Stories from the Creative Edge
Alumni
Remembering Erich Schwandt
Whether they realize it or not, generations of graduating UVic students have been touched by the music of Dr. Erich Schwandt. Professor Emeritus of Musicology in the School of Music, Dr. Schwandt passed away in Victoria on August 2. A native of California, he attended...
read more
Busy fall for Visual Arts faculty
It's a busy season for our Visual Arts professors, a number of whom have exhibits of new work on view, both locally, nationally and internationally. Visual Arts professor and alumnus Robert Youds presents City Cut Flowers, a solo exhibit of new works, until Sept 30 at...
read more
Art History alumni fuel Integrate Arts Festival
It's not often you find an off-campus arts event that's almost exclusively organized by Fine Arts alumni and students, but that's exactly what you'll find when you peak behind the curtain at 2017's Integrate Arts Festival. Originally dubbed the Off-The-Grid Art Crawl,...
read more
Your guide to Fine Arts Fringers
No question, the annual Fringe Fest is one of Victoria's best-loved festivals of any kind. Now in its 31st year, the Victoria Fringe Festival offers 330 performances of 58 shows by 350 artists in nearly a dozen venues around town — as well as a number of free...
read more
A summer of Visual Arts
It's been a busy summer for Visual Arts faculty, students and alumni — thanks to a number of new projects, installations and exhibits happening locally, nationally and internationally. Here's a quick roundup: Professor Daniel Laskarin unveiled a new sculpture at...
read more
Legacy Art Galleries does the Wright thing
2017 marks the 150th anniversary of celebrated US architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s birth. It is also the year UVic will return seven Wright-designed stained glass windows to their original setting in Buffalo, New York. UVic acquired the windows only five years after the...
read more
Swimming into the past
Despite unseasonably cold winds and unusually choppy waves, intermedia artist Paul Walde dove into the waters of Algonquin Park’s Canoe Lake on July 8 and, after months of preparation, completed the first stage of The Tom Thomson Centennial Swim. Occurring on...
read more
Canadian comedy star & Phoenix alum Chris Wilson joins Air Farce
Looking for a fun —and funny — way to celebrate Canada 150? Spend July 1 with Department of Theatre alumnus Chris Wilson on CBC TV’s Air Farce Canada 150 special. Wilson, best known as one-half of the multiple award-winning comedy duo Peter N’ Chris, is one of two new...
read more
Patrick Du Wors is the only Canadian accepted at 2017 World Stage Design in Taiwan
When it comes to outstanding alumni, it’s hard to beat award-winning theatrical designer Patrick Du Wors. Not only has he made a name for himself on both national and international stages, he was recently hired as the new assistant professor of design for the...
read more
Maestro Timothy Vernon becomes Honorary Doctor of Music
When this year's group of graduating Fine Arts students cross the stage of UVic's Farquhar Auditorium on June 13, they'll find themselves in the presence of a true master — or maestro — as Timothy Vernon will also be receiving an Honorary Doctor of Music (DMus) on the...
read more
UNO Fest thick with Fine Arts talent
From the underground to the mainstream, Intrepid Theatre’s annual UNO Fest is a hotbed of contemporary solo theatre and performance. Originally launched by Theatre alumna Janet Munsil in the basement of Victoria’s Bedford Hotel in 1997, UNO Fest is celebrating 20...
read more
Event in Victoria’s queer history inspires new play & course
A new play written by Department of Theatre professor Jennifer Wise and performed by Theatre students celebrates a little-known event in Victoria’s gay history. Wise's A Queer Trial tells the real-life story of John Butt, an openly gay Victoria man who, in 1860, was...
read more
MFA Lindsay Delaronde named Victoria’s Indigenous Artist in Residence
The city’s visual arts scene became even more inclusive with the March 8 news that Lindsay Delaronde has been named Victoria’s inaugural Indigenous Artist in Residence. Delaronde, an Iroquois Mohawk woman born and raised on the Kahnawake reservation outside of...
read more
Research and creative practice on view at Ideafest 2017
Ideafest — UVic's week-long free festival of world-changing ideas — is once again ready to welcome thinkers, innovators, artists and audiences to a fascinating range of events across campus. This year’s festival features hundreds of speakers, presenting on topics...
read more
Conversations and Collaborations: 2017 Distinguished Alumni winner Althea Thauberger
Conversations, negotiations, collaborations — while these are the kind of skills often associated with the realms of politics or business, they can also be essential abilities for a particular kind of artist. Count Althea Thauberger among the latter. A gifted artist,...
read more
Joan MacLeod explores faith and family in “Gracie”
A young girl is born into a world full of faith and family, and as she grows from a child to a teenager, she faces increasing pressure to conform. But what if that 15-year-old is born into a tightly controlled fundamentalist polygamous community — will she dare to...
read more
Alumni Week runs February 6-12
Help celebrate the impact of grads at UVic's 10th annual Alumni Week. More than a dozen free events — including talks, awards and workshops — highlight this event, running February 6 to 12, both on-campus and off. This year we focus on the vital impact of the...
read more
A full slate of exhibits by Visual Arts professors
Early 2017 is a busy time for our Department of Visual Arts professors, many of whom currently have exhibits both in and out of town at the moment. All too often, professors are only seen in the classroom, but these exhibits offer an invaluable opportunity to see...
read more
Early 2017 media roundup
2017 is shaping up to be a busy year for Fine Arts faculty and alumni in the media. A number of stories have run in various media outlets in the last weeks of 2016 and early 2017, featuring representatives in all of our departments. Here's a quick roundup of who's...
read more
Phoenix frequent among 2016 Critic’s Choice winners
The 16th annual Victoria Critics' Choice Theatre Awards were announced on CBC Radio's On The Island at the end of December and, as always, there were plenty of Fine Arts alumni among the 2016 nominees and winners. We've got a breakdown of the awards below, but you can...
read more
Top 10 Fine Arts stories of 2016 – part one
With over 150 public events a year here in the Faculty of Fine Arts—not to mention classes, research, guest lectures and the kind of creative activity that defines who we are and what we do—the year always just seems to fly by. As always, there was no shortage of...
read more
It’s beginning to look a lot like a Phoenix alumni holiday season
Looking for some seasonal theatre over the holidays? Our always busy Department of Theatre alumni have you covered with a wide range of holiday offerings! Here's what's coming up in Victoria over the next few weeks: This Little Light - Dec 10-23 • Belfry Theatre, 1291...
read more
Composition legend honoured with 85th birthday concert
The sound world of Czech-Canadian composer and former School of Music director Rudolf Komorous is elusive: it is strange yet familiar, unexpected but deliberate, his peculiar orchestrations skew the senses yet land—even if for a brief moment—in a place the ear...
read more
Wynton Marsalis inspires Music students
A lucky handful our School of Music trumpet students had the opportunity to meet iconic American jazz master Wynton Marsalis when he appeared at the Farquhar Auditorium for a concert with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on October 15. After an open soundcheck...
read more
MFA Heather Clark takes travel writing on the road
When it comes to learning how to be a travel writer, you can’t get much more hands-on than doing it on the road. And if that road happens to be in Nicaragua, says graduating master’s student Heather Clark, better still. Clark, a veteran tour guide and former...
read more
Phoenix Theatre celebrates 50 years with style
While the martlet is the mythical bird most associated with UVic, there is another legendary winged creature deeply tied to the university’s history: the phoenix. And this month sees Phoenix Theatre marking 50 years of great theatre, and great theatre education. “Our...
read more
Shannan Calcutt is serious about her clowning
For most people, Las Vegas is a place of escape and relaxation. But for celebrated Department of Theatre alumna Shannan Calcutt, what happens in Vegas keeps her in Vegas. Calcutt (BFA ’97) has spent the past decade starring in Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity at the New...
read more
Going solo pays off for TJ Dawe
After years of success on the Fringe Festival circuit and touring around the world, alumnus TJ Dawe brings his one of his earlier, and now published plays, back to the Phoenix stage as part of the Alumni Festival. The Slipknot runs 8pm daily to Saturday, Oct 22, with...
read more
Charles Ross knows the sound of one-man globetrotting
Back in 2001, Charles Ross wrote his own ticket to travel the world. Since then, he has created two more — he just calls them blockbuster one-man shows. A hilarious homage to the original three Lucasfilm movies, Ross' One-Man Star Wars Trilogy has been performed on...
read more
Former FBI art crimes expert visits Art History & Visual Studies
What kind of agent does it take to infiltrate a gang of international art thieves capable of pulling off a museum heist involving car bombs and getaway speedboats? Just ask former FBI art crime special agent Robert K. Wittman. “We did an undercover operation in...
read more
Writing event features inaugural Lorna Crozier Scholarship recipient
Even though she’s now retired, beloved poet and Department of Writing professor Lorna Crozier continues to have an impact on campus: a highlight of the popular annual faculty reading night—happening 7 p.m. on Sept. 28 in room 105 of UVic's Hickman building—will be the...
read more
A September full of events
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...
read more