Location: Chief Dan George Theatre

Abstract:

This roundtable proposes discussion of how university theatre professors in Canada work and teach together with colleagues that have distinct forms of experience and expertise. Some professors spend a minimum of five years earning a doctorate degree. Some spend twice as long in the professional performing arts as an artist. Some have done both. Regardless of the terminal credential we have acquired, all of us end up teaching the same students, in the same institution, as part of the same degree. This raises some urgent questions for the academy and the creative ecology.

  • What is the role and responsibility of academic instructors in connection to the artists and performances that are being created where they live and teach? 
  • How are the inequities that distinct forms of employment offered to university professors, depending on whether they are understood to contribute to research, impacting the overall performing arts ecology? 
  • The SSHRC definition of “research creation” notwithstanding, what are the real differences in the live arts between research that is artist-researcher led, and research that is academic-researcher led?  
  • How do we prevent a divide where the instructors of theatre that are compensated and employed adequately are exclusively not the same professors who are participating in the professional performing arts ecology?
  • Could CATR be a place where all instructors find meaningful discourse and knowledge; not just the ones motivated to contribute to research through conference papers and other academic outputs?

Biographies:

Moderator:
Michael Wheeler is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre, Dance, & Performance at York University and a Connected Minds CFREF Enhanced Researcher in Emerging Technologies in Acting and Directing. He is a co-founder of Praxis Theatre, SpiderWebShow, Generator, and the Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA).

Participants:
Laurel Green, York University, PhD Candidate
Leora Morris, University of Alberta
Lisa Ravensbergen, Independent Artist
Jonathan Seinen, University of British Columbia
Adrienne Wong, University of Victoria