Join us for a discussion on sustainability & the arts

The climate crisis is one of the most urgent problems of our time, and the arts can play a vital role in helping people better understand its impact.

Discover how scholars and researchers in UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts are responding to today’s defining issues with innovative and compelling ideas in this first of a new Dean’s Speaker Series.

Join us from 12:30-1:30pm Tuesday, November 2, online via Zoom webinar. Register here.

This lively, moderated panel discussion exploring the relationship between the arts and sustainability will feature Conrad Alexandrowicz (Theatre) and Kathryn Mockler (Writing) plus moderator Shane Book (Writing). An audience Q&A will follow the discussion.

Sustainability & the arts

“The arts have a central role to play in motivating the average citizen to not only care but also take action,” says Allana Lindgren, Acting Dean of Fine Arts—and the creator of this new series. “Sustainability and climate change touch people in an emotional way, so action in this area by us has potential to spur action that, say, scientific reports will not.”

Lindgren notes that while UVic as a whole is known for its expertise in sustainability and climate change, this new speaker series will serve as a reminder that work in this area is a priority both across campus and in our communities.

She points to Fine Arts positions like the new Crookes Professor in Environmental & Climate Journalism and the environmentally focused work of professors like Kelly Richardson and Paul Walde, as well as the work of alumni like journalist Arno Kopecky, orca researcher Mark Leiren-Young, artist Colton Hash and director Dennis Gupa, to name a few.

“We have no shortage of faculty members who are doing fascinating work when it comes to sustainability, the environment and the climate crisis, and we thought it was time to share that work with the rest of campus and the community at large,” says Lindgren.

 

Featured speakers

Department of Theatre professor Conrad Alexandrowicz is a director, writer and choreographer, and the artistic director of Wild Excursions Performance. He specializes in the creation of varieties of interdisciplinary performance that address subjects central to the human journey: issues of relationship, gender and power, and the nature of the performance event itself.

In 2021 Conrad published a new book which he instigated and co-edited: Theatre Pedagogy in the Era of Climate Crisis (Routledge), which offers an innovative re-imagining of the ways in which the art of theatre—and the pedagogical apparatus that feeds and supports it—might contribute to global efforts in climate protest and action.

Co-edited with Brock University professor David Fancy, the book also features two chapters by Conrad, as well as chapters by UVic Theatre professors Sasha Kovacs and Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta, and a trialogue with Sadeghi-Yekta and Theatre alumni Lara Aysal and current Dennis Gupa.

Department of Writing professor Kathryn Mockler is the co-editor of Watch Your Head: Writers & Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House)—which offers readers a warning, a movement and a collection borne of protest. Published in fall 2020, Watch Your Head offers poems, stories, essays and artwork that sound the alarm on the present and future consequences of the climate emergency.

In this collection, writers and artists confront colonization, racism and the social inequalities that are endemic to the climate crisis in a collective space where the imagination both amplifies and humanizes the science . . . and offers a call to climate-justice action, with proceeds being donated to the Victoria-based RAVEN Trust and Climate Justice Toronto

Kathryn’s professional and teaching practice focuses on writing for short & feature films & TV, plus poetry, short fiction, climate/eco writing, small press publishing and working in hybrid genres.

The work of Department of Writing professor Shane Book focuses on poetry, hip hop culture, filmmaking, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction and the film / literature / visual art / music / dance of the African diaspora, among other areas.

An award-winning alumnus of UVic’s Writing department and a finalist for the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize, Shane is also the author of the forthcoming poetry collection, All Black Everything (McClelland & Stewart).

Future topics

The second in the Creative Futures series will launch in early 2022, with more to come each academic year.

“Looking ahead, we’re considering a different focus on sustainability each year—climate & the environment this year, perhaps lndigeneity next year,” says Lindgren.

Stay tuned!

2021 Student Community Impact Award winners

The Faculty of Fine Arts is proud to announce the three recipients of our inaugural Fine Arts Student Community Impact Awards, presented as part of the annual Greater Victoria Regional Arts Awards on Oct 1 at a live event held at Sidney’s Winspear Centre.

Each recipient—(from left) Kyla Fradette (Music), Alison Roberts (Theatre) and Dani Neira (AHVS)—received $1,000 plus a beautiful crystal glass award for their community efforts this past year.

“For over 50 years, Fine Arts has been an incubator for young artists, technicians, arts administrators, volunteers and audience members,” noted Acting Dean Allana Lindgren at the awards ceremony.

“And while our alumni and faculty members continue to make a vital impact on Victoria’s arts community, we felt it was time to recognize the work and contributions our students make to the local arts community . . . and the time the community itself spends fostering and mentoring our students.”

About the awards

The Fine Arts Student Community Impact Award was created by the Dean’s External Advisory Committee to recognize the individual achievements or outstanding effort made by a full-time Fine Arts undergraduate student for a local arts organization.

Kyla Fradette was honoured for her participation with Pacific Opera Victoria’s “Pop Up Opera” pandemic project that brought live musical performances to the streets and outside the windows of care homes throughout Greater Victoria.

Alison Roberts was recognized for her continuing volunteer work with the Victoria On Stage Musical Theatre Society—where, for the past 10 years, she has taken on duties ranging from performer and choreographer to director, fundraiser and now board member.

Dani Neira was selected for her work as both the gallery intern at the Open Space Artist-Run Centre and the creator of Open Space’s printzine project, (un)productive—which helped connect artists and creatives during last year’s lockdown.

More awards

Congratulations also to our alumni who received awards, including local artist Sarah Jim—an emerging artist of mixed ancestry and a member of the W̱SÁNEĆ nation from the Tseycum village—the team at Theatre SKAM and our colleagues at Puente Theatre & Intrepid Theatre for their conVERGE IBPoC residency.

Kudos also go out to our behind-the-scenes alumni who helped make the whole event possible—including Ian Case, Matthew Payne, Doug Jarvis & Justin Lee.

We also gratefully acknowledge our donors—who made it possible to offer three separate $1,000 awards this year—as well as our colleagues on the awards selection committee. 

Click here for a full list of the 2021 GVRAA winners. 

Theatre SKAM receives their award

ONC Artist in Residence debuts “Gossip with Whales”

The ocean has many songs to sing! Join us for this feast of music and celebration as we launch the world premiere performances of four new choral compositions created during Dennis Gupa‘s artistic residency with Ocean Networks Canada.   

Together with a panel of artists, performers and scientists, Gupa originally presented his unique collaboration “Gossip with Whales: Exploring Ocean Science through Applied Theatre” on September 22 via a free online webinar — which you can watch below. 

This event was presented by UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts & Ocean Networks Canada in celebration of our shared ocean and the launch of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030. 

Exploring the tanaga and Mangyan poetic forms

Drawing on Tanaga—a Filipino traditional lyrical art form—the four pieces that make up “Gossip With Whales” will offer artistic insights into current challenges for our oceans. One of the poems was translated into an Alangan-Mangyan poetic form of the Mangayan of Mindoro Province, Philippines.

“By looking at the experience and knowledge of local people—who have been experiencing these climatic events for so many years, but are not really given a lot of opportunities to tell their stories—we can learn from their knowledge and wisdom,” says Gupa. “Our poetries and songs renew our kinship with the ocean.”

Find out more about Dennis Gupa’s work here.

Gupa, together with participating Filipino artists Karla Comanda, Roijin Suarez, Darren Vega, Thai Hoa Le and Jeremiah Carag, will discuss the creation and intention of these pieces with event moderators ONC scientific data specialist Megan Kot and School of Music composer Taylor Brook

Dennis Gupa

The arts & oceans together

A PhD in UVic’s Theatre department, Gupa is also the most recent artist-in-residence with Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), a UVic initiative.

He sees the artistic residency—launched by the Faculty of Fine Arts and ONC two years ago—as a natural fit with his doctoral focus on Indigenous sea rituals, climate change and sustainable ecology.

“This residency program comes at a time of crisis in ocean sustainability,” ONC chief scientist Kim Juniper. “Science-art collaborations such as this one bring together the insight and power of two ways of looking at the world, and will hopefully lead to new understanding and greater benefits for our ocean and our future.”

An example of Ambahan, a Hanuno’o poetic form.
Source: PINAGMULAN: Enumerations from the Philippine Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ed., Dr. Jesus T. Peralta, NCCA & I). ICHCAP, 2013 // Photo by Renato Restrollo, NCCA – ICH (2013) (courtesy of National Commission for Culture and the Arts)

Watch “Gossip With Whales”

While the above webinar includes the four pieces that together make up “Gossip With Whales”, we have also included them individually below.

Writing MFA Kim Harvey wins GG Award for Drama

On June 1, Syilx & Tsilhqot’in playwright & director Kim Senklip Harvey became the first Indigenous woman to win the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama for her play Kamloopa: An Indigenous Matriarch Story (Talon Books)—less than a week after receiving her MFA in Writing from UVic.

“I am delighted and energized to learn that Kim has received the 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama,” says Acting Dean of Fine Arts, Allana Lindgren. “Kamloopa ​resonates—particularly at this moment—with courage and hope. I deeply admire Kim’s artistic voice and look forward to following her promising career.”

Amplification of power

“It’s always been about the amplification, it’s always been about the fact that I just want people to read a play with characters of women who are full and funny and sexy and particularly brave and courageous in figuring out what it means to be Indigenous in this era,” says Harvey in her acceptance speech.

“I wrote Kamloopa to ignite the power that was within Indigenous people . . . to ignite journeys with Indigenous women that allow us to be exactly who we are in all of fullness and all of our fallibility and all of our fucking brilliance.”

Brilliant & irreverent

“Brilliance” is also a word the Governor General’s jury panel— Catherine Banks, Andrew Moodie and Kenneth T. Williams—used to describe Harvey’s work in their citation.

“The brilliance, the irreverence, the fire of Kamloopa sweeps us into the world of three Indigenous women on a mind-bending quest. The audience is seduced by the love, humour and depth of these matriarchs as they embrace and celebrate who they are in the world and with each other. A play that will encourage you to re-evaluate your relationship with Canada.”

Kamloopa had its world premiere in 2018 with a three-city tour under Harvey’s own direction. Kamloopa was subsequently nominated for eight Jessie Richardson awards, winning the 2019 Jessie for “Significant Artistic Achievement for Decolonizing Theatre Practices and Spaces”. Kamloopa was also the first Indigenous play in the history of the Jessies to win Best Production and was the 2019 recipient of the Sydney J Risk Prize for most outstanding emerging playwright. Kamloopa was published by Talonbooks in the fall of 2019.

Indigenous theorist

An Indigenous theorist, cultural evolutionist and an award-winning writer and director whose work focuses on igniting Indigenous power by creating comedic and joy-centered narratives that nourish her people’s spirits, Harvey also hosts a podcast that explores these same topics: The Indigenous Cultural Evolutionist.

She has worked across Turtle Island as a performer (highlights include the national tour of Where the Blood Mixes and the world premiere of Children of God at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa) and has participated in the Banff Residency  “Writing in a Racialized Canada”, which brought together Canada’s most exciting emerging BIPOC writers. She was then appointed as one of two artists to take part in the National Theatre School’s inaugural Artistic Leadership Program, which aims to steward in the next generation of artists to lead the major artistic institutions in this country, and participated in the Rumble Directors Lab as well as the Banff Playwrights Lab.

Harvey continues to work on innovating new methodologies for engaging and creating Indigenous stories that honours the multi-dimensionality of having our ancestors tell stories with us. She is the innovator for the Fire Creation Methodology and Salish Plateau Earthing.

Media coverage

Harvey’s GG win has been attracting a fair bit of attention, with her speaking to CBC Radio’s As It Happens in this June 1 interview. As she says to host Carol Off, her award-winning play Kamloopa shows “the power and perseverance and tenacity” of Indigenous Peoples.

“Our plight and pain is often what the narratives are structured around, but that’s not my life,” she says.

Her win was also covered in these articles by CBC Books, Vancouver Sun, Quill & Quire, Georgia Straight and others.

“I think something quite mystical is happening right now, with [fellow Governor General’s Literary Award winner] Michelle Good being from Kamloops and Kamloopa winning,” Harvey told the Vancouver Sun. “I believe this is the time to bring attention to Indigenous peoples’ lives and our stories. And to celebrate the resistance and the continued living of Indigenous peoples.”

Next steps

Harvey is currently working on the development of two television series: her Salish love story, On the Plateau, and the adaptation of her play, Kamloopa. She is also completing her first prose and poetry book, Interiors: A Collection of NDN Dirtbag Love Stories, and is in pre-production to film a musical feature of her next artistic ceremony, Break Horizons: A Rocking Indigenous Justice Ceremony.

She will also be starting her PhD at UVic Law in the fall of 2021.

“Everyone in the Faculty of Fine Arts is incredibly proud of Kim,” says Acting Dean Allana Lindgren. “Watch out! I am confident that this young woman is going to shake up theatre and society with her wise words.”

 

Dennis Gupa: from sea rituals to applied theatre and science

Dennis Gupa in February 2021. (Photo: John Threlfall)

The idea of artists working with scientists is nothing new to Dennis Gupa.

A PhD candidate in UVic’s theatre department, Gupa is also the current artist-in-residence with Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), a UVic initiative. He sees the artistic residency, launched by the Faculty of Fine Arts and ONC two years ago, as a natural fit with his doctoral focus on Indigenous sea rituals, climate change and sustainable ecology.

While Gupa’s term at ONC will wrap up this spring, he’s also finishing his doctoral work in applied theatre under the supervision of theatre professor Kirsten Sadeghi-Yetka, whose experience in community-engaged research includes projects in Indigenous language revitalization through theatre with children in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, young people in Brazilian favelas, young women in rural areas of Cambodia and students with special needs in schools in The Netherlands.

As with any applied theatre practitioner, Gupa also wants to use the tools of theatre and drama to help bring about social change and build a sense of community—and, in his case, to attempt to grapple with the gravity of global warming especially in the island nations of the world.

Strengthening connections between art and science

Sharing stories is exactly what Gupa has in mind with the ONC initiative: recently repositioned as an opportunity for Fine Arts graduate students, the ONC artist-in-residence program exists to strengthen connections between art and science, and ignite cross-disciplinary exchanges around the major issues facing oceans today.

“This residency program comes at a time of crisis in ocean sustainability,” ONC chief scientist Kim Juniper. “Science-art collaborations such as this one bring together the insight and power of two ways of looking at the world, and will hopefully lead to new understanding and greater benefits for our ocean and our future.”

While the pandemic is complicating Gupa’s original idea to create an immersive, ONC data-fueled performance experience involving the Filipino diaspora community—including playwright Karla Comanda, classical singer Jeremiah Carag, Philippine-based composer Darren Vega and Vietnamese-Canadian actor Thai-Hoa Le—Gupa is still hopeful about uniting these two worlds during his spring 2021 residency.

“How can we share our stories with the scientists, and what does that mean to them to listen to immigrants?” Gupa ponders. “How does our history of exile connect with the history of climate disaster? We’ve never really tapped into that or discussed it in a scientific space.”

For Gupa, the ONC residency is less a challenge and more a cumulative opportunity between his artistic and academic pursuits.

“There’s a lesson in fluidity that this water is teaching me and I’d like to bring that to the fore in my work … it’s not just a fascination, but water is so embodied in my work as an artist. It’s beautiful but it’s also dangerous. We cannot wait any longer for inclusive and deeper collaborations to make things better for all living things in this earth—both seen and unseen.”

Ces Bersez, Dennis Gupa, & Francis Matheu in “Murupuro/Island of Constellations” at Prairie Theatre Exchange in 2018. (Photo: Migrante Manitoba FB web page)

Social justice for the seas

“When we think of the water, I think of social justice,” Gupa adds. “As an archipelagic country surrounded by water, the Philippines have been suffering from ocean disasters due to climate change: resources are depleting, coral are bleaching, fish are dying and the waters are warming so the fish don’t have food. So what do they do? They migrate, just like Filipinos—fish are the first climate refugees.”

Gupa has also been looking at how climate change has impacted Canadian Filipino diaspora communities, with whom he created and then toured a highly collaborative theatrical production in 2018 (Victoria, Vancouver, Winnipeg).

Gupa performing the mask of Imelda Marcos during his production of “Murupuro”. (Photo: Fiona Ngai)

Applied theatre, traditional knowledge and climate crisis

Having grown up in the Philippines, Gupa has witnessed firsthand the threat of extreme weather events. With his country being a former colony—extending across 7,600 islands and known for its maritime history, marine diversity and Indigenous population—the parallels between the Philippines and Vancouver Island are clear to Gupa. He says this is probably the reason he decided to do his grad studies at UVic.

“By looking at the experience and knowledge of local people—who have been experiencing these climatic events for so many years, but are not really given a lot of opportunities to tell their stories—we can learn from their knowledge and wisdom,” he says. “Our poetries and songs renew our kinship with the ocean.”

Gupa’s research focuses on traditional ways of knowing, as well as storytelling and applied theatre, and how these elements can be drawn into important discussions and dialogue in support of social justice, community participation and climate action.

A youth theatre project in 2015 co-directed by Gupa for a rural high school “glee club” in the Philippines. (Photo: The Perfect Grey | ASEAN Center for Biodiversity)

And he very much believes in bringing people together to share stories. Gupa says, “I create interdisciplinary work with a kinship among knowledge disciplines. One of the fascinating functions of an artist is being an interlocutor, bringing people together to share our stories.”

He conducted field work in the Samar-Leyte region of the Philippines, working closely with local elders on the island community of Guiuan, where the super typhoon Yolanda in 2013—one of the deadliest on record—first made landfall.

Interdisciplinary conversations on global issues

In addition to collaborating with ONC at UVic, Gupa was a visiting graduate research fellow at UVic’s Centre for Studies in Religion and Society in 2019/20 and a recipient of a 2017 student research fellowship from the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives at UVic. He is also a Vanier Scholar.

“Scientists spend hours in their labs thinking about their work, similar to what theatre and performance artists do in their rehearsal spaces,” he says. “We’re all exploring and searching for meaning; this kind of interdisciplinary conversation simply lets us be better adjusted to global issues.”

Gupa also spent a decade at the University of the Philippines Los Baños where, in addition to teaching theatre, he was named the first head of the Office of Arts and Science Fusion Program.

In 2011, Gupa received a grant from the Asian Cultural Council (established by John D. Rockefeller III) for six months in as the director-in-residence with Ma-Yi Theatre Company in New York City.

His collaborative work has also won support from the British Columbia Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, World Bank Manila Office/Australian Agency for International Development, ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity and the Dharmasiswa Scholarship through the Indonesian government’s Ministry of Education, among many others.

Gupa has an MFA Directing (Theatre) degree from UBC and an MA (Theatre) from University of the Philippines.

Gupa wearing a traditional Filipino malong at a local beach in Victoria. (Photo: John Threlfall)

Follow the social media feeds of both Fine Arts and ONC for developments on the artistic residency this spring.

Phoenix Theatre livestreams Problem Child

Phoenix Theatre is excited to be presenting their only public mainstage production of the 20/21 academic year: George F. Walker’s Problem Child, running at 8pm March 24-27 via their new broadcast-quality livestream. Tickets $15 per household via the Phoenix box office 

Learning livestream technology

During this time when we are not able to have audiences in our theatres, filming and livestreaming the work of our students is one of the only ways we can share our work with you. Thanks to the incredible support from UVic, a generous donor and Phoenix Theatre’s long-time sponsor iA Financial Group, the Theatre department has been able to obtain professional-quality livestream equipment.

Since the arrival of the equipment late last fall, production staff have been busy instructing students in the art of filming, live camera direction, video editing, and other skills, offering our students advantages that will take them into the future of theatre. While livestreaming is a necessity today, there’s no doubt that this technology will continue to be a key part of theatre outreach, even when we are able to return to our seats in the theatre.

Relearning theatre

For instructor and assistant technical director Simon Farrow, this process offered an opportunity to relearn how we create theatre. “True livestreaming for theatre—where the performance is filmed live while you are watching—is challenging,” he says. “We wanted to set the viewer’s expectation of the video production to be as polished as every other element of our Phoenix productions.” (Above, theatre student Jadyn McGregor works the livestream board.)

“A good livestream theatre experience requires all the other elements of the production to contribute as well,” Farrow continues. “The set design needs to offer access for good filming angles. Costumes need to translate over the screen. The lighting needs to be adjusted for camera exposure, the sound design needs to integrate well into the livestream mix and, of course, the actors need to adjust their blocking, already distanced for COVID guidelines, for the camera. All of the students working in these areas are reframing their work to the camera lens, rather than the auditorium.” (Below, Theatre student Brandon Sugden directs the livestream student team,)

About Problem Child

Stuck in a room. Stuck in the system. A desperate mother and her hapless partner are confined to a hotel room while they try to put their delinquent pasts behind them in order to regain custody of their baby. Problem Child is a gritty social comedy by one of Canada’s most prolific and popular playwrights, George F. Walker—best known for his fast-paced social comedies satirizing the woes of contemporary culture under the pressures of capitalism.

As the only public mainstage production this year, this play was chosen by director and Theatre professor Fran Gebhard to offer the fourth-year performance class challenging contemporary roles for their final required credits, all while maintaining physical distancing guidelines. As such, there will be two alternating, four-person casts featuring our fourth-year performance class for their final required credits; all performances will also maintain physical distancing guidelines. See the Problem Child website for cast schedule.

 

Putting it all together

Combining the new technology with the rehearsal process offered a spectacular and a positive learning experience for everyone in the Theatre department—all of which is being applied to Problem Child.

Fran Gebhard

“I’ve been a fan of George Walker’s work for years,” says Gebhard. With a cast of only four, it allowed our graduating students to be featured in two alternating casts, giving everyone complex roles and allowing for distancing on stage. “We rehearsed in facemasks and practised our social distancing to the letter. Our staging and blocking had to adjust to these protocols accordingly,” says Gebhard. “A daunting challenge? Yes! Different? Certainly. But we’ve loved every minute.”

“We’re natural-born theatre-makers,” Gebhard concludes, “and neither hell nor high water, nor even a global pandemic, can stop us from carrying out our work with joy.”

Read more in this Times Colonist article about how Fran Gebhard brought her years of experience in film and television to guide this livestream production.

 

George F. Walker’s Problem Child 
LIVESTREAM PERFORMANCES
March 24, 25, 26 & 27, 2021

TICKETS: $15 per link/household
An easy-to-use, one-click link and password will be sent to you the day of your performance. All tickets come with a no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee (within 24 hours of performance date for a full refund).

Charge by phone at 250-721-8000 at the Phoenix Box Office (no in-person or online sales at this time.)