Priscila Uppal

“Canada’s coolest poet”, 91��ɫ English Professor Priscila Uppal (BA Hons. ’97, PhD ’04), has received one of the country’s highest forms of recognition – election as a Fellow to the (RSC).

Uppal has accomplished a great deal in her 39 years. She has published 10 collections of poetry, two novels, a memoir, a play, an academic monograph and several anthologies. Her poetry includes Traumatology (2010), Successful Tragedies: Poems 1998-2010 (2010), Winter Sport: Poems (2010) and Ontological Necessities, which was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize.

“T�󾱲� is a wonderful achievement for Professor Uppal, who exemplifies the excellence, dedication and engagement of our 91��ɫ faculty," says 91��ɫ President and Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. "A gifted poet, writer and teacher, she is an incredible role model for our students and for the arts community. On behalf of all of us at the University, I’d like to congratulate her on this special recognition of her contributions.”

Uppal's other work includes the critically-acclaimed novels The Divine Economy of Salvation (2002) and To Whom It May Concern (2009); and the study We Are What We Mourn: The Contemporary English-Canadian Elegy (2009), as well as the memoir Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother (2013), which was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Hilary Weston Prize for Non-Fiction.

“It’s a big honour and it obviously puts me in the company of some very remarkable people, past and present,” says Uppal, who is one of 90 new Fellows announced Tuesday by the RSC. “I’m also thrilled to be inducted at such a young age, which I understand is quite rare.”

Uppal's work has been translated into Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, Korean, Latvian and Serbo-Croatian. Uppal was the first-ever poet-in-residence for Canadian Athletes Now during the summer and winter Olympics and Paralympic games, as well as the Rogers Cup tennis.

“I was very pleased to see that recognition for my work, but also the continued recognition…that creative work is a form of research that is highly respected and it is a field of knowledge that is important and vital to society and to Canadian citizenship,” adds Uppal.

She is looking forward to the opportunity to learn about research and discoveries in drastically different fields from her own. She believes one of the strengths of the RSC is that is brings people together from such diverse disciplines allowing for a cross-pollination of ideas and the spawning of innovative ways of thinking, adapting and approaching one’s work.

“I’m delighted to be a Fellow,” she says. “It’s a great honour to represent the arts at 91��ɫ, but also to represent the field of artistic production and inquiry. It should be seen as not only a legitimate form of research, but also as an incredibly important one that can stand side by side the hard sciences and other more conventional forms of scholarship."

The RSC website states that the “fellowship of the RSC comprises distinguished men and women from all branches of learning who have made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public life”. Uppal will join the ranks of more than 2,000 Canadian scholars, artists and scientists, who have been peer-elected as the best in their field.

Uppal will be inducted as a Fellow in the ’s Academy of the Arts and Humanities on Saturday, Nov. 22 in Quebec City.

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Originally launched in Paris with the goal of bringing contemporary art to the masses, Nuit Blanche has established itself as one of the highlights of Toronto’s annual cultural calendar. Each year, this free dusk-to-dawn event enlivens and transforms the city with original art projects ranging from intimate encounters to large-scale spectacles.

More than one million visitors are expected to turn out for this year's edition, which takes place from 6:51pm Saturday, Oct. 5 to sunrise on Sunday, Oct. 6. Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2013 will feature more than 100 exhibitions, performances and experiential events in indoor and outdoor venues throughout downtown Toronto. 91��ɫ artists are among those contributing one-of-a-kind works to this celebration of creativity and community engagement.

Visual Art & Art History Professor is part of the team behind , a "portrait petition" to bring attention to the continuing detention of Canadian humanitarians Dr. Tarek Loubani and 91��ɫ film Professor John Greyson, who were arrested on the street in Cairo, Egypt, on August 16. Nuit Blanche will mark the 50th day of their imprisonment. The website gathers images of individuals from around the world holding written messages of support, calling for the release of Greyson and Loubani.

Images from the freetarekandjohn tumblr

Nuit Blanche visitors are invited to contribute to the portrait petition at photo booths located at Toronto City Hall, 401 Richmond Street West and the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen St. West). The booths will run a live feed of the growing petition and a video featuring the first 250 portraits uploaded to freetarekandjohn.tumblr.com. The tumbler site will continue after October 5 and includes directions on how to upload your photo from home or mobile.

91��ɫ visual arts alumna (BFA ’97) recruited 100 regional beekeepers for her installation , billed as a massive collective meditation. As the keepers meditate in their bee-suits, viewers are asked to consider the relationship of temper to weather. The beekeepers will silently meditate on notions of “good weather” for the bees and for all of us, attempting to transform environmental conditions with their minds. While exploring the tangible effect of collective meditation, the work creates a public platform upon which to reflect on the health and temper of bees and their keepers, and on the policies and environmental conditions that affect our shared future.

Your Temper, My Weather will be performed from 7pm to midnight in the Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas St. West), where Borsato is currently artist-in-residence.

Right: Night Shift, 2013

Sobey Art Award finalist (BFA ’02) takes inspiration from Le Ballet de la Nuit, a 17th century 13-hour court ballet that was most notable for the involvement of the young Louis XIV of France, for his durational performance . Fernandes has re-contextualized the ballet into a contemporary dance performance in which dancers endure from dusk until dawn, dancing and making golden confetti in anticipation of the new tomorrow. Night Shift��questions notions of labour and time within the context of night changing into day as the dancer’s body endures and asserts itself in the process of performing.

Night Shift can be found both indoors and out around the Bay Adelaide Centre (333 Bay St., access from Temperance St). At dawn. in celebration of the new day, the accumulated piles of golden confetti will be thrown into the air to mark the conclusion of the work.

Right: Everyday Marvels, 2013

Dance artist and arts advocate (MA ’05) conceived, created and directs at the Gardiner Museum (111 Queen's Park). The program features 16 miniature vignettes (or ‘marvels’) by eight local choreographers, based on The Book of Marvels – A Compendium of Everyday Things by Canadian poet Lorna Crozier. The objects interpreted in Crozier’s poems - such as ‘bowl’, ‘vacuum’, ‘flashlight’ and ‘wheelbarrow’ - become the subjects of exploration through Litzenberger's cyclical, 12-hour performance piece. The cast features more than 50 professional and community-based artists. 91��ɫ participants include dance MFA student Valerie Calam�� and alumni Julia Aplin (BEd ’07) and Peter Chin (BFA ’85).

Left: 12 hour dolly, 2013

On October 1, award-winning filmmaker and interactive artist (BFA ’02) and his crew set up a circular dolly track in the middle of a busy Toronto street. At 7 pm, they began filming on the track and continued shooting non-stop until 7 am the next morning. Throughout this 12-hour cycle, spectators were invited to step in and interact with the space as they saw fit. The spontaneous performances of these impromptu participants was captured with beautiful cinematography and lighting, heightened by the cinematically epic movement of the dolly shot. Projected onto the atrium wall of TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King St. West) as an uninterrupted 12-hour film, invites visitors to spend time contemplating the participants in the film as well as the filmic apparatus itself.

Involved behind the scenes at Nuit Blanche is Kelsey Luxton, a masters candidate in Art History and Curatorial Studies, working as an events programming intern.

For comprehensive event info and a detailed schedule, visit the website.

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It is part of inVISIBILITY: Indigenous in the City, a knowledge mobilization project directed by Professor Susan Dion of 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Education, a national expert in urban Aboriginal education, which includes Carla Rice, Anna Hudson, Tanya Senk and Hannah Fowlie, and is funded by the Social Science & Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The project, in addition to being a ��celebration of urban Aboriginal presence, its diversities and complexities, strives to create an indigenous space where urban Aboriginal peoples represent themselves, tell their own stories and invite people to attend, listen and converse.

“I’ve been attending Aboriginal art exhibits, film festival and celebrations in Toronto for years and I love meeting friends, family and Aboriginal colleagues at these events,” says Dion. “As an Aboriginal educator, I go to meetings with people who make policies that impact the lives of Aboriginal people, yet I rarely see these people at our events. I wanted an event that would bring communities together.”

inVISIBILITY: Indigenous in the City is that event. “As indigenous people we always represented ourselves, told our own stories and shared our teachings,” says Dion. “However, up until recently most non-indigenous people have not had much interest in seeing and hearing our experiences and perspectives. I think that’s changing, I think people want to know us.”

In collaboration with the TDSB Aboriginal Education Centre staff, Dion, Rice and Hudson have brought together a thought provoking and exquisite collection of visual art, performance video and digital stories, along with a speaker series that provides the public with multiple opportunities to come together, engage with content and have conversations.

Attend the opening reception at the John B. Aird Gallery, 900 Bay St. (at Wellesley) in Toronto June 27, from 5 to 8pm. Meet the artists and storytellers and experience Aboriginal visibility.

The art exhibition and speaker series will take place at the gallery, Monday to Friday, from 10am to 6pm. It will feature the work of five Aboriginal artists who address questions of urban Aboriginal identity and education. The exhibition includes a series of digital stories created by Aboriginal students, parents and teachers from TDSB.

The artists will include Jeff Thomas, an urban-Iroquois and self-taught photo-based artist; Vanessa Dion Fletcher, a Potawatomi/Lenape working in performance, video, printmaking and beading artist; Beth Kotierk, an Inuk born in Nunavut working in painting, installation, video and performance art; Nigit'Stil Norbert, a Gwichin/Irish/Russian from Yellowknife working in stop-motion, photography, beading and installion; and Walter Kahero:ton Scott, a Mohawk from Kahnawake working in print, video, sculpture and comic books.

Upcoming Speaker series:

June 28, from 4:30 to 6:30pm – artist talks

July 4, from 4:30 to 6:30pm – digital story screening with student, parent and teacher storytellers

July 11, from 4:30 to 6:30pm – film screening and discussion
July 18, from 2:30 to 4:30pm – guest lectures by Verna St. Denis and Jan Hare.

For more information about the gallery, contact Dale Barett at director@airdgallery.org and for the��inVISIBILITY Project, contact Susan Dion at sdion@edu.yorku.ca.

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Theatre artists Ted Witzel and Ker Wells are going about it somewhat differently. They’re the inaugural participants in the 91��ɫ MFA in Theatre – Stage Direction in Collaboration with Canadian Stage, a landmark initiative that’s breaking new ground in Canadian theatre training.

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Launched last fall as a partnership between one of Canada’s preeminent theatre schools and one of the country’s leading not-for-profit contemporary theatre companies, this innovative graduate program offers highly specialized, advanced training in large-scale theatre directing. ��Its mission is to support the development of directorial talent for the national and international stage.

“When directors make their mainstage debut, they often feel they’re getting one kick at the can, and if they fail they’ll never get to do a large production again,” said Professor Eric Armstrong, director of 91��ɫ’s MFA theatre programs. “Here, you get to work with large casts on big shows in a mentored setting – something that just��doesn't��happen in the professional world.”

The collaborative MFA program allows students to develop their creative and technical skills to the highest level, integrating their academic and studio work in 91��ɫ’s Department of Theatre with involvement in artistic projects at . The opportunity to direct a Canadian Stage production and an internship with a major national or international theatre are key elements of the two-year program.

Canadian Stage Artistic and General Director Matthew Jocelyn and��Resident Artist Kim Collier serve as personal mentors for the MFA candidates. ��Collier, co-founder and artistic director of Vancouver’s Electric Company Theatre and winner of the 2010 Siminovitch Prize for directing, works closely with the students to support their professional development.

The program is customized for each student based on their background, artistic orientation and goals, so Wells and Witzel’s experience over the past year and their plans for the next are highly individual.

Wells assisted Collier in her direction of the Canadian Stage production of Red last fall, and served as assistant director to Richard Rose for , Canadian Stage’s 30th anniversary Shakespeare in the Park presentation, running in Toronto’s High Park until September 2.�� This coming season, Witzel will assist Kim Collier on a production for Vancouver's .

On the international front, Wells heads to the Netherlands this fall for an internship with acclaimed director Ivo van Hove at ,��working on a play by Ingmar Bergman. Witzel has an internship lined up with the renowned Canadian-born, Europe-based opera director Robert Carsen��(LLD Hons. '05)��for a production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the in Baden-Baden, Germany��in March 2013.

Both MFA candidates bring a wealth of experience to their work at 91��ɫ, at Canadian Stage and abroad.

Active in Toronto’s independent theatre scene for the past five years, Witzel is artistic director of , a company he co-founded in 2006. His directing credits include a number of bold, site-specific adaptations of classics in non-traditional venues such the Gladstone Hotel, Drake Underground, Whippersnapper Gallery and Trinity Bellwoods Park. His most recent productions for Red Light District have been La Ronde, an adaptation of the Arthur Schnitzler play, at the downtown club Wicked, and Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly, Last Summer with the Tennessee Project at the Gibson House Museum in North 91��ɫ. Witzel divides his time between Toronto and Germany, where he has worked as assistant to leading directors such as Johanna Schall and Sebastian Baumgarten.

Wells is an actor, director and teacher who has toured across Canada and in the US, England, Denmark, France, Italy and Serbia. He was a founding member of Primus Theatre in Winnipeg, where he worked for nearly a decade before moving to Toronto and co-founding Number Eleven Theatre in 1998. His productions with Number Eleven include Icaria, The Prague Visitor and The Curious History of Peter Schlemihl. Other credits include The Confessions of Punch and Judy for New 91��ɫ State-based NACL Theatre and solo shows Living Tall for Public Energy, Peterborough and Swimmer (68) for Toronto’s Hopscotch Collective.

91��ɫ’s Graduate Program in Theatre is now accepting applications for the next cycle of the MFA program in Theatre - Stage Direction in Collaboration with Canadian Stage. Two new students will be admitted into the program in September 2013. The�� application deadline is Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012. Directors with extremely strong individual and interpretive voices and substantial professional experience are invited to apply. Candidates should be committed to developing their artistic and technical skills and have a clear interest in working on a large scale.

For more information, visit��the Theatre -��Stage Direction in Collaboration with Canadian Stage website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Art-making and contemporary art theory at the nexus of culture and politics are the focus of this year’s event, produced by the Graduate Programs in Visual Arts, Art History and Visual Culture in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts.

The Summer Institute culminates in a free public lecture by Israeli cultural theorist, curator and writer Ariella Azoulay. Her talk, titled “Potential History”, is presented in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art and takes place at MOCCA on May 3.

The Institute also features public presentations on campus by Canadian conceptual artist Ken Lum, independent Vienna-based curator Ruth Noack, and Amelia Jones, Grierson Chair in Visual Culture at McGill University.

In “Potential History”,�� will address the possibilities that motivate and direct civic actions that critique or supplant without being exhausted by state order. She will discuss these issues in relation to two photographic archives she has assembled that deal with Israel’s representation of the state and its history.

Azoulay is director of the Photo-Lexic International Research Group at the Minerva Humanities Center at Tel Aviv University, Israel. Her research focuses on the theory and history of photography, cinema, museum studies, visual culture and history of political regimes. Her work in visual culture is informed by her research in contemporary philosophy and political theory, and by questions of gender, citizenship and disaster. Among her groundbreaking studies of photography and politics are Death’s Showcase (MIT Press, 2001), The Civil Contract of Photography (Zone Books, 2008) and the forthcoming Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology of Photography (Verso, 2012).

As a Vancouver-based multidisciplinary artist,��Lum is best known internationally for his large-scale public commissions that speak to issues of personal and cultural identity in a globalized world. He gives an illustrated talk on his work, titled “Art in the Public Sphere”, at 91��ɫ on April 24.

Noack, a curator whose exhibitions on the theme of “Die Regierung/The Government” have been shown in the United States and across Europe for the past decade, speaks on “Making Exhibitions in a Global Context” April 26.

As a professor at McGill University, Jones has written widely on contemporary art and on feminist, queer and anti-racist approaches to visual culture. She discusses her research findings in her April 30 talk, “Queer Feminist Durationality: The Trace of the Subject in Contemporary Art”.

As part of their residency in the Goldfarb Summer Institute, all four presenters will meet with graduate students in visual arts and art history at 91��ɫ’s Keele campus for informal discussions, seminars, critiques and studio visits.

The ��Joan��and Martin Goldfarb Summer Institute in Visual Arts offers 91��ɫ graduate students and the wider community the opportunity to engage with prominent international artists, curators, cultural theorists and critics through seminars, workshops, courses and public lectures.

The Summer Institute is named in recognition of Joan and Martin Goldfarb, longstanding supporters of 91��ɫ's Faculty of Fine Arts, whose generous gift has made this annual residency program possible.

Ariella Azoulay: “Potential History”
Presented in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA)
When: Thurs. May 3, 7 to 9pm
Where: MOCCA, 952 Queen Street West, Toronto
Admission: Free

Ken Lum: “Art in the Public Sphere”
When: Tues. April 24, 2:30 to 4pm
Where: Room 334, Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts, 91��ɫ, 4700 Keele St.
Admission: Free

Ruth Noack: “Making Exhibitions in a Global Context”
When: Thurs. April 26, 2:30 to 4pm
Where: Room 334, Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts
Admission: Free

Amelia Jones: “Queer Feminist Durationality: The Trace of the Subject in Contemporary Art”
When: Mon. April 30, 2:30 to 4pm
Where: Room 338, Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts, 91��ɫ, 4700 Keele St.
Admission: Free

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Jaime Angelopoulos’ large-format drawing,���ճ󾱱��,��and Julieta Maria’s four-minute digital video,��Soil, are now part of this outstanding collection of works created by then-emerging artists, reflecting ��the evolution of artistic sensibility, technology and expression over the past 35 years.

Right: "Thief" by Jaime Angelopoulos

Toronto philanthropist Samuel Sarick established the Purchase Award in1976 – just two years after��91��ɫ's Graduate Program in Visual Arts was established. Each year since then, one or more works have been selected for acquisition from the thesis exhibitions of students graduating from the program. In addition to serving as a showcase of the leading edge of contemporary work, the collection is an important component of the historical record of the visual arts department and its alumni.

(MFA ‘10) identifies herself as a sculptor who also works in installation and large-scale drawing.

“My drawings often depict aspects of my sculptural forms, while also informing the sculpture-making process,” she said. “My current drawings combine graphic geometric fragments and bright color hues with organic shapes and textures evocative of animals. To reconcile oppositional elements within a drawing is to discover a balance between contradictory ideas.”

Angelopoulos has an upcoming solo show May 4 to 21 at Toronto’s , located at 401 Richmond St. W. The opening reception takes place Friday, May 4 from 8 to 10pm.

Angelopoulos has presented her work across Canada and beyond. Her solo exhibitions and performances include venues such as Parisian Laundry in Montreal, Stride Gallery in Calgary, Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax, Meadows School of the Arts in Dallas, Texas, and at the Banff Centre for the Arts.

In contrast to Angelopoulos’ physical art-making, (BFA ‘04, MFA ‘10) is a new media artist working in a variety of media including video, interactive video installations and web. Soil is a prime example of her recent work, which centres on video documentation of staged actions.

Soil shows the artist’s face in profile, open-mouthed, lying horizontally against a white background. Soil starts pouring down from the upper side of the frame, gradually filling her mouth.

“Closeness to the earth implies being close to life and death, to the visceral,” said Maria.

Left: A scene from "Soil" by Julieta Maria

“In the video, I take the soil trying to engage in minimal movement or expression. The openness of the mouth, however, gives a sense of willingness to receive the dirt. It’s a situation that is not resolved, as the soil keeps falling and accumulating. The soil comes from above, as a kind of fate.”

Maria is a co-founder of in Toronto, where she currently serves as executive director. She has participated in several international screenings and exhibitions, including Scope Basel in Switzerland in 2010, the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics in Colombia in 2009, and the Interactiva Biennale in Mexico 2009, among others.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Shakespeare: The Authorship Question, a day-long conference exploring those questions, will take place Saturday, April 7, starting at 11am, at the Joseph G. Green Studio Theatre,��139 Centre for Film & Theatre, Keele campus. The conference is open to the public. Tickets cost $30, which will include a light lunch. Reservations must be made, but one can pay at the door.

Over the last century-and-a-half numerous scholars, artists and those who are simply curious have looked at the issue and have suggested quite publicly that the Bard of Avon may not be who we have long thought he was. Those doubters have included Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, Henry James, Orson Welles, Helen Keller and, more recently, major artists such as Mark Rylance, first artistic director of the rebuilt Globe Theatre, actor Jeremy Irons and Sir Derek Jacobi. Even a judge from the United States Supreme Court – after hearing the arguments in a legal framework – said there were certainly grounds for reasonable doubt.

In recent years, dozens of books have been published interrogating these and related questions arguing for and against everyone from the standard candidate – the actor-manager from Stratford-upon-Avon William Shaksper (that is indeed how he generally spelled his name) – to�� Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (the current most favoured candidate) to Italian-born and English-raised lexicographer John Florio. Sony Pictures’ recent film, Anonymous, has now drawn the wider public into the discussion.

The conference’s keynote speaker, Mark Anderson (left), author of the critically-acclaimed volume , has his own opinion on Shakespeare’s identity. Anderson will delve into the subject with his talk, "The Bard's New Clothes: Shakespeare's Autobiography and Why the Authorship Controversy Matters".

Professor Don Rubin (right), founding director of the MA and PhD programs in Theatre Studies and series editor of Routledge’s six-volume World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, will deliver opening remarks. Rubin, president of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association, is currently directing a fourth-year seminar at 91��ɫ on the authorship question.

Montreal actor Keir Cutler will then give a one-hour performance based on Mark Twain’s comic examination of the question, is Shakespeare dead? Cutler has performed the show all across North America.

In the afternoon, there will be a 90-minute panel debate on who wrote Shakespeare’s work, chaired by Rubin with panellists Anderson, Cutler, Italian-born scholar and editor Lamberto Tassinari of Montreal (a major proponent of John Florio), 91��ɫ’s own Canada Research Chair in Theatre – Professor Christopher Innes of the Department of English (arguing for William of Stratford), David Prosser, communications director and former literary manager of the ��Stratford Festival, and Michel Vais, editor of the Quebec theatre journal Jeu. There will also be a Q&A session with the audience.

The event is sponsored by the 91��ɫ Department of Theatre in association with 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts, Winters College, Stong College, the Division of Humanities and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies Research Fund.

For more information, to register or to support this event, contact Don Rubin at drubin@yorku.ca,��or Tasha Gallant, part of the conference’s publicity committee, at Tash89@yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The lively young repertory company of the Department of Dance��is presenting��an engaging collection of contemporary choreography by established and rising dance artists. The show, which opened Thursday,��runs Friday, March 23,��and��Saturday, March 24,��at 7:30pm.

Dancers, Anastasia Feigin and�� Nikolaos Markakis in 'Tangled Rags'. Photograph by David Hou

“I feel the members of the 91��ɫ Dance Ensemble are among the hardest-working people at this University,” said YDE’s artistic and managing director, Professor Holly Small.�� “With occasional blood, plenty of sweat and not a few tears, the ensemble has achieved a level of excellence of which 91��ɫ can rightly be proud.”

The program opens with Suddenly Everyone…, ��a piece that ranges from��highly structured to completely free improvisation. It was created collaboratively, with the YDE providing the movement and music, and Small contributing structure and direction.

Set to a mix of music from the films Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins, 91��ɫ dance Professor Darcey Callison’s Down The Road takes inspiration and physicality from the rabbit holes and yellow brick roads encountered in��life.

Short Ride in a Fast Machine is a surprising, demanding trio choreographed and performed by YDE members Yvon Allard, Miles Gosse and Nikolaos Markakis.

Undergraduate student Anne Goad’s It’s Just What You Do is a duet about true love, inspired by the choreographer’s grandparents and their 69 years of marriage.

Shae Zukiwsky, a PhD candidate in dance, joins the YDE in the performance of his new piece for large ensemble, Resistance. Through the work, he explores the concept of being an outsider and how he could move from within that – seeing as he can’t seem to move from it.

91��ɫ dance student Tracy Day in Small's 'Tangled Dances'

The program culminates with Small’s Tangled Rags, a suite of three tender, soulful dances that the choreographer has dedicated to her father. The work is set to Three Rags, a composition by the late Canadian composer James Tenney, who taught in 91��ɫ’s music department, in a recording by pianist and 91��ɫ music professor Casey Sokol.

Tickets for the YDE show are $20 each, or $10 for students and seniors. Tickets are��available by calling 416-736-5888, visiting the Fine Arts Box Office, or at the door.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Established and emerging artists in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts bring their collective talents to a riveting new production of a baroque classic: Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas. This epic story of love and betrayal plays out at the Sandra Faire��& Ivan Fecan Theatre on 91��ɫ’s Keele campus for two performances only, March 1 and 2.

Lead artists Joseph Farahat and Charlotte Gagnon

Based on a chapter from The Aeneid, penned by the Roman poet Virgil in the first century BC, Dido and Aeneas recounts the tragic tale of Dido, Queen of Carthage, and the Trojan hero Aeneas. Dido loses her heart to the fierce, handsome warrior Aeneas after he is shipwrecked on her shores, only to be devastated when he abandons her to continue his quest to find Rome.

This story of doomed love has resounded through two millennia. 91��ɫ’s production, a collaboration between faculty and students from the departments of Music, Theatre and Dance, is a strikingly contemporary but timeless re-imagining. Thirty performers play the characters as well as the place, forming a living set on an otherwise empty stage.

“T�󾱲� Dido project is the realization of a dream I’ve had since I joined 91��ɫ,” said Professor Catherine Robbin (left), who heads��91��ɫ’s classical vocal music program. “There’s so much talent and expertise in our performance programs, and it’s a joy to bring it together in an opera production. The experience of combining our creative energies is tremendously exciting and rewarding, both for the students involved and for those of us who teach and work professionally in the field.”

An internationally renowned mezzo soprano, Robbin fills the dual roles of music director and producer for the production. She is no stranger to Dido and Aeneas, having sung the title role in the 1982 Stratford Festival production, which earned her critical accolades as�� “a voice which is unquestionably the greatest, in its range, that Canada has produced in several decades” (The Globe and Mail). Her discography features many baroque composers, including Purcell, Handel and Vivaldi, in collaborations with leading conductors such as Christopher Hogwood, Trevor Pinnock and John Eliot Gardiner.

Presiding over the orchestra pit for 91��ɫ’s Dido and Aeneas is Robbin’s Music Department colleague, award-winning choral conductor and composer Professor Stephanie Martin (above). Martin, who serves as music director for the historic Church of St. Mary Magdalene and conductor of Toronto’s Pax Christi Chorale, directs the 16- member 91��ɫ Baroque Ensemble.

The stage director is theatre Professor Gwen Dobie (left), who brings extensive directing credits in contemporary opera and theatre to the table. Dobie‘s��most recent productions include ���������������dzپ���ܱ� and Sound in Silence for her company, Out of the Box Productions; the Canadian premiere of the Danish opera On this Planet by Anders Nordendoft; and the world premiere of the opera Eyes on the Mountain by Canadian composer Christopher Donison.

Susan Lee (BFA ’90, MFA ’10), an alumna and current faculty member in 91��ɫ’s Department of Dance, brings her long-standing interest in interdisciplinary collaboration to Dido and Aeneas. In a performance career spanning two decades and three continents, Lee has originated roles in almost 50 world premieres by some of Canada’s most highly acclaimed choreographers. Her own choreography has been described as “… a tour de force of magic and mystery” (The Globe and Mail). She brings that magic to bear on this production, contributing original choreography to the work.

Starring in the role of Dido is fourth-year music major Charlotte Gagnon. Gagnon recently won first prize at the Newmarket Voice Festival Senior Scholarship Competition, as well as two awards for opera performance and the prize for outstanding performing ability and career potential in classical singing. She also placed second in her class at the 2011 National Association of Teachers of Singing Ontario chapter competition.

First-year music student Joseph Farahat sings the role of Aeneas. Both young artists are studying with eminent soprano Norma Burrowes in 91��ɫ’s classical vocal performance program.

In total, the cast for Dido and Aeneas features 21 singers, four actors and five dancers. Not only performers, they also play an active role on the production side. Dressed all in white, they have designed their own costumes based on their personae in Purcell’s opera – or ��in the case of the non-speaking roles, inspired by characters drawn from the classical literature of five centuries, who were betrayed or betrayers in their time.

Eschewing a physical set, Professor Elizabeth Asselstine, chair of the Department of Theatre, and Professor William Mackwood, who teaches design and production in the Department of Dance, have created elaborate lighting and projection designs for the show. Working with a technical team of four theatre students, they paint the white-costumed canvas of the performers with evocative colour and special effects.

Tickets��are $17, or $12 for students and seniors.��For tickets, contact the Box Office at 416-736-5888.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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playGround, the annual juried fringe festival of 91��ɫ’s Department of Theatre, celebrates its 20th season with two dynamic programs running Feb. 14 to 17 in the Joseph G. Green Studio Theatre,��139 Centre for Film & Theatre at91��ɫ’s Keele campus.

Well-known for its uncurbed spirit and risk-taking mindset, playGround is a student-produced seedbed for the next generation of theatre artists. It showcases original works conceived, written, performed and produced by up-and-coming playwrights, directors, designers and actors from all levels of91��ɫ’s undergraduate theatre program.

Meg Moran and Meara Tubman-Broeren, both fourth-year students studying devised theatre in the Department of Theatre’s Creative Ensemble, are the co-artistic directors of this year’s edition of playGround. With the help of a peer jury, they selected the most promising ideas from the almost four dozen proposals submitted.

“Not only does the festival showcase the work of emerging artists of our generation and community, it also deals with what’s important to us as students right now,” said Tubman-Broeren. “What unifies all the pieces is our mandate, which is to foster innovative and experimental theatrical work which engages its audience and ignites thought and discussion.”

“Producing the festival has been a challenging and lengthy process, with its share of ups and downs, but overall it’s been very rewarding,” said Moran. “T�󾱲� is a unique opportunity for us as students to work so independently. It’s been a real learning experience for Meara and me.”

The old adage:, “when you want a job done well, give it to a busy person”, rings true for this duo. In addition to their work with playGround, they are collaborating with other members of the fourth-year Creative Ensemble on a show slated to run March 27 to 30.�� Moran is also assistant-directing the upcoming Theatre @ 91��ɫ production of Edward Bond’s Restoration, which will run March 18 to 24.�� And Tubman-Broeren is performing in a physical theatre adaptation of Shakespeare’s King John, which will be playing downtown this summer.

playGround 2012 ranges from light comedies to dark dramas, and from staunch realism to dance theatre.��Here’s an overview of the featured productions:

Series A��

Meat is a dystopic romance in which a young doctor’s morality is put to the test when his work forces him to explore, sacrifice and examine what it truly means to be human.��

Belly Doll is imagined and choreographed as a unique melding of traditional belly dance and theatrical performance.��

The Doorstep – In every relationship, there are conversations. These conversations are intimate, emotionally driven, and personal, and have the potential to be the beginning, or the end, of something beautiful.��

Old Town explores the nature of familial responsibility and sibling dynamics framed within the question: When is it time to grow up?��

The Watching Game is a raunchy comedy revolving around people watching.��

A Working Woman follows the story of a prostitute on the precipice of a life-changing decision.��

Emerging Artists Collective – “A lowbrow commentary on highbrow art”, exploring the challenges and pitfalls faced by the current generation of young artists.��

Womb - What if we weren’t told the whole story? Before there was Adam and his wife, Eve, there was Adam and his equal, Lilith. Womb explores the possibilities of a world where Lilith was the first mother.��

Series B��

Danny and Annie looks at the different ways love comes in and out of our lives.��

Drafts - Everybody is looking, but is anybody really seeing?��

Wonder’s Lost Where Wonder’s Found – A woman winds her way through the ridiculous annals of compulsion and the heart-aching longings of loneliness while seeking to remember the miracle of life.����

The Abstraction – Two men in a gallery contemplate an abstract work of art and decide what it means to each of them.��

The Vagina Dialogues is a verbatim piece composed of interviews with91��ɫUniversity students about the misconceptions and mysteries surrounding the vagina.��

Da Capo explores a composer, his muse and the various layers of their relationship through movement.��

Cracked - At the end of her life, Ida Hookman must finally face the consequences of her self-obsessed lifestyle and defend her autonomy in the process.��

Emerging Artists Collective presents a new devised work that examines the artist’s place in the city of Toronto.��

Each program is presented three times over playGround’s four-day run. Series A plays Tuesday, Feb. 14 and Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 7:30pm, with a matinee Friday, Feb. 17 at 1pm. Series B has a matinee Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 1pm, and runs Thursday, Feb. 17 and Friday, Feb. 17 at 7:30pm.

Moran and Tubman-Broeren encourage patrons to purchase their tickets in advance, as performances do sell out. Tickets are $7 per show and are available through the 91��ɫ Box Office website or by calling 416-736-5888.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post 91��ɫ fringe theatre festival out to take risks appeared first on Research & Innovation.