’s having on their day-to-day lives, and what can be done about them. This is an opportunity to bring those conversations into the community.”

Lytton residents Patsy Gessey & Owen survey the townsite, which was devastated during the 2021 Lytton Creek Fire. Gessey’s testimony, co-created by Climate Disaster Project co-founder Francesca Fionda, is one of more than 30 featured in Eyes of the Beast. (CDP Photo/Jen Osborne)

Every performance of Eyes of the Beast will include a survey and talkback session giving audiences the opportunity to reflect on the stories they’ve just heard and share their own experiences of climate disasters. The show’s creative team also features the talents of UVic Theatre alumni, including director Chelsea Haberlin and co-writer Sebastien Archibald, as well as the journalistic contributions of over a dozen Writing students.

A fishing guide who took his boat into flooded farmland to rescue an alligator. An actor rushed to the hospital for heat stroke after performing in front of the legislature. A mother figuring out how to prepare her child for the future after fire flattened their town.

Climate disaster is not far away, not happening to someone else. It is here now, happening to us. Eyes of the Beast shows how we still have each other during those disasters, creating community amidst catastrophe.

Founded in 2021, the Climate Disaster Project has trained hundreds of students at 13 post-secondary institutions to work on the frontlines of this ongoing humanitarian crisis by creating an extensive archive of eyewitness accounts. Nearly 300 testimonies have been collected from disaster survivors and shared in local, national and international publications, as well as national radio and television broadcasts.

Tickets range from $18-$34 and are available now via the Phoenix Theatre box office at 250-721-8000 for 7:30pm Monday-Saturday performances running September 16-21, plus a 2pm matinee on Saturday, September 21.  

 

Professional fishing guide Jordi Williams shows one of the photos he took while rescuing animals trapped on the Sumas Prairie during the 2021 Southern British Columbia floods. Williams’s testimony, co-created by UVic writing student Paul Voll, was included in Eyes of the Beast by Neworld Theatre’s playwrights. (CDP Photo/Phil McLachlan)

The cast of Eyes of the Beast: (from left) Jessica Wong, Danica Charlie, Sarah Conway, Vuk Prodanovic

“solastalgia” exhibit closing panel talk

by | Sep 5, 2024 | Award, climate, Events, Graduate, School of Music, Writing

Don’t miss the closing night panel talk for solastalgia [soon to be what once was] — the new exhibit by current School of Music Master’s student in music technology & Ocean Networks Canada artist-in-residence Megan Harton. This event will feature fascinating insights and lively discussion from artists and experts in melding art with science, and environmental activism.

Join us at 7pm Friday, Sept 6, in room 103 of the Fine Arts building, with a guided tour of the exhibit to follow. Panelists include Megan Harton (2024 ONC Artist in Residence), Neil Griffin (2023 ONC Artist in Residence), Pieter Romer (Filmmaker & ONC Indigenous Community Liaison) and Dwight Owens (ONC Associate Director of Learning and Community Engagement).

This exhibit explores the emotional response to environmental change using soundscapes, experimental photography, and video elements alongside nostalgic retro iconography to evoke a sense of “solastalgia”—distress caused by the disruption of familiar environments. By integrating scientific data from ONC’s observatories with artistic mediums, Harton’s work invites visitors to reflect on the impact of climate change, memory and place.

A passionate composer, audio engineer and sound artist, Harton is the fifth artist-in-residence in this continuing partnership between ONC and the Faculty of Fine Arts. “My artistic practice is primarily about using sound technologies in artistic ways,” Harton explains.

For his part, Griffin will share writings developed during his time as ONC’s 2023 artist-in-residence, exploring the mystery of “whale falls” — what happens after whales die, which still remains something of a biological mystery.

“Imagine you build a new apartment building and various people live there as it ages and eventually falls apart,” Griffin says. “That’s what happens with a whale carcass: various scavengers and decomposers move in and out . . . there are even worms that take hundreds of years to burrow single-mindedly through a thick whale vertebrae to get to the marrow inside.”

A graduate student partnership between Fine Arts and ONC, previous artists-in-residence include Neil Griffin (Writing, 2023), Colin Malloy (School of Music, 2022), Dennis Gupa (Theatre, 2020) and Colton Hash (Visual Arts, 2018). 

The call for 2025’s Ocean Networks Canada Artist-in-Residence will be released this fall. 

Carey Newman named Royal Society Fellow

by | Sep 5, 2024 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, Faculty, indigenous, Visual Arts

Congratulations go out to artist and scholar Hayalthkin’geme Carey Newman on being named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

UVic’s Impact Chair in Indigenous Art Practices and a professor in both Visual Arts and Art History & Visual Studies, Carey Newman makes regional, national and international impact by combining art and Kwakwaka’wakw knowledges to address Indigenous and environmental injustice. His projects — like The Witness Blanket and Seedling — transform conversations around reconciliation and decolonization across social, institutional and political paradigms, driving innovation and collaboration that challenge status quo approaches to research in the arts, climate, leadership, transsystemic law, collections management, conservation, technology and more.

“Transformative change involves reaching hearts and minds. So, when I make artwork about specific issues, rather than telling people what to think or how to feel, I want them to engage with it on their own terms and take ownership of their thoughts and realizations,” explains Newman. “When something becomes personal it becomes important, and once it is important we are more willing to change our ways. Art has this power.”

Announced on September 3, Newman is one of five new UVic appointments: Ryan Rhodes (Education), Janelle Jenstad (Humanities) and Lin Cai (Engineering) are also newly elected Royal Society Fellows, while Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark (Human & Social Development) is the newest member of the RSC’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.

Royal Society Fellows are Canada’s most eminent scholars who make remarkable contributions in academia and Canadian public life. Members of the College are academics less than 15 years from the date of their PhD. There are currently 2,524 Fellows and 436 members of the College of New Scholars in Canada. UVic is continuing its strong representation of scholars recognized by the Royal Society of Canada. Since 2020, 32 UVic professors have been elected as Fellows or members of the College of New Scholars — including nine in Fine Arts.

SALT celebrates 10th festival

by | Sep 4, 2024 | Alumni, climate, Events, Faculty, indigenous, School of Music

SALT co-founder & School of Music professor Ajtony Csaba

The tenth SALT New Music Festival, founded in 2011 and organized by the Tsilumos Ensemble in collaboration with UVic’s School of Music, returns to Victoria for the first time live since 2019 with a compelling program featuring diverse and thought-provoking music from the 20th and 21st centuries—including concerts drawing attention to pressing global challenges, including social inequality and climate change.

“Like salt is essential to your food, the SALT Festival brings musical excitement to the Victoria audience,” says Ajtony Csaba, managing co-director of the SALT Festival and a School of Music professor of conducting. “This is a celebration of diverse new music performed by outstanding Canadian musicians, including premieres by contemporary composers and works by seminal ones.”

Beyond the traditional concert venue of UVic’s Phillip T. Young Recital Hall, SALT also offers the local premiere of the unique, immersive, under-the-stars performance of Stockhausen’s “Sternklang” in the serene setting of Finnerty Gardens.

The festival is thrilled to present fantastic performers with an array of exciting instrumental music by living Canadian composers and the seminal composer Stockhausen (called the “Beethoven of the 20th century”). In collaboration with UVic, the events take place in the breathtaking Finnerty Gardens and the exquisitely sounding Philip T. Young Recital Hall.

All concerts are free, with donations appreciated, but online booking is required at www.tsilumos.org/salt2024.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 I 7:30pm
Earth Sounds
Phillip T. Young Recital Hall

The first night features the premiere of David A. Jaffe’s “Northwest Passages”, a mesmerizing musical soundscape reflecting the grandeur and fragility of our ecosystem, with the SALT Festival Orchestra.  A champion for music of our time, the Emily Carr String Quartet will present commissioned compositions by Canadian composers Jocelyn Morlock and Tobin Stokes, also a School of Music alumnus, including a vocal performance by soprano and UVic Music professor Marion Newman.

Emily Carr String Quartet

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 I 7:30pm
Diverse Sounds
Phillip T. Young Recital Hall

Tsilumos Ensemble and guests showcase diversity through remarkable contemporary solo and chamber works, featuring the premieres of two pieces by Canadian composers. School of Music alumna Aliayta Foon-Dancoes returns with a commissioned composition for instruments and digital media.

Canadian composers Peter Hatch and artist Matthew Talbot-Kelly present an audiovisual collaborative composition reflecting on our environment through a novel lens, and School of Music professor emeritus Andrew Schloss and clarinetist François Houle bring an improvisational electroacoustic duo for electronics and clarinet to stage.

Aliayta Foon-Dancoes

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 I 5:30pm
Star Sound
UVic Finnerty Gardens

In a nighttime park, groups of musicians perform under the open sky, each at a distance from the others, drawing their music from the varying positions of the stars. This concept was envisioned by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in his seminal work, “Sternklang” and the SALT Festival Orchestra introduces this immersive experience to Victoria for the first time.

Music flows throughout the entire garden as “sound couriers” and “light bearers” carry the sounds from one location to another. The nature- and stargazing-audience is invited to inhabit this multidimensional space, whether by walking among the groups or sitting down to the lawn.

Karlheinz Stockenhausen

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 I 7:30pm
Sounds of the Zodiac
Phillip T. Young Recital Hall

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Tierkreis: 12 Melodien der Sternzeichen” meets four young Canadian composers who re-envision the seasons, climate change, astrology, and even Stockhausen himself through a uniquely 21st-century lens. Performed by British Columbian Duo Inquietum (Liam Hockley, clarinets, Mark Takeshi McGregor, flutes).

Duo Inquietum

The SALT New Music Festival closes with a unique workshop focused on narratives in music inspired by indigenous knowledge. Active composer and musician participants will engage in dialogue with invited storytellers and artistic knowledge keepers, initiating concepts for new works. Please join us for this at 5pm Friday, Sept 20 at the UVic School of Music. 

More info and free tickets: www.tsilumos.org/salt2024

Wayde Compton joins Writing

by | Aug 30, 2024 | Faculty, Writing

Photo: Roger Hur

The Department of Writing is proud to announce their latest hire: author and associate professor Wayde Compton.

Born and raised in Vancouver, Compton studied English at Simon Fraser University where he worked with the likes of authors George Bowering and Roy Miki. He was associated with the Tads group of writers and the Runcible Mountain College study group.

He  was also a co-founder of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project, a grassroots organization that researched and advocated for the public recognition of Vancouver’s historical Black community. He later co-founded its successor group, the Hogan’s Alley Society. In 2006 Compton co-founded Commodore Books, Western Canada’s first Black Canadian literary press.

Compton has published six books and has edited two literary anthologies. His collection of short stories, The Outer Harbour, won the City of Vancouver Book Award in 2015 and he won a National Magazine Award for Fiction in 2011. His work has been a finalist for three other City of Vancouver Book Awards as well as the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.

He has also been writer-in-residence at Simon Fraser University, Green College at the University of British Columbia, and the Vancouver Public Library. He has taught either English Literature or Creative Writing at the following institutions: SFU, ECUAD, Capilano University, Kwantlen University, Douglas College, and Coquitlam College. From 2012-18, he administrated the Creative Writing Program in Continuing Studies at SFU, including the award-winning Writer’s Studio.

Compton has read and presented at institutions across Canada (McGill, the University of Toronto, UBC, SFU, York University, Dalhousie University), the United States (Harvard, the University of California at Berkeley), and overseas (the University of Kent at Canterbury, the University of Havana, National Taipei University).