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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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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After five years of transnational research by educators and artists in Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, the United States and Canada, the VIVA! Project is launching its new book, iVIVA! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas, edited by project lead Deborah Barndt, a professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) and coordinator of the Community Arts Practice certificate.

“The book is the culmination of years of research and rich exchange with partners,” says Barndt of the 2003-2007 Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada-funded participatory action research VIVA! Project. “Each partner undertook research of a community arts project and annual transnational workshops allowed them to reflect critically and creatively, collectively and comparatively, on their diverse educational and artistic practices.”

(SUNY Press and Between the Lines), which includes a DVD that brings the projects to life, will launch Friday, Oct. 28, from 6:30 to 9pm, at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, 16 Spadina Rd., Toronto. The launch, co-sponsored by the Catalyst Centre, will include performances, poetry and video screenings at 7pm and 8pm, as well as displays of VIVA! partner organizations and local community arts groups. Refreshments will be served.

The launch is part of a larger Arts & Communities Network event, which will run from Oct. 27 to 31. Five of the international VIVA! Project partners will facilitate professional development workshops over the five days, a cross-faculty initiative funded by 91��ɫ’s Academic Innovation Fund.

The workshops represent unique community-University partnerships, says Barndt. Community partners include the West-Side Arts Hub, Nomanzland Theatre, Young Peoples Theatre, Centre for Indigenous Theatre, Regent Park Focus, Digital Storytelling Toronto, Latin American Art Centre Collective, Latin American Canadian Art Projects and Mural Routes. Academic partners include 91��ɫ’s Community Arts Practice program, 91��ɫ's Faculty of Environmental Studies, the TD – 91��ɫ Centre for Community Engagement, 91��ɫ’s Department of Theatre and Department of Dance in the Faculty of Fine Arts, Destination Arts in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Education, the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean and the Centre for Refugee Studies.

Left: Deborah Barndt

The first workshop, Sharing Lives and Cultures: Community Media on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast, an evening dialogue with Margarita Antonio, will take place on Thursday, Oct. 27, from 6 to 9pm, at Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre, 38 Regent St. (lower level), Toronto.

Antonio is a Miskitu journalist, a leader in regional Indigenous women’s networks and the UNESCO Officer on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. She is founder of the Institute for Intercultural Communication of URACCAN University and she helped develop BilwiVision, a youth-run community television program. Antonio will share Central American experiences and open up a dialogue with Toronto community media activists.

The second workshop, Movement and Poetry Workshop, will be with Amy Shimshon-Santo on Friday, Oct. 28, from 1 to 4pm, at West-Side Arts Hub, 91��ɫ Woods Library, 1785 Finch Ave. W., Toronto. Shimshon-Santo is a Los Angeles-based performing artist, educator and researcher. As director of ArtsBridge for University of California, Los Angeles, School for the Arts & Architecture, she prepared arts educators, built arts education infrastructure and cultivated K-20 community partnerships.

On Saturday, Oct. 29, the Community Mural Production Workshop with Checo Valdez will take place from 10am to 4pm, at the Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood Centre, 1900 Davenport Rd., Toronto. Valdez is a well-known graphic artist, political cartoonist and muralist who teaches at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. He has recently developed a training program in community-based mural production and has coordinated mural projects all over Mexico.

On Sunday, Oct. 30, The Arrivals Creation Process: Recovering the Lost Body with Diane Roberts will take place from 2 to 5pm at West-Side Arts Hub, 91��ɫ Woods Library, 1785 Finch Ave. W., Toronto. Roberts is a Caribbean Canadian theatre artist working from an AfriCentric perspective. She is currently artistic director of urban ink productions, which develops and produces aboriginal and diverse cultural works of theatre, writing and film, integrates artistic disciplines and brings together different cultural and artistic perspectives and interracial experiences.

The final workshop, Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way with Monique Mojica, JoséÁngel Colman Pérez and Alberto Guevara, will take place on Monday, Oct. 31, from 6 to 8pm, at 612 Markham St., Toronto. VIVA! Project partners Pérez, Mojica and Guevara will speak about the collaborative and intercultural creation process in producing the groundbreaking play Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse in May.

An established senior artist, Pérez is a master storyteller and oral historian and was the first professionally trained theatre artist of the Kuna people in Panama. Best known for his work in cultural recovery through theatre, Pérez was a major leader in the Kuna Children’s Art Project. Mojica (Kuna and Rappahannock nations) is a Toronto-based actor, playwright and artist-scholar spun directly from the web of New 91��ɫ’s Spiderwoman Theater. Her first play Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots was produced in 1990 by Nightwood Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille. Guevara, a 91��ɫ theatre professor, is the coordinator of the Community Arts Practice (CAP) certificate offered by the Faculties of Fine Arts and Environmental Studies and was the assistant director of the play Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way. Originally from Nicaragua, he integrates performance and politics. His research has focused on the theatricality of violence in Nicaragua and Nepal.

All the events are open to the public and admission is free. To RSVP for the launch, visit the . For more information about the workshops, visit the  website.

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

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