Instructor & Lehan Lecturer wins $25K award

by | May 9, 2025 | Award, donor, Theatre

Congratulations go out to Theatre instructor and 2025 Lehan Family Activism & the Arts Lecturer d’bi.young anitafrika, who has been awarded a $25,000 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize.

An internationally acclaimed Black-queer-feminist non-binary dub poet, playwright-performer, dramaturge-director and scholar-activist, d’bi’s visionary contributions to theatre, education and leadership have made space for rigorous decolonial practice. You can watch their 2025 Lehan Lecture here.

With over 25 years of trailblazing artistry in plays, albums, books and leadership — their intersectional Anitafrika Method, rooted in Black feminist thought, has revolutionized arts-based practices nationally and internationally — d’bi also recently received a $242,500 Canada Council grant to establish a digital theatre archive, collaborating with Black Womxn Circle and UVic Libraries: KULA. While completing their PhD in London (UK), they have been leading training programs at Toronto’s Soulpepper and Obsidian theatres and here at UVic.

Selected from a field of 15 finalists, d’bi is one of five Metcalf winners: each receives $25,000 and chooses a protégé to receive a separate $10,000 prize: d’bi’s protégé is Sashoya Simpson, a Jamaican-Canadian writer, theatre practitioner and the associate artistic director of Watah Theatre and the Black Theatre School.

The Metcalf Prizes celebrate Ontario’s leading creators in the performing arts and is one of the largest unrestricted prizes for artists in Ontario, celebrating mid-career and early-career artists across multiple disciplines.

New Phoenix season announced

by | Apr 14, 2025 | Events, Graduate, Theatre, Undergraduate

While the 2024/25 academic season is coming to a close, it’s the ideal time to pick up a subscription to the 2025/26 mainstage season at UVic’s Phoenix Theatre. This year, we saw a remarkable season highlighted by productions of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Killing Game and Twelfth Night, plus bonus shows like Eyes of the Beast and im:print 2024 — let’s see what’s coming up next year!

The season kicks off with The Salty Scent of Home (October 9-18). Directed and created by Theatre chair Yasmine Kandil, this powerful and celebratory theatre performance brings to life the stories of six newcomer immigrants and refugees, capturing their journeys as they navigate the challenges and embrace the rewards of immigration and settlement.

Interwoven with these personal stories are poignant and lyrical poems inspired by the migratory patterns of birds — symbolizing freedom, resilience and tenacity. This production is a moving tribute to the strength found in community and the universal desire to find a place to call home.*

Following that is the American classic Our Town (November 6-22). Led by guest director Soheil Parsa, this timeless Pulitzer Prize-winning classic by Thornton Wilder still captures the beauty and fragility of everyday life. Set in the small town of Grover’s Corners, the play follows the lives of its residents — ordinary people experiencing love, loss and the passage of time. Guided by the omniscient Stage Manager, audiences witness the joys and sorrows of the Gibbs and Webb families as they navigate childhood, marriage and mortality.

Despite being first performed in 1938, Our Town remains a poignant, heartwarming and deeply moving exploration of human awareness and the often-overlooked beauty of everyday moments.

 

Spring 2026 sees the staging of Sami Ibrahim’s A Sudden Violent Burst of Rain (February 12-21), directed by MFA candidate Sophia Treanor. In a land where myth and reality intertwine, we follow Elif, a young immigrant whose days are spent shearing sheep—each tuft of wool rising into the sky, forming clouds that bring rain to a distant, wealthy city. But when she becomes a mother, her priorities become clear.

Determined to secure citizenship for her child, she travels to the capital, only to encounter an unforgiving bureaucracy and an immigration system designed to keep her out. A hauntingly beautiful fable of perseverance and sacrifice.

Finally, the season rounds out with Rick Waines’ In My Day * (March 12-21), as directed by former Belfry Theatre artistic director Roy Surette. This  powerful and deeply moving play sheds light on a pivotal chapter in our history: set during the HIV/AIDS crisis, this poignant production celebrates the resilience of diverse communities who came together in extraordinary ways. Through vivid storytelling, richly drawn characters and moments of humour and joy, Victoria-based playwright Rick Waines honours the voices of those who lived, loved and endured during an era marked by loss, fear and stigma.

Actually inspired by a UVic community-based research project, In My Day brings to life the true stories of long-term survivors living with HIV and their caregivers from the first 15 years of the HIV pandemic in British Columbia. Highlighting the experiences of diverse communities — including women, people of colour, Indigenous peoples, trans individuals, and more — it gives voice to those whose perspectives have often been overlooked. “My aim with In My Day was to accurately, without losing meaning, tell the story of the first 15 years of the AIDS pandemic using the testimonies of the participants in a theatrically exciting way,” says Waines.

* The Salty Scent of Home is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded performance, while In My Day is partially supported by SSHRC funding. 

Subscriptions to the 2025-26 Phoenix Theatre season are now on sale for just $51-$68, which lets you choose 3 or 4 plays from our season and save up to 50% off single ticket prices. For more subscription benefits, please see the Phoenix Tickets site. 

Distinguished Alumni Award winner: Chari Arespacochaga

by | Mar 27, 2025 | Alumni, Award, donor, Graduate, News, Theatre

Chari Arespacochaga is an acclaimed theatre director and educator at the College of Fine Arts at Florida State University (FSU) where she is the Director of the MFA Directing Program. Her theatrical direction credits include Rent, Kinky Boots (Short North Stage), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (University of California), Amadeus and Stupid Kids (Phoenix Theatre, Victoria), 9 Minutes (for PopUP Theatrics NYC), Rock of Ages, The Full Monty, Disney’s Tarzan, Spring Awakening, Legally Blonde, Altar Boyz and Into the Woods, among others. At FSU, she initiated and designed Performing Climate Change, a course that provides students from different colleges and departments critical and creative ways of approaching the climate crises; and recently directed an acclaimed production of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

The recipient of a 2025 Emerging Alumni Award, Chari graduated with an MFA from the Department of Theatre (2015), and her scholarship, artistic work and teaching is centred on theatre as necessary cultural work for social transformation and providing her audience and students new ways of engaging with theatre through the lens and lived experiences of an immigrant BIPOC artist-scholar. 

“My experiences at UVic solidified for me how making theatre coincides with making community,” she says. “It made me realize in concrete, palpable ways how we cultivate our life gets reflected in the work that I do as a theatre director and affects how I set up workplaces for people in making theatre. It also made me think about new ways we need to be creating stories and who else should we be inviting to the table to tell those stories.”

Born in the Philippines (Manila) but currently based in Tallahassee, Florida, Chari is in the process of adapting a series of stories about a culturally diverse group of princesses/superheroines called the Guardian Princesses into musicals for young audiences as part of her commitment to developing new works. Other developmental collaborations include a new musical called Missing and a feminist retelling of Macbeth entitled Em.

A scene from Amadeus, which Chari directed at UVic’s Phoenix Theatre in 2015

Unlearning process

Early influences include Sesame Street, Electric Company, movie musicals and Saturday morning cartoons. “I remember clearly those vignettes in Electric Company where Rita Moreno was running a film set and everything would be falling apart,” she recalls. “She was shooting something about a pirate on a ship and the mast would fall on them. And I thought that was great. Maybe, even then, I could recognize that’s probably stress I can deal with and thrive on.”

One of the key things she’s learned, however, is the ability to unlearn that there’s only one way of doing something. “That there’s only one way to rehearse, that there’s only one way to tell a story . . . I try to unlearn whatever I thought were those absolutes all the time. Some are easier to unlearn than others.”

“You’re teaching in a classroom, and you can prep and prep and you should have a plan, but it’s not about you. It needs to become about the students. I am running a rehearsal, but it’s not about me, it’s about the show. It’s about making the actors feel their best possible selves. It’s about making my creative collaborators, whether they’re designers or stage managers, feel like they have ownership of the show and the story that we’re telling.”

Power of story

Chari has long believed in the power of story to affect an audience. “I was always emotionally available to believing a story and letting it move me,” she says. “I remember crying the first time I watched Dumbo as a toddler. There was always a connection to how stories can move you and make you think about things… Story is a good way to change people’s minds. Even if you don’t change their mind in a moment, there’s enough power in the seed that it might plant so if even three or four people can ask a new question of themselves about how we deal with the world or how we live, I think that’s worth the telling of the story.”

Speed round!

Something that brings me joy: 

“A really good rehearsal. A moment when you recognize, ‘Oh, my students have grown up.’”

One food I can’t resist: 

“Some days it would be Japanese food, some days it would be something Spanish like Jamón or cheese. It’s very hard to resist cheese.”

A sport that I follow: 

“Does shopping count as a sport? Most recently, I was following women’s soccer because the MFA directing candidate I am mentoring was directing The Wolves, and that’s about a young female soccer team, so we were watching a lot of women’s soccer.”

My go-to karaoke song: 

“I’m Filipino and my absolute act of resistance is to not believe in karaoke. When we’re at a karaoke joint, I just say ‘It’s my day off, sorry.’”

Something great that I’ve watched or read recently: 

“I thought Wicked was pretty great. I am right now reading a lot about Sweeney Todd, which I think is a fantastic script and all the research accompanying it.”

Favourite place to travel: 

“New York City always feels like home to me. London is becoming a nice second home, and I have to say wherever the next show takes me becomes a favourite place to travel.”

 Read more about UVic’s 2025 Alumni Awards here

 

Submission call for $1K Student Impact Awards!

by | Mar 25, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, donor, School of Music, Theatre, Undergraduate, Visual Arts, Writing

Are you a current or graduating Fine Arts student who’s been involved with some community-engaged creative activity between January 1 2024 & May 31 2025? If so, you could qualify for $1,000 via our annual juried, donor-funded Community Impact Awards. 

Since 2021, we’ve awarded over $13,000 to 11 students from across Fine Arts for projects ranging from murals, theatre productions, music performances, art shows, curatorial projects & more. Your activity may include (but isn’t limited to) any exhibit, performance, workshop, publication, curatorial, educational, digital, production and/or administrative role within the regional boundaries of Greater Victoria (Sidney to Sooke).

These awards are looking to highlight the efforts of undergraduate Fine Arts students who have demonstrated an outstanding effort in a community-engaged creative activity in Greater Victoria that went over and above their academic studies.

Read about our previous winners here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021.

The fine print

A complete submission package — including the submission form and all supporting materials — must be received by 5pm Friday, May 30, 2025.

This award is open to any current or graduating undergraduate student enrolled in Art History & Visual Studies, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing or the School of Music. Typically, three students receive awards each year and you must be a Fine Arts major to win: double-majors (ie: Humanities and Fine Arts) will only qualify if they choose Fine Arts as their graduating faculty.

The actual awards will be presented in fall 2025 as part of the annual Greater Victoria Regional Arts Awards, and recipients will be expected to attend. You will receive a physical award with your name on it as well as the funds, which are distributed by UVic’s Student Awards and Financial Aid office.

Helpful tips

To apply for this juried award, you’ll need the following:

  1. A description of the community-engaged creative activity (500 words max), including a title page with your contact information
  2. A letter from an individual or organization explaining how you were involved in this activity (300 words max)
  3. Two letters of endorsement for the project, from different people than #2 (two pages max, written by people unrelated to you)
  4. Your resume, CV or portfolio, noting relevant experience.

When it comes to your supporting material, consider these points:

  • What was the actual impact of your project? How many people did you reach? What kind of feedback did you receive, even anecdotally?
  • What are the benefits of engaging with the community through your arts practice?
  • How did your studies prepare you to engage in this kind of community project?
  • How will this award financially assist you?

What kind of work doesn’t qualify for this award?

  • Any project for which you received a grade as part of your coursework
  • Any student job that doesn’t have a creative element tied to a specific project
  • Anything that falls out of the required date range (2023 or earlier, or later in 2025)
  • Any project outside of Greater Victoria.

Frequently asked questions:

  • What qualifies as “community-engaged creative activity”?
    We’re looking for projects that engage the greater community in some aspect: past winners have been involved with painting murals, local theatre festivals, running sound for an orchestral series, performing live at pop-up installations, leading children’s arts camps, creating and distributing a ’zine, doing volunteer work for an arts group, mentoring with a children’s choir, running a gallery, and applying for and then mounting exhibitions of their own art. If it’s creative, isn’t for a grade and involves people, then it counts.

     

  • I mounted a self-created art project that had limited duration and no official support. Would this qualify?
    It would qualify as long as you have sufficient documentation, can articulate the project’s impact and can find support letters for it.
  • What’s the difference between the support letters?
    One letter speaks to how you were directly involved in the project (ideally written by a supervisor, funder or community partner) while the other two letters speak to the project’s overall impact (could be written by a participant, audience member or other attendee).
     
  • Can it be an on-campus project or does it have to have happened off-campus?
    On-campus projects do qualify, as long as they are not directly related to a course or self-directed study.
     
  • I’m graduating in June: can I still qualify for this award?
    As long as your project fits into the required date range, you qualify.

  • Would a project for a non-Fine Arts course qualify?
    No, this would still be considered course-related work.

  • I applied before but didn’t win. Can I apply again?
    Yes, as long as your project fits the qualifying date range.
     
  • I won this award before: can I apply again?
    No, you can only win this award once.

  • Does a project involving a larger event or organization count?
    Yes: many of our students work or volunteer for the Fringe Festival, SKAMpede, Art Gallery Paint-In, Symphony Splash, JazzFest or Rifflandia, for example. But keep in mind we are looking for students who have made an “outstanding effort”, not simply finding a summer job in the arts.

Questions? Contact fineartsawards@uvic.ca 

New Indigenous student listserv

by | Mar 18, 2025 | Art History & Visual Studies, Faculty, indigenous, School of Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Writing

Xʷkʷənəŋistəl | W̱ ȻENEṈISTEL | Helping to move each other forward
—UVic’s Indigenous Plan 

Are you an Indigenous student in any of our Fine Arts units (Art History & Visual Studies, Music, Theatre, Visual Arts or Writing)? If so, you may like to sign up for our new Indigenous Student listserv.

The list is run by Fine Arts Indigenous Resurgence Coordinator Karla Point — whose traditional Nuu chah nulth name is Hii nulth tsa kaa — and will provide you with information about student support, networking, events, workshops and other opportunities of specific interest to Indigenous Fine Arts students.

Over the past few years, Karla has run a series of workshops ranging from land acknowledgements and knowledge sharing to more hands-on things like traditional drum-making and cedar-bark weaving, and we also often share news from our colleagues on campus and in the community.

Karla Point

The new Indigenous Student listserv is Karla’s latest way of keeping us all connected! Please consider signing up here.

UVic is committed to offering a range of academic programs enriched by opportunities to engage with diverse forms of knowledge and to take learning and teaching beyond the classroom. In addition to integrating Indigenous ways of knowing and being, languages and teachings, we prioritize accessible programming that responds to community interests and needs. Read more in UVic’s Indigenous Plan.

Distinguished Alumni Awards: Cassandra Miller

by | Mar 16, 2025 | Alumni, Award, donor, Graduate, News, Theatre, Visual Arts

We are thrilled that Cassandra Miller is the recipient of one of the 2025 Presidents’ Alumni Awards. Born in Victoria, Cassandra received her Bachelor of Music in Composition and Theory from UVic in 2005; her brother, the award-winning graphic designer Emrys Damon Miller, is also a Fine Arts alumni (Visual Arts). 

An acclaimed Canadian-British composer who has been living in London, England, since 2018, Cassandra’s composition methods incorporate a unique practice of meditation-based uncontrolled singing to learn about melody and repetition. She uses these vocal exercises together with creative transcription processes to transform pre-existing musical sources (from both within and outside the classical tradition) to magnify their expressive, personal, or fragile qualities.

“Music this uncalculatedly beautiful leaves you almost desperate with gratitude,” wrote Alex Ross of her work in The New Yorker, while The Guardian hailed her “Duet for Cello and Orchestra” as among the top 20 “Best Classical Music Works of the 21st Century.” Over the past year, her works have appeared internationally at the BBC Proms, GöteborgsOperans Danskompani and on tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. She has twice received the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, Canada’s highest honour for composition, and in 2025 she will be a visiting scholar for three months as lecturer at Stanford University.

Endless possibility

“I originally went to UVic to study my instrument—the harp,” Cassandra recalls. “On the first day of classes I took a composition elective and then realized, ‘Oh gosh, this is what I do now.’ It was life changing.” 

She recalls the School of Music as the kind of place where, as far as creativity goes, “anything was possible… You were taught that to be an artist was to be a bit of a weirdo. It was so freeing and so important. I learned about myself… how to be that kind of creative, how to be free and playful by being myself… At the time I just thought that was good education, but afterwards I realized that it was also artistically incredibly unique and important. It was a very special place.”

Over the years, she has been invited as a visiting teacher and lecturer at many institutions including Stanford, Columbia, CalArts, London’s Royal Academy of Music, Birmingham Conservatoire, McGill University, the University of Manitoba and the Orkest de Ereprijs Young Composers Meeting. From 2010 to 2013, she held the post of Artistic and General Director of Innovations en concert, Montreal, and from 2018 to 2020, Miller was Associate Head of Composition at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, leading the undergraduate program.

Cassandra Miller with the BBC Philharmonic at the 2023 Aldeburgh Festival (BPA/The Guardian)

Collaboration and listening

Cassandra says she finds the art and practice of composing “extremely collaborative. On the surface, it looks like I’m sitting at home staring at my computer, but because I’m writing music for other people to play, even the least collaborative project is extremely collaborative. And then there’s the idea of making space for another person, and it’s a skill that I’m continuously learning. Every opportunity to interact with somebody is an opportunity to learn how to listen better. And the other side of that is listening to oneself and making the space to listen to what’s going on inside and what needs to happen and how to make space.”

What I’ve learned

“I’ve learned how to gather around me the support that I need. This was something I learned late in life… I have pretty strong ADHD, and I need to hire an assistant. I need to hire a personal trainer. I need to have a therapist at all times. I also need to keep my family and friends close, and I always need to live with somebody. There’s a lot of things I need that I’m getting better at asking for and putting into place.”

“A friend of mine used the mantra ‘Try less hard,’ and I took it on… It’s about making that space for listening. Often when you’re trying too hard for something, you’re not making the space to listen to what’s really going on. Often the solution is to change a situation or try something a bit differently. But if you’re already trying hard, trying harder usually isn’t the thing that’s going to make it work.”

Speed round!

Something that brings me joy: 

“Bird song… London has parakeets, which are a huge part of the soundscape of the city. They’re an invasive species, but they have this wonderful chatter and they’re very loud at sunrise and sunset. It’s a way to mark the time in the city, and they fly around in these huge flocks and they’re bright green. They’re lovely.” 

One food I can’t resist: 

“My family makes these traditional Lebanese Christmas cookies.  We call them Sticky Fingers because they’re roughly the shape of a finger and they’re dipped in honey, filled with almonds and orange blossom water. And they have little bits of aniseed in the dough.”

Something great I’ve watched recently: 

“A movie called The Cassandra Cat. It’s this absurd, surreal movie from the Czech Republic in the early ’60s. I sort of recommend it, but you have to be in the right mood.”

A cool thing about where I live: 

“London has so many trees in it that it’s classified as a forest.”

Secret talent:

“I am incredibly patient, and I don’t mind waiting, and it’s very extreme. If a friend is three hours late to meet me, no problem. I just love waiting around.”

A talent I wish I possessed: 

“I wish I could dance better. I think it’s an important thing in life. I think life is probably about eating, sleeping, singing and dancing.”

 Read more about UVic’s 2025 Alumni Awards here