Moderator: Kathryn Bracht
Location: Room 0028 – Pavilion de la Faculté de l’aménagement – 2940 ch. de la Côte Ste-Catherine – Université de Montréal
(Building 36 on the UdM Map)
In-Person Session
In launching a new BFA in Devised Performance & Theatre Creation in 2022 “designed to support and encourage the young theatre artist of tomorrow in defining their unique artistic voice” (urdevised.ca), the University of Regina Theatre Department aims to create a site for the pursuit of justice through the formation of holistic theatre artists. This roundtable discussion between faculty members of the Theatre Department at the University of Regina will offer a glimpse into the successes and challenges in the creation and realisation of a devised theatre pedagogy that seeks to meet the needs and encourage the voices of present and future theatre makers. Topics include: The incorporation of room agreements in our teaching and practice; Utilizing established methodologies of critique in training collaborative artists (i.e. Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process); Department programming choices (i.e. Climate Change Theatre Action productions (2021, 2023) incorporating sustainable design practices, Sarah Ruhl/Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (2023) at a time of increasing 2SLGBTQ+ oppression in Saskatchewan); Creating space for critical conversation (i.e Crossing Current), and; Decentralizing/destabilizing the design process toward collective responsibility. As educators in a prairie university that is geographically isolated, we understand that many of our students come to us from differing backgrounds. This has required that we are prepared to respond to a variety of needs in our students and in our classrooms, not only culturally but also with students with diversity of intellectual, emotional, and physical accommodations. We believe this has cultivated an equitable and just educational experience, perhaps more so than that of traditional BFA and graduate training programs. Our program is “for theatre artists who are interested in creating a new path in the theatre landscape” (urdevised.ca), a brave space of rigour and care where the practice of theatre making and performance creation is the practice of justice.
Session Members:
Kathryn Bracht, Associate Professor and Department Head, Moderator
Taiwo Afolabi, Associate Professor
Shannon Holmes, Assistant Professor
Wes Pearce, Professor
Jonathan Seinen, Assistant Professor
Jonathan Seinen (he/him) is a John Hirsch Prize-winning and Dora Award-nominated theatre director who has worked across the country in devised performance, classical theatre, and new works, including Ho Ka Kei’s Governor General’s Literary Award-nominated Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land), Boys In Chairs Collective’s ACCESS ME, published in Interdependent Magic: Disability Performance In Canada (Playwrights Canada Press) and Saga Collectif’s Black Boys (Buddies In Bad Times). He holds an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University and is Assistant Professor at the University of Regina.
Dr. Taiwo Afolabi is an interdisciplinary artistic scholar from Africa with internationally recognized expertise in research-based theatre focusing on social justice, human rights, and anti-racism education among Indigenous, immigrant, and marginalized communities. Through global theatre projects/publications, his practice-based research encompasses issues of policing, sexual health education, Sustainable Development Goals, African theatre, homelessness, immigration, and language revitalization. He is the Director of the Centre for Socially Engaged Theatre (C-SET) and is the Canada Research Chair in Socially Engaged Theatre (Tier II).
Kathryn Bracht is an Associate Professor in the Theatre Department in the faculty of Media, Art, and Performance where she teaches acting, directing, and devising. She received her BFA (Acting) from UBC, and her MFA (Directing) from the University of Alberta, and has appeared professionally in theatre as an actor and director across Western Canada. She has recently extended her practice-based creative research into playwriting and devising been She participated in the Persephone Theatre’s 2017 – 2018 Playwright’s Unit with her one-act play Draw Near, which culminated in a staged reading in the Tasty Bits series at the Saskatchewan Playwright’s Centre’s Spring Festival of New Plays. In October of 2018 she was honored to be selected from over 300 international playwrights to have her latest work-in-progress Seed performed in a staged reading at the Women Playwright’s International Conference in Santiago, Chile.
Dr. Shannon Holmes (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre specializing in voice. Her research focuses on developing cross-disciplinary methods that disrupt the dividing line between speech and singing to mobilize new tools for performers. Central in her explorations is using autoethnographic performance practices to examine the connections between the lived body and voice to centralize the self in devising theatre. As an interdisciplinary artist, Dr. Holmes is experienced as an actor, singer, vocal coach, intimacy coordinator, director and writer. She is trained in a broad range of voice, acting and dance methods, including bel canto, extended vocal technique, Contact Improvisation and Fitzmaurice Voicework. As a performer, she has appeared in Opera, Musical Theatre, Shakespeare, Contemporary Theatre and devised projects. Her solo autobiographical show The Crook of Your Arm was produced in Montréal, New York and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s studio stage, The Other Place, in Stratford-upon-Avon, U.K.
Wes D. Pearce was born and raised in Treaty 4 territory and is a graduate of the University of Regina. He attended the University of Calgary for graduate school and returned to his alma mater and the brand-new state of the art Riddell Centre in 1997. He has served as Associate Dean (Interdisciplinary Programs and Special Projects), Associate Dean (Undergraduate) and Department Head of Theatre. He teaches a variety of design courses, as well as courses on musical theatre, fashion and Hollywood, and Canadian drama. Currently, he sits on the Board of Directors for Globe Theatre (Regina) and is heavily involved in World Stage Design 2022 (Calgary) as the editor of the exhibition catalogue. He was a long serving board member for the Canadian Association of Theatre Research and is a past board member of the Saskatchewan Association of Theatre Professionals, the Associated Designers of Canada, and AIDS Programs South Saskatchewan. In 2017 he received the University of Regina Theatre Department’s Distinguished Alumni Award.