91��ɫ alumni Archives | Research & Innovation

Fermilab names Nigel Lockyer as new director

muellerm — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Nigel Lockyer (BSc ’75)

91��ɫ alumnus and physicist Nigel Lockyer (BSc. Spec. Hons. ’75), has been appointed the new director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, reported Nature.com, , and others June 21. In September he will move from his post as director of TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics in Vancouver. Lockyer spent many years working on Fermilab’s Tevatron, and earned renown for measuring the lifetime of the bottom quark. Under his lead, TRIUMF built new experiments and international agreements, worked to produce better medical isotope supplies, and developed a commercialization arm, Advanced Applied Physics Solutions. Nature spoke with him about Fermilab’s . .

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TEDx91��ɫU: Spreading great ideas with passion

fmaquito — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ will be making its sophomore contribution to a worldwide movement of talks and idea-sharing by hosting TEDx91��ɫU on March 10 at the Glendon campus.

TED, which stands for technology, entertainment and design, is a series of not-for-profit conferences that started in 1984 in Silicon Valley as a way for employees of tech companies to share their ideas and innovations with their contemporaries.

Featuring two official annual conferences, dozens of global TED events and more than 1,000 independently organized TEDx events, TED is a worldwide movement that brings together the “world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers”. Each TED presenter is challenged to give the “talk of their lives”. Previous TED alumni include former US vice-president and current environmental activist , futurist and author and British celebrity chef and food activist .

The mission of TED is simple: spread great ideas. In its second year, TEDx91��ɫU is featuring talks by members of the 91��ɫ community centred on the various ways in which their passions have impacted the world around them.

Driven by a committee comprised of current students, alumni and staff members, this year’s event will be hosted at Theatre Glendon. Key presenters at TEDx91��ɫU are 91��ɫ President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri, Vice-President Academic & Provost Patrick Monahan, Toronto city councillor Mike Layton (MES ’06) and 91��ɫ communiations & culture Professor Barbara Crow.

TEDx91��ɫU is supported by the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, the Division of Students, 91��ɫ Alumni, Student Community & Leadership Development and Glendon College.

until 11:59am on Wednesday, Feb. 29. Satellite locations for remote viewing will be available on the Keele and Glendon campuses on March 10. A live webcast will also be available for people who want to watch from off campus locations.

For more information, visit the website, see its or search posts on Twitter using .

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

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Worldwide Short Film Festival salutes 91��ɫ's Film Department with retrospective

fmaquito — Tue, 31 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Hailing it as “one of the best film schools in Canada”, the Canadian Film Centre’s Worldwide Short Film Festival (WSFF) is honouring 91��ɫ’s Department of Film with a dedicated retrospective screening at the Royal Ontario Museum on June 1.

Now in its 17th year, is the leading venue for the exhibition and promotion of short film in North America and is one of the world’s premier short film festivals. This year it presents 275 films from 36 countries and offers one of the largest prize packages for short film in the world. Along with public screenings, WSFF hosts a professional development symposium and the largest short film marketplace in North America.

Right: Director Scott Boyd (BFA ‘07) heard about a death-defying world record attempt by a dangerously cool-headed magician and decided to turn it into a short film of epic proportions. The result is the 2007 short film Escape Clause, which will be screened as part of the WSFF's tribute to the Department of Film

WSFF’s 91��ɫ Retrospective celebrates the department’s 40th anniversary and the outstanding creative talent it has nurtured over the years. The festival programmers delved into the archives of 91��ɫ student productions to select a collection of films made in the past decade. Interspersed in the 76-minute program are a number of one-minute segments from The 40 Film, a specially curated collection of snippets spanning the department’s entire history. (The 40 Film with an alumni preview downtown at the Camera Bar and a party on the Harry W. Arthurs Common at 91��ɫ’s Keele campus.)

“We’re very pleased to help 91��ɫ celebrate this milestone,” said WSFF director Eileen Arandiga. “What’s truly exciting about this program is the variety of shorts and the mature talent of these young filmmakers. There’s no denying it – 91��ɫ’s Film Department shines.”

“We’re delighted to cap our 40th anniversary celebrations with this retrospective at the Worldwide Short Film Fest,” said Professor Anmon Buchbinder, chair of the department. “The featured productions are an excellence representation of the remarkable work our students are doing.”

The retrospective comprises six shorts, all of which were nominees or winners at CineSiege, the department’s annual juried film showcase, in the year they were produced.

Current student Vu Van (Franco) Nguyen’s short fiction film Plants out of Sunlight (2010) makes its world premiere at WSFF. It tells the story of Mia, who works her fingers to the bone at a thankless factory job and longs for a better relationship with her son, who’s taken to staying out all night and sleeping all day.

Above: The character Mia in Vu Van (Franco) Nguyen's 2010 short fiction film Plants out of Sunlight

The WSFF retrospective is yet another feather in the cap of Hugh Gibson (BFA ‘04), who has enjoyed international festival success with his gritty drama Hogtown Blues (2004). The film portrays a Russian immigrant woman living in Toronto who tries to patch up her fractured relationship with her father, for the sake of her son. Hogtown Blues has been seen at more than 20 festivals, including Toronto, Montreal, Austin, Palm Springs, Brno and Bilbao, where it won the audience award.

Above: Vladimir Radian in a scene from Hogtown Blues

Luo Li (BFA ‘05, MFA ‘09), winner of Toronto’s 2011 Images Festival Prize for his thesis feature Rivers and My Father, created the experimental short Fly in 2005 as an undergraduate student. The film weaves together ink, paintbrush and experimental filmmaking techniques to form an astute exploration of flight and calligraphy.

Left: A scene from the 2005 film Fly

Director Scott Boyd (BFA ‘07) heard about a death-defying world record attempt by a dangerously cool-headed magician and decided to turn it into a short film of epic proportions. Having screened at festivals across Canada and on television in the US, UK and Italy, his documentary Escape Clause (2007) receives its Toronto premiere at WSFF.

Tess Girard (BFA ‘05) created her hauntingly beautiful documentary Benediction (2005) as a homage to her recently deceased grandmother. The film has earned many accolades, including a showing at the Toronto International Film Festival and a special citation at TIFF’s Student Showcase as well as the prize for best overall production at the Canadian Student Film Festival in Montreal.

Right: A scene from the doucmentary Benediction (2005)

The School (2003), co-directed by Matthew Miller (BFA ‘03) and Ezra Krybus (BFA ’03), is a darkly comedic fable that asks: “Is it death which gives meaning to life, or is it life which gives meaning to death?” - Edgar Gibson’s elementary school class finds out the hard way. The School was the jury’s selection for outstanding achievement at CineSiege 2003 and went on to become a hit on the international festival circuit. It has screened at more than 25 fests worldwide and won numerous awards, including best Canadian short at the Atlantic Film Festival and the gold plaque for best student narrative at the Chicago International Film Festival.

Above: Students participating in a classroom experiment that involves planting beans in a scene from the dark fable The School

The 91��ɫ Retrospective unspools Friday, June 1at 4:15 pm at the ROM, 100 Queen's Park. The cinema is accessed by the south entrance. Tickets are available , at the WSFF box office in Cumberland Terrace, 2 Bloor St. West (entrance on Cumberland between Bay and Yonge, 10am to 6pm), or at the door one hour before the screening. Tickets are free, in person, for students with ID.

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

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Winters College fundraiser March 22 draws high-profile performers, including Oscar Peterson Chair

fmaquito — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

A slew of entertainers will perform at the Winters Gala Fundraiser to raise awareness and funds for the renovation of student space in Winters College.

The gala evening will take place Tuesday, March 22, starting with student performers at 6pm, followed by headlining acts from 7 to 10pm.

Right: Rita di Ghent

Jazz musician and composer , the Oscar Peterson Chair in Jazz Performance at 91��ɫ who was formerly with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, jazz singer (BFA Hons. ’83), a two-time Jazz Vocalist of the Year nominee for the National Jazz Awards, and (BFA Spec. Hons. ’07), winner of CBC’s “Canada’s Next Top Crooner”, will take centre stage.

The Celtic Ensemble, directed by 91��ɫ Professor Sherry Johnson of the Faculty of Fine Arts and two-time Canadian Open Group Step Dancing Champion, and 91��ɫ music Professor Casey Sokol, winner of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations Award for Excellence in Teaching, will also perform.

Left: Ori Dagan. Photo by John Bregar Photography.

In addition, the 91��ɫ Gospel Choir and Winters A Capella Choir WIBI, among many others will showcase their talent.

The fundraiser is for the Winters College Dining Hall, which has been a cornerstone of the college community for more than 40 years. “It is one of only two remaining grand rooms out of the original seven constructed during the 1960s,” says Marie Rickard, college master of Winters College.

Right: Ron Westray

Over time, and with campus expansion, each of the others were in turn deemed obsolete and turned into classrooms, labs and offices. “These historic sites, widely used by students and faculty alike as educational and social spaces, served the college community for decades – our goal is to ensure the continuation of the Winters Dining Hall for many years to come,” says Rickard.

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

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91��ɫ Film Downtown brings current graduate work to the big screen

fmaquito — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 10:00:00 +0000

The Department of Film celebrates the work of recent alumni and current candidates in the master's program in film production with a screening of graduate works from 2009 to 2011.

Dubbed "Depth of Field", two free programs of short films will be screened tonight, March 7, at 7pm and 9pm at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox. A number of filmmakers will be available after the screenings for a question and answer session.

“These screenings offer a diverse range of remarkable abstract experimental work, clever documentaries and innovative short dramas,” said the event’s organizer, Professor Laurence Green, graduate program director of production & screenwriting . “We hope 'Depth of Field' will become an annual opportunity for 91��ɫ to showcase the talent from our graduate film program in a downtown setting with works by candidates who are on the cusp of completing the program alongside the thesis projects of our recent alumni.”

The programs are part of the new series 91��ɫ Film Downtown, which features free screenings and panel discussions with industry professionals on the art and business of cinema.

7pm screening

Refraction Series (8 minutes, 2009) offers an experimental approach to optics and some brilliant "visual music" composition in colour and light directed by (MFA ‘09). Inspired by the ideas of early scientists like Ibn al-Haytham and Isaac Newton, who investigated the nature of light and visual perception, Gehman used everything from unmounted lenses and prisms, to CDs and liquids to generate a wide range of pure light and colours in motion.

Right: Refraction Series offers a visual music composition in colour and light

This visually arresting silent film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2008, and has since screened internationally at festivals including the Ann Arbor Film Festival in Michigan where it won the Peter Wilde Award for Most Technically Innovative Film in 2009.

A former director of Toronto’s Images Film Festival (2000-2004) and programmer at TIFF and Cinematheque Ontario, Gehman is an independent filmmaker, curator and critic based in Toronto. In fall, 2010, his films were the subject of a retrospective screening at the Canadian Film Institute (Ottawa). Gehman is also teaching a film course in the film Department this year, on contract.

(BFA ‘06, MFA ‘10) directed Deadman (31 minutes, 2010) a documentary exploring two visions of the wild west. On screen, Matt Sandvoss enthuses over his plans to build a replica of an Old-West theme park complete with a saloon and gunfighters in British Columbia. In sharp contrast, Cree resident Gerald Carter explains the history of the town, Deadman's Creek and is stunned by new commercial and real estate developments in the region. Their contrasting perspectives provide the drama. Deadman screened at TIFF and the Vancouver international Film Festival in 2009 among others.

Left: Deadman, directed by alumna Chelse McMullan, explores two visions of the wild west

McMullan won’t be able to attend the screening as she is currently in Treviso, near Venice, Italy participating in the Benneton Family’s artistic think tank . During her year there she will explore a wide variety of projects in collaboration with the other 39 young resident artists in this unique talent incubator.

Ghost Noise (23 minutes, 2009) was directed by Marcia Connolly (MFA ’10) and explores the absolute intelligence, mischief and poetry of Inuit artist Shuvinai Ashoona. The film won the Lodestar Award for Best Canadian or International Film at the Dawson City Film Festival and has screened at festivals coast to coast including ImagineNATIVE and the REELARTISTS festivals in Toronto and Vancouver’s Women in Film festival among many others.

Right: Ghost Noise by Marcia Connolly explores the poetry of Inuit artist Shuvinai Ashoona

Other works on the 7pm program include dramas by current MFA candidates, like ’s Open Window, (9 minutes, 2010) in which a backyard birthday party is consumed by tension between the parents as a result of abusive relationships between the characters; and Rafal Sokolowski’s 7th Day, (24 minutes, 2011) that depicts two recent Toronto immigrants who try to beat prohibitive Toronto rents by working their taxicab 24/7 -- while one is driving the other is sleeping in the miniature apartment in the trunk.

9pm screening

Bridge Kids (16 minutes, 2010), directed by (MFA ‘10) is mesmerizing collage of found footage, sci-fi cliches, and original drama, featuring telepathic children. Set in the near future, there are no adults, a tree house becomes a door to another dimension, and rocks release intuitive powers. Documentary, historiography and mythology collide and transform in a multi-format, multi-channel installation showing a virtual world of telepathic children and their attempt at reincarnation. Bridge Kids connects a research documentary on J.B. Rhine and the history of ESP/ Parapsychology, with a science fiction drama portraying an adolescent's connection with the dead. Pugen screened the video at a widely publicized solo exhibition at Toronto’s TPW Gallery.

Left: Alumnus Geoff Pugen's film Bridge Kids features found footage and telepathic children

Current MFA candidate ’s Three Walls, (26 minutes, 2010) traces the development of the office cubicle since its inception in the late 1960s to its current status as North America's dominant form of office furniture. More than a bit of social history, this documentary captures the melancholic absurdity of the modern day office and examines the larger issues surrounding the shifting nature of white-collar work.

Right: Current MFA candidate Zaheed Mawani’s Three Walls, traces the development of the office cubicle since its inception in the late 1960s

Other films that complete the 9pm screening are Fabric (9 minutes, 2009), an experimental narrative about a woman trying to reconnect with her family directed by Coral Aiken (MFA ’10) and Uniform Activity, (20 minutes, 2010) a drama directed by Chris McCarroll (MFA ‘10) that shows the unwitting transformation of a middle-aged man as he methodically prepares for his first day at a new job. Plus two works by current MFA candidates including ’s Left-Behind Woman, (21 minutes, 2011), a documentary examining the living conditions of women in rural China, and ’s Agape (23 minutes, 2011) a drama set in Nazi-occupied Poland about a widow in a relationship with a Nazi officer, who is placed in a life threatening situation by her eight-year old daughter.

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

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Professor Rishma Dunlop and recent 91��ɫ grad are finalists for CBC Literary Awards

fmaquito — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

The long list of finalists for the 2010 CBC Literary Awards has been announced, and 91��ɫ English and education Professor Rishma Dunlop and alumna Kilby Smith-McGregor (BA Hons. ’09) are among them.

�ٳܲԱ��Ǳ�’s Home, Roses, Hauntings and Smith-McGregor’s The Infinity Pool are both vying for top spot in the non-fiction category, along with 24 other finalists. In the poetry category, Smith-McGregor’s Body Temperature is competing against 23 others. The third category in the contest is for short stories.

Right: Kilby Smith-McGregor. Photo by Laura Jane Petelko

Last year, Smith-McGregor won the Writers’ Trust of Canada (see YFile, July 23, 2010), for writers under 35 who have yet to be published in book form. Her work has appeared in Brick, A Literary Journal, the Dublin Quarterly International Literary Review and The Cyclops Review.

She won the Tarragon Theatre’s inaugural , and while at 91��ɫ, the President’s Creative Writing Award for Poetry and the Sylvia Ellen Hersch Memorial Award, both in 2009, and the Sorbara Award in Creative Writing in 2008.

Left: Rishma Dunlop

A finalist for the CBC Literary Awards in 1998 and again in 2009, and winner of the Emily Dickinson Prize for Poetry in 2003, is a poet, playwright, translator and essayist. She has several poetry collections, including Metropolis (Mansfield Press, 2005), Reading Like A Girl (Black Moss Press, 2004) and The Body of My Garden (Mansfield Press, 2002). White Album (Inanna Publications, 2008) combines �ٳܲԱ��Ǳ�’s poems with paintings by Suzanne Northcott. Her radio play, The Raj Kumari's Lullaby, was commissioned by CBC Radio in 2005.

Coordinator of 91��ɫ's Creative Writing Program, Dunlop was also the 2009-2010 Canada-U.S. Fulbright Research Chair in Creative Writing at the Virginia Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University.

The CBC Literary Awards short list of finalists in each category will be announced next Monday, Feb. 28, with the final winners announced by Shelagh Rogers March 24, on CBC Radio One’s "Q", hosted by Jian Ghomeshi.

The first place winner in each of the three categories will come away $6,000 richer, while the second place winner will take home $4,000, courtesy of the Canada Council for the Arts.

To view the complete list of finalists, visit the website.

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

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Professor Katherine Knight's documentary on Wanda Koop to open Reel Artists Film Festival

fmaquito — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ visual arts Professor Katherine Knight’s documentary film about influential Winnipeg artist in some ways mirrors the style found in Koop’s paintings: full of colour and precise, playing with the idea of glancing and observation, and entering into a world where the real and the abstract co-exist.

The world premiere of the 52-minute documentary KOOP: The Art of Wanda Koop will open the 8th annual on tomorrow at The Royal Conservatory, TELUS Centre for Performance & Learning, Koerner Hall, 273 Bloor St. W., in Toronto. A Q&A with Knight, the film’s director and co-producer, along with Koop and critic and urban planner Jane Perdue will follow the screening. The pre-screening reception will start at 6:30pm, the screening at 7pm and a celebration at 8:30pm. KOOP will screen again in Calgary on March 24.

Watch the documentary's trailer on .

Knight’s film looks at Koop as she prepares massive new works depicting archetypal cities and familiar yet disquieting landscapes for two 25-year retrospectives, one at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and another – Wanda Koop: On the Edge of Experience – at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa until May 15. She is an artist who questions how and what people see or notice, and in turn, shows through her art what people missed with their first glance, as well as what remains out of sight.

Right: Katherine Knight

A documentary, filming for Koop began in June as Knight, an award-winning photographer known for evocative landscapes with a strong narrative atmosphere, cinematographer and 91��ɫ alumna Marcia Connolly (MFA ’10) and embarked upon a week-long trip on a freighter along the St. Lawrence River from Quebec City to Port Cartier. Travel has often provided inspiration for Koop. This voyage along one of Canada’s most significant and fabled waterways not only provided a shared experience for the artist and the filmmakers, it also allowed the audience to share in some of the raw visual materials Koop uses to create her art.

"I was making a documentary about an artist who didn't want to be filmed painting," says Knight. So instead, she filmed Koop as she gathered inspiration. "It was about putting the audience into the framework that the artist works in. So the audience can actually travel along with the artist."

The examination of the visual continues as the film looks at the science of vision, colour and perception. It places the audience in the , where Koop has her vision tested by 91��ɫ senior research scientist Olivera Karanovic and Laurie Wilcox, graduate program director in the Department of Psychology, in the 3D Vision Research lab to take a look at how she sees – she apparently has great 3D vision.

Left: Artist Wanda Koop has her vision checked in the 91��ɫ Vision Research lab in the opening scene of the film Koop

The artist’s studio as a factory of the imagination also plays a role in the work created, and the film explores this, taking the audience into Koop’s newly renovated factory, where she makes, archives and markets her artwork. There, hundreds of paintings, thousands of sketches and tables full of the painter’s tools contribute to the visual and physical space.

"I'm really interested in making documentaries about artists that get inside the creative process," says Knight, a longtime friend of Koop and fan of her art. Koop has won several national and international awards for her artistic achievements and was made a member of the Order of Canada in 2006. In 1998, she founded Art City as a storefront art centre in Winnipeg. The goal is to bring together contemporary visual artists and inner-city youth to explore the creative process.

Right: Wanda Koop's studio

Several alumni worked on the documentary, including project editor Jared Raab (BFA Spec. Hon. ’07), who was declared one of the by the Toronto Star. Raab will begin shooting a feature in March with alumnus Matt Johnson (BFA). The score for Koop is by Montreal-based composer Sam Shalabi, who worked on Knight’s 2009 documentary Pretend Not to See Me: The Art of Colette Urban, which was awarded special mention at the Ecofilm Festival in Rhodos, Greece, in June 2010. Pretend Not to See Me will screen at 2011, Thursday, March 17, at 5pm at the Rainbow Cinemas, Market Square, 80 Front St. E. (at Jarvis) in Toronto.

Left: Wanda Koop on the freight boat

Knight co-founded Site(Media)inc. with David Craig in 2006 with a passion to make documentaries and short films. Its first film, Annie Pootoogook, was commissioned by Bravo Canada and Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. A professor in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts, Knight has exhibited her photographs extensively in solo and group shows across Canada and in the United States. Her works are in many public and corporate collections, including the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Banff Centre and The Canada Council Art Bank. She was awarded the Canada Council's Duke and Duchess of 91��ɫ Prize in Photography in 2000 in recognition of the excellence of her work.

Tickets to the opening night of KOOP are $175 per person and can be purchased by visiting the website or calling 416-368-8854 ext. 101.

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

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91��ɫ study of parents and loss receives international attention

fmaquito — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

One of the toughest challenges a parent faces when a child dies is to learn how to parent the surviving children, and the task begins immediately, according to 91��ɫ psychology Professor Stephen Fleming, wrote the and other newspapers and websites in the US and South Asia Feb. 16:

From the moment their child dies, parents are faced with the two extremes of loss and life – the suffocating loss of a child and the ongoing, daily demands from their surviving children, says Fleming, co-author of the recently published book, Parenting After the Death of a Child: A Practitioner's Guide.

"The challenge that parents face is this: In the midst of grief, how do you stop parenting the deceased child while you are simultaneously struggling to meet the parenting needs of the children who remain?"

Fleming, a psychology professor in the Faculty of Health at 91��ɫ, and co-author Jennifer Buckle [MA ’98, PhD ’03], now a professor at Memorial University, did the research for the book when Buckle was a graduate student at 91��ɫ. Their research is based on in-depth interviews with parents who had lost a child and had one or more surviving children.

The about the study is available in the Research News section.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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How do you keep parenting after one child dies? Professor Stephen Fleming's guide for counsellors

fmaquito — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

One of the toughest challenges a parent faces when a child dies is to learn how to parent the surviving children – and the task begins immediately, according to 91��ɫ psychology Professor Stephen Fleming.

From the moment their child dies, parents are faced with the two extremes of loss and life – the suffocating loss of a child, and the ongoing, daily demands from their surviving children, says Fleming, co-author of the recently published book, .

“The challenge that parents face is this: In the midst of grief, how do you stop parenting the deceased child while you are simultaneously struggling to meet the parenting needs of the children who remain?”

Fleming and co-author Jennifer Buckle (MA ‘98, PhD ’03), now a professor at Memorial University, did the research for the book when Buckle was a graduate student in the Faculty of Health at 91��ɫ. Their research is based on in-depth interviews with parents who had lost a child and had one or more surviving children.

They found bereaved parents do not “recover” from the loss. Instead, bereaved parenting is an act of regeneration – picking up the pieces in the face of the devastation, and regenerating both a sense of self and a sense of the family.

“Dads tend to be instrumental grievers. They go back to work, commit to working for the family and they tend to overcome the fear of putting their children out into an unsafe world sooner than moms do,” says Fleming. “Moms tend to be more intuitive grievers, more focused on internal feelings, and they have an almost paralyzing fear that if one child can die, another could die as well. So, often, moms are dragged back into parenting by the surviving children.”

Left: Stephen Fleming

Parenting After the Death of a Child, published by Routledge, fills a gap in the research about the impact of a child’s death, because it focuses not only on the grief experienced, but on the balancing act of grieving and parenting at the same time. A clinical psychologist, Fleming says he hopes the guide will educate counsellors about the importance of looking for psychological complications in mourning the loss of a child − for example, depression, generalized anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Too often, parents are not assessed for these reactions, and they may be traumatized by images of their child’s death or illness and re-living it, he says.

The qualitative research and excerpts from the parents who were interviewed are also intended to help bereaved parents deal with the expectations they put on themselves and those imposed by the outside world. The research reassures parents, for example, that it is healthy to honour the role of the deceased child in the family by continuing to talk about the child with the surviving siblings.

It may also offer comfort by busting myths – for example, the myth that losing a child increases the likelihood that parents will divorce and that surviving family members will be split up. Roles change and parents often struggle to be consistently present physically and emotionally for their children, Fleming says, but bereaved parents rebuild their lives because their children need it.

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

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Adjunct Professor Lata Pada receives one of India's highest awards

fmaquito — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Alumna Lata Pada (MFA ’96), adjunct professor in the Department of Dance's graduate program, has already received Canada’s highest award – the Order of Canada, in 2009 – but now she can add one of India’s highest honours to her collection. In January, Pada accepted the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award for her contributions to Indian dance and her advocacy work in ensuring there was an inquiry into the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182 and new anti-terrorist legislation in place.

India’s President Pratibha Devisingh Patil presented the award to Pada at a ceremony in New Delhi. Founder and artistic director of , as well as founder and director of Sampradaya Dance Academy, Pada says, “It’s quite an honour to be one out of 15 chosen from about 24 million people of Indian origin who live around the world. I think it’s not too often they’ve given this to an artist or a woman.”

Right: Lata Pada performing in a production of Kshetram – Dancing the Divine

It is the recognition by India for her contributions to the arts in Canada that really tickles her. “That is the one that gives me so much joy,” she says. “For the 46 years I’ve lived here, I’ve been demystifying the arts of India so they can share the stage with others around the world.”

It’s a passion Pada doesn’t ever see coming to an end. In fact, she was in India when the word came she was nominated and then chosen for the award, meeting with costume designers and dancers for her next production, Taj, which she calls “a true India-Canada collaboration.” The world premiere of Taj was commissioned by (June 10 to 19) and tells the human story behind India’s Taj Mahal. Taj will run June 10 to 12 at the Fleck Theatre, Harbourfront Centre in Toronto.

“It’s quite different from anything the company has done in the past because it’s more theatre based,” says Pada, responsible for the concept and artistic direction behind Taj.

Award-winning Canadian playwright John Murrell has been commissioned to write the script for Taj, which will be a 90-minute contemporary dance-theatre piece directed by Tom Diamond, choreographed by India’s Kathak artist Kumudini Lakhia and featuring Canadian actress Lisa Ray and Bollywood star Kabir Bedi. 91��ɫ theatre Professor Phillip Silver will do the set and lighting design, Jacques Collin the visual design, Praveen D. Rao the music and Rashmi Varma costume design.

Pada, who is also a member of the Faculty of Fine Arts Advisory Council , also collaborates with 91��ɫ through Sampradaya Dance Creations for Dance Intense, an annual choreographic residency that provides opportunity for professional development for emerging artists practicing in South Asian dance.

Left: Lata Pada

Her advocacy work, however, can’t be ignored. Her award is also for “the advocacy role I took in pushing for an inquiry and for keeping this terrible, heinous tragedy uppermost in the minds of Canadians,” she says. And hard as it is – Pada lost her first husband and two daughters in the Air India bombing – it has given her a place to focus her rage. “It happened 25 years ago, but there is still so much to learn. It was an awakening for Canada.” The plan was devised on Canadian soil by Canadians, against Canadians.

Pada was determined to have government agencies, which were “incompetent, negligent or culturally insensitive” in the lead up the tragedy “take ownership of what went wrong.” It’s not over yet. Aviation security problems and terrorist threats are still issues today, and it remains to be seen how many of the 64 recommendations made in the final report in June 2010 by the , headed up by retired judge John Major, will be adopted, she says.

Art of course, is an area that Pada has turned to in dealing with the tragedy, and she continues to do so. Her 2003 dance-theatre production, Revealed by Fire, portrayed her dark journey through grief and subsequent emergence to reclaim her life (see YFile, Nov. 11, 2003). It also had a 91��ɫ connection, involving 91��ɫ playwright Judith Rudakoff in the Department of Theatre, Faculty of Fine Arts.

This dancer, choreographer and advocate has also received the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Toronto Sanskriti Sangha, the 2006 Best Teacher Award from the Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana, the 2003 Professional Woman of the Year Award from the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, the 2000 New Pioneers Award and the 1995 Mississauga Arts Award.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

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

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