Hot on the heels of accepting the Royal Society of Canada’s Pierce Medal for outstanding achievement in imaginative literature, the work of retired Department of Writing professor Jack Hodgins is taking centre stage once more—literally. Theatre Inconnu, Victoria’s longest-running alternative theatre company, is mounting a new stage adaptation of Hodgins’ short story, Spit Delaney’s Island, running December 3 to 19.
Based on the titular short story in the 1977 collection that earned Hodgins his first Governor General’s nomination, Spit Delaney’s Island focuses on the title character who, after years running a steam locomotive at a Vancouver Island pulp mill, finds himself out of a job when the mill brings in a modern diesel engine. Faced with uncertainty and a profound loss of identity, Spit’s relationship with his family and the world around him is thrown into turmoil.
While originally mounted for the stage over 30 years ago, this new Fine Arts-heavy version has been adapted by veteran local playwright and former Writing instructor Charles Tidler, is directed by noted local actor, writer and Writing MFA alumna Karen Lee Pickett, stars Theatre Inconnu artistic director and Department of Theatre alumnus & instructor Clayton Jevne in the title role and features costumes by recent Theatre grad Shayna Ward. Best of all, however, Spit Delaney’s Island is that rarest of stage productions—a story set on our own island.
“It’s totally Vancouver Island,” says Pickett. “The exact place is never directly stated, but it’s the Parksville-Qualicum area.” While set in the 1970s, Spit’s resulting loss of identity will be familiar to many Islanders, old and young, who have suddenly found themselves made redundant by technological and economic forces. But there’s much more to Spit Delaney’s Island than just the plot, says Pickett. “It’s got a real sense of magical realism. It’s a journey of transformation . . . it doesn’t always unspool in chronological order.”
Charles Tidler
Spit Delaney’s Island, was only produced once before for the stage in a 1990 Nanaimo production—also adapted by Tidler. A local playwright, novelist, and poet of international renown, Tidler is a Chalmers Outstanding Play Award recipient, as well as a Governor General Award nominee, and he will be in attendance and speaking to the audience after the 8pm December 5 performance. This current production is based on two short stories from Hodgins’ 1997 collection: “Spit Delaney’s Island” and “Separating.”
Pickett first read the “Spit Delaney’s” while she was studying in the Writing department. “I don’t know why it wasn’t mounted again, but it makes a great play,” she says. “For this version, Charles has created a whole new draft—it’s tighter and just better.” And while Hodgins himself isn’t directly involved in this production, she says he has read and commented on the new draft.
Karen Lee Pickett
Best known these days for her role as the artistic director and producer of the Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival, Pickett is enjoying taking a break from the Bard afforded by this 90-minute, two-act production. “It’s my favourite kind of theatre: just four actors and a stage,” she says, noting additional performers Catriona Black, Perry Burton and Susie Mullen. “We’ll have costumes and a few set pieces, but we’re mostly creating it as a piece of storytelling—there will be sounds, for example, but no corresponding object.”
Pickett describes one scene set in a classic small-town second-hand store, stacked floor-to-ceiling stacked with junk. “There’s no way we could reproduce that on stage, but I’m from a theatre tradition that says if the actors see all that stuff, then the audience will too. The audience is more engaged when they have to create that set for themselves.”
Clayton Jevne in Theatre Inconnu’s Spit Delaney’s Island
“It’s such a great homegrown project,” she says. “I love the way they talk about the landscape and the ocean, but I also like the fact that Charles made the decision to keep the play in 1970s,” she says. “There are a lot of things in the story—like Spit’s relationship with his wife—that are definitely of that era. And most of the creative team have been here on the Island for a long time, so we’ve got their perspective on how things really started to change back then.”
Spit Delaney’s Island runs 8pm December 3 -19, with 2pm matinees on December 5, 12 & 19. Tickets are $10 – $14, with December 9 as pay-what-you-wish admission. Tickets are available online, by email or by phone at 250-590-6291. Theatre Inconnu is wheelchair accessible and is located at 1923 Fernwood Road, across the street from the Belfry Theatre.
More than 400 of Canada’s brightest academic minds will be converging on Victoria this weekend as the Royal Society of Canada—Canada’s national academy—comes to town. The RSC’s annual general meeting runs November 26-28 at the Fairmont Empress and will feature scientists, scholars and artists from across the country. But while such a grand gathering of vibrant minds is notable in itself, it’s triply important for Fine Arts as three of our own are being honoured.
UVic’s new RSC honorands featuring Hodgins (third from left), Biro and MacLeod (far right). (UVic Photo Services)
Celebrated playwright, Department of Writing professor and UVic alumna Joan MacLeod is one of three UVic professors elected as new fellows—the country’s highest academic honour—while noted composer and School of Music professor Dániel Péter Biró has been elected as one of three new members of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists (colloquially known as the RSC’s “rising stars”). Finally, acclaimed author and retired Writing professor Jack Hodgins will be presented with the RSC’s 2014 Pierce Medal for outstanding achievement in imaginative literature, alongside two other UVic medal winners.
“The Faculty of Fine Arts is fortunate to have colleagues of the calibre of professor Joan MacLeod and Dr. Biró, both of whom bring their research and creative practice to bear on their teaching and mentorship of our students,” says Susan Lewis, Acting Dean of Fine Arts. “We congratulate our two colleagues on their appointments to the RSC.”
Joan MacLeod
Lewis is quick to praise MacLeod’s creative output. “One of Canada’s foremost playwrights, MacLeod’s works explore contemporary social justice issues with characters who are often on the margins of Canadian society,” she says. “She has received numerous awards including the Governor General’s Award for Drama, two Chalmers’ Canadian Play Awards, a Dora Award and the Siminovitch Prize.”
For her part, MacLeod seems equally happy and surprised by the honour. “I’m pleased about the Royal nod because my research is my stage plays, of course—my artistic practice,” she says. “I have always had a sense of community in theatre and writing, but academic community is something else. To be included in a group of eminent scholars, scientists . . . it’s astounding.” MacLeod joins existing Faculty of Fine Arts Royal Society Fellows Tim Lilburn, Mary Kerr and Lorna Crozier.
Lewis, also the Director of the School of Music, well knows the work of her colleague Biró, noting his position at the forefront of music composition and research. “In 2011, Dániel was Visiting Professor at Utrecht University and in 2014-2015, Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. His compositions are performed around the world and he is internationally active as a composer, researcher, performer, lecturer and teacher,” she says.
Dániel Péter Biró (photo: Linda Sheldon)
“I am happy to be elected a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists,” Biró says. “Composing music is not only creating something new, but also discovering the past. It’s almost like we’re conservationists of culture.”
Biró notes that the Aventa Ensemble’s Mark McGregor will be performing one of his pieces—Kivrot Hata’avah (Graves of Craving), for solo bass flute—during the RSC Gala. “This composition was selected to represent Canada in the International Society of Contemporary Music 2013 World New Music Days in Vienna,” he says. “McGregor commissioned the piece and will premiere this new version.”
Be sure to check out this new UVic video featuring Biró discussing his work.
For those not familiar with his many books, the Comox Valley-born Jack Hodgins is an influential writer dedicated to chronicling the people and stories of Vancouver Island. Winner of the Governor General’s Award in 1979 for The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne, he was also presented with the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence in 2006, was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2009, and won the 2011 City of Victoria Book Prize for his recent novel The Master of Happy Endings. He taught with the Department of Writing from 1983 to 2002 and, in the process, became a mentor to a whole new generation of authors.
Jack Hodgins (photo: Don Denton)
Yet Hodgins’ creative efforts are not limited to the page. In 2014, he wrote “Cadillac Cathedral” which he performed live on stage with the Vancouver men’s choir Chor Leoni, composer Christopher Donnison created an opera based on several short stories from Hodgins’ book The Barclay Family Theatre, and his life has been commemorated in the NFB documentary Jack Hodgins’ Island.
The Royal Society AGM kicks off with a public event—a special day-long symposium on Canadian marine biodiversity on Thursday, Nov. 26—followed by the welcoming of new fellows and college members into its fold and awarding medals for outstanding achievement. UVic is undeniably proud to have eight researchers among those being honoured. “This incredible breadth of expertise and impact really speaks to this university’s research strength as a whole,” says David Castle, UVic’s vice-president research.
UVic President Jamie Cassels is equally excited by the event. “We’re very pleased to be the presenting sponsor for this event,” he says. “This gathering is an opportunity for all of us to welcome Canada’s eminent scholars and celebrate their impacts in areas vital to Canada and the world.”
UVic’s other new Fellows include chemist Frank van Veggel and philosopher James Young, while exercise psychologist Ryan Rhodes and astronomer Sara Ellison become members of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. Ellison also joins Hodgins as a medal winner, receiving the RSC’s Rutherford Medal for outstanding achievement in a branch of physics, as does cosmologist Julio Navarro, who wins the 2015 Tory Medal for outstanding achievement in astronomy.
For those who want to stay up on our honorands’ creative practice, Joan MacLeod’s latest play, The Valley, will appear at the Belfry Theatre from Feb. 2-28, 2016. A stage version of Jack Hodgins’ Spit Delaney’s Island—based on the short story, which earned him his first Governor General’s Award nomination for the book of the same name—is being adapted for the stage by Victoria’s Theatre Inconnu from December 1-19.
Finally, Dániel Péter Biró was recently commissioned by the Klangforum Heidelberg to write a new work for voices and ensemble. The Schola Heidelberg and Ensemble Aisthesison at the University of Heidelberg premiered Biró’s Messiaen, Couleurs de la Cité Celeste in October 2015, with additional performances in Mannheim and Ludwigshafen that same month—but you can hear it right here.
Art History & Visual Studies PhD candidate David Christopher (photo: Suzanne Ahearne)
The force is definitely with Fine Arts PhD candidate David Christopher. One might even say it is his destiny. And when Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens hits theatres next month, you can count on Christopher, a cinema and cultural theory instructor with the Department of Art History & Visual Studies, to be in line for the new movie.
Not only is he developing a course on Star Wars, but he also played the role of Darth Vader at his own Star Wars-themed wedding. And, when he was just seven, Christopher took in the very first movie from the back of his best friend’s family’s wood-paneled station wagon at an Ottawa drive-in in 1977.
Christopher points out that “Star Wars resonates on so many pop culture, individual and theoretical levels. We see it as a historical pivot point where the balance between spectacle and narrative in Hollywood begins to shift. This is the time where the privileging of spectacle really began and narrative took a secondary back seat.”
David Christopher’s Star Wars-themed wedding
“Star Wars gives you a wide berth of highly popular, highly populist films with which to measure the ideological temperature of American popular culture over the 40 years surrounding 9/11,” he continues. “Star Wars is certainly a significant artifact in the evolution from modernism to post-modernism. It hit so many of the right points at the right moment.”
Media interest in Christopher’s Star Wars passion has been high, resulting in interviews with the likes of The Province newspaper, Vancouver’s Metro News, and both CBC Radio and Television (not archived online). He also appeared on CHEK TV, Global TV, Vancouver radio stations Spice and CKNW, and UVic’s own student newspaper, Martlet.
Whether it’s the mythological, sociological, psychological, theoretical or economical impact of the original trilogy, Christopher is well-versed in all things Star Wars. “It not only changed how movies were made but it changed how people talked about movies. People had a field day with this series for decades.”
“I don’t think anyone—certainly not George Lucas—expected it to be what it became,” he adds. “It changed Lucas from an incidentally brilliant filmmaker into a corporation. When he later made the prequel trilogy, a lot of critics recognized he had exhausted his creative energy in 20 years of corporate leadership.”
Christopher has a paper in peer review for publication, on the allegorical function of the prequel trilogy; has spoken about the cultural significance of Star Wars for the UVic Speaker’s Bureau; and his new Star Wars course will “look at the tectonic shift in cinematic practices it instigated and the discursive zeitgeist around its iconic status within popular culture.”
In addition to master degrees in cinema & cultural theory and theatre history from UVic, Christopher holds degrees in English and economics from Carleton University and was recently published in the Canadian cinema journal CineAction, the Online Journal of Arts and Humanities and in the Theatre Notebook (UK).
It’s an eternal story: boy meets girl, they fall in love—but, since the year is 1914, the boy must go off to war and their love must face an uncertain future.
The School of Music is pleased to welcome Pacific Opera Victoria for a special free production of Mary’s Wedding, a notable new Canadian opera about the impact of the First World War on the homefront. Described as “a love letter to the power of memory and innocence, and to a generation of Canadians who were caught in the crucible of the First World War,” Mary’s Wedding is an apt way to mark Remembrance Day on campus.
Kaden Forsberg & Caitlin Wood in a scene from Mary’s Wedding
Originally written for the stage by Stephen Massicotte and later developed into a full-scaleEnglish-language opera featuring music by Andrew P. MacDonald and Massicotte’s own libretto, POV has now created a re-imagined one-hour version of Mary’s Weddingthat they will be presenting at 7:30pm Friday, November, 13, in the Phillip T Young Auditorium.
Set in Western Canada in the aftermath of World War I, Mary’s Wedding was originally commissioned by Pacific Opera Victoria and had its world premiere in November 2011. This production—directed by Art History & Visual Studies alumna Glynis Leyshon—features a strong School of Music presence, with first-year Masters candidate Kaden Forsberg in the lead role as Charlie, as well as third-year undergrad soprano Margaret Lingas in the chorus; joining her in the chorus is also Music tenor alumnus Cedric Spry. “The chorus is only a quartet, so it’s nice that two of our students are there,” notes proud Opera and Voice professor Benjamin Butterfield.
Mary’s Wedding explores the fleeting nature of time and the lasting power of love, evoking prairie thunderstorms and ladies’ teas, and, as innocence rides off to war, the horror of the battles of Ypres and Moreuil Wood, in which Canada came of age as a nation. Much of the production’s powercomes from its sense of the fluidity of time, the shifting of past and present, here and there, reality and dream. The emotional impact is stunning: everything becomes present for us here and now . . . we are the children of Mary’s Wedding.
“Interacting with students and engaging with their research and creative practice has truly been the highlight of my two terms,” he says. “I have always aspired to encourage students to draw from their own life experiences as a source for exploring new creative possibilities.”
Two years in the position allowed 2Bears the space to develop both his teaching methodology and creative practice—a luxury not enjoyed by previous Audain professors Rebecca Belmore, Michael Nicol Yahgulanaas and Nicholas Galanin, who served one term each.
“Over the past years I have had time to really think about the importance of space, land and territory—as well as my place in the world as a Kanienkehaka [Mohawk] person, and the spaces I occupy as Onkwehonwe [an Indigenous person],” he says. “My meditations on ‘place’ have given me even more respect, and made me more appreciative of having been a visitor and a guest on Lekwungen territory during my Audain residency.”
Students engage with 2Bears’ “For This Land”
One concrete result was For this Land, the first of a series of installation/performance artworks focusing on place and community. A collaborative project with Mohawk poet Janet Rogers, For this Land debuted at UVic’s Audain Gallery in September 2015; it was jointly inspired by Sioux philosopher Vine Deloria Jr.’s 1998 book of the same name and Chiefswood, Mohawk poet Pauline Johnson’s childhood home on the Six Nations Reserve.
“Both my research and creative/artistic practice have led me back to Haudenosaunee territory, and back to Six Nations,” says 2Bears. “For several days Janet and I spent time on our home territory, exploring the heritage site and creatively engaging with the stories that Pauline left for us on the land. We documented elements of this—our actions, experiences and conversations—and created an aesthetic interpretation of our dialogues with this place, and in turn, the stories we wrote on the land.”
He also feels his creative focus has shifted due to his experience as Audain Professor. “I’ve come to realize that right now, the ‘work’ I need to do—not just as an artist, but as an individual—has everything to do with (re)connecting with my home, my community, my language, culture, people and land.”
Building on his time as UVic’s Audain Professor, 2Bears is now Professor of Native American Art Studio and Canada Research Chair at the University of Lethbridge. The Audain Professorship was instrumental in his being able to make the transition from PhD student to faculty member. “I look forward to sharing stories and times with all my new relations,” he concludes.
Based on the titular short story in the 1977 collection that earned Hodgins his first Governor General’s nomination, Spit Delaney’s Island focuses on the title character who, after years running a steam locomotive at a Vancouver Island pulp mill, finds himself out of a job when the mill brings in a modern diesel engine. Faced with uncertainty and a profound loss of identity, Spit’s relationship with his family and the world around him is thrown into turmoil.
