Co-Conveners: Sasha Kovacs, Heather Davis-Fisch, Matthew Tomkinson, and Laurel Green 

Location: Room 1177 – Pavilion André Aidenstadt – 2920 chemin de la tour- Université de Montréal 

(Building 19 on the UdM Map)

Sponsored by the Department of Theatre – University of Victoria

Participants: 

Crystal Chan and Peter Farbridge (Concordia): The Centre Cannot Hold (TCCH)

Joerg Esleben (uOttawa): Brecht in/au Canada 

Barry Freeman (UofT): The Pledge Project

Dr. Helmut Reichenbächer (OCAD): Methods of the Digital Humanities to trace the effect of Nazi censorship on theatre programming. 

Dr. Cyrus Sundar Singh (TMU): WhereWeStand: One Land, Two Hearts

Michael Wheeler (Queens): FOLDA / You Should Have Stayed Home

In-Person Session

In the recent article “Digital Humanities and Theatre Studies: From Fragility to Stability” Zafiris Nikitas notes that “Theatre and digital humanities face the same challenge: the entropy of transience.”  Drawing on Nikitas’ proposal that performance-related DH research projects might better stand the test of time if developed within “intertwined research matrixes,” this roundtable invites theatre and performance scholars and artists, whose work engages digital tools and technologies, to collaboratively share the lessons learned from their past or future projects, and to engage in open discussion concerning opportunities and challenges of DH work in the context of our discipline. The roundtable will invite each participant to offer a brief 5-min. lightning-round contribution, followed by a facilitated group discussion that considers possibilities for collaboration and cross-pollination, moving forward.. 

Through this roundtable, we’re interested in bringing together members of the CATR/ACRT community to:

  • Amplify and network current digital humanities projects: we want to share knowledge about our field’s present engagement of digital tools in performance scholarship. With these presentations, we hope to cross-fertilize knowledge about a range of projects in our field that employ DH for diverse approaches to: knowledge mobilization, research networking, performance mapping, archival research, exhibition, equity, pedagogy, advocacy, inclusion, anti-racism, decolonization, community bridging, partnership, and other aims.
  • Create a space for supportive co-sharing and co-learning: we want to hear about challenges and opportunities researchers have faced through their own engagement with digital tools and methods –topics here include, but are not limited to: responses to concerns about obsolescence and trascience, approaches to peer-review structures for online (digital) publication, challenges through the design and technical development process. 
  • Imagine possibilities for support of developing and future DH projects: Discussions of potential futures or emerging projects that engage DH in theatre and performance research. We want to bring together scholars and artists that are imagining new possibilities for digital humanities approaches, informed by work outside and beyond the discipline. We are keen to also hear about how DH learning is being incorporated into the theatre and performance studies classroom, and how DH can inform the transformation of pedagogy at the undergraduate and graduate level.

This roundtable will be co-convened by the research team of the Performance in the Pacific Northwest research project. Information about this project and bios for the co-convening team are available on our project website here: https://performancepnw.uvic.ca/about/.  

Heather Davis-Fisch is Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Lethbridge and Co-lead of the SSHRC funded Performance in the Pacific Northwest: Pilot Project, that investigates the role of performances in the establishment of settler-colonialism in nineteenth-century Canada and how performance documents and objects can be re-integrated into galleries, archives and museums. Her research interests include performance historiography and Indigenous and intercultural performance, particularly in historical paradigms. 

Sasha Kovacs is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre at the University of Victoria and co-lead of the SSHRC funded Performance in the Pacific Northwest: Pilot Project. The focus of her research is Canadian theatre historiography. She is also a co-investigator of the national research partnership project Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories of Performance (www.gatheringspartnership.com) that aims to deepen methodological approaches to the study and preservation of Canadian performance history. 

Matthew Tomkinson is a writer, composer, and researcher based in Vancouver, and a postdoctoral fellow for the SSHRC funded Performance in the Pacific Northwest: Pilot Project. He holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from the University of British Columbia, where he studied sound within the Deaf, Disability, and Mad arts. His doctoral dissertation, “Mad Auralities: Sound and Sense in Contemporary Performance,” examines auditory representations of mental health differences. Working across a wide range of disciplines, including text, performance, installation, sound design, and new media, Matthew’s artistic practice shows a recurring interest in unruly eclecticism and constraint-based compositional approaches. Matthew lives on the ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Laurel Green (she/her) is an artist, creative producer, and interdisciplinary collaborator whose work is deeply engaged with process, exploring methodologies for creation, and strategies for shared leadership. She is the Research Associate and Project Manager for the Performance in the Pacific Northwest: Pilot Project. She is a nationally-recognized dramaturg with a decade of practice in the creation, development, and production of new performance work.  With a Masters degree from the University of Toronto, she is an alumni of the Cultural Leadership program at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Laurel has an active freelance practice wherein she plans, facilitates, and produces arts and culture gatherings with intention and care. Most recently, she produced the Arts Champions Summit for Victoria’s Capital Regional District (CRD). She is currently the Digital Partnerships Producer for The Cultch. She is also a performance researcher with the University of Victoria, sings with The Choir YYJ and is a Meadow Maker.

Participant Bios: 

Crystal Chan is a writer, artist, and producer working in new media and publishing. Originally from 香港 (Hong Kong), she is based in Tiohtiá:ke (Montreal), where she serves as an executive board member of the Quebec Writers’ Federation. She is a former artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity and is now a professor in the Creative Writing Department of the University of British Columbia and an editor at UBC Press for RavenSpace publishing, an innovative multimedia publication series by Indigenous authors and their collaborators. Certified as both an editor and a designer, her specialty is merging storytelling with technology and presenting narratives in unique settings and forms. She is the creator, director, and host of Eighty Thousand Steps, a first-of-its-kind app for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that allows listeners to power the show as they walk, one step at a time. She is also a producer in the cultural and non-profit sectors.

Joerg Esleben is an Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Ottawa, with a cross-appointment in the Department of Theatre. He teaches German language and culture as well as comparative and intercultural studies. His research is focused on intercultural theatre, theatrical relations between India and Germany, and transcultural uses of Brecht’s work.

Peter Farbridge is a theatre-maker working in Montreal. He holds a Master’s degree in anthropology and theatre from Concordia University, where he teaches regularly. As a founding member and co-artistic director of the Modern Times Stage Company from 1989 to 2022, Peter performed in, wrote and co-devised numerous productions. He won several Toronto Dora Awards for his work with the company. He also collaborates with Postmarginal, a project he launched while at Modern Times, which aims to encourage hybridity in theatre practice by exploring the perspectives of marginalized artists.

Barry Freeman is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Graduate Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies. He researches, teaches and writes about theatre education, pedagogy, and intercultural performance.

Dr. Helmut Reichenbächer is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, OCAD University, Toronto, where he teaches courses on cultural history, popular culture, and theatre. His digital humanities research is funded by a 2023-2025 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant. He has been invited for participation in the International Federation for Theatre Research’s working group for digital humanities meeting in July 2024.

dr. Cyrus Sundar Singh is an AcademiCreActivist: a Gemini Award-winning filmmaker, scholar, composer, singer-songwriter, author, and published poet. He arrived in Toronto as a fresh-off-the-boat

ten-year-old from India and almost embraced the winter. From the Award-winning NFB debut

Film Club (2001) to the live-documentary world premieres: Brothers In The Kitchen (2016);

Africville in Black and White (2017/18); In the Wake of Time (2021), Cyrus’ research and

productions have taken him around the world including Senegal, India, Israel, Spain, Haiti,

Jamaica, and Sri Lanka. Recently, Cyrus successfully produced the following cross-Canada

multimedia storytelling projects with CERC in Migration: i am… (2021); Under the Tent (2022);

WhereWeStand (2023/24).

Michael Wheeler is an Assistant Professor in The DAN School of Drama and Music where he teaches acting, directing and arts leadership. As a researcher, his work has focused on the possibilities virtual reality presents for live performance, and is funded with co-PI Dr Matthew Pan by a Connected Minds CFREF Seed grant to explore the use of robotics to provide haptic feedback for live VR performances. Previous SSHRC-funded research involved collaborating with co-PI Dr. Laura Levin and computer scientists to adapt a play previously staged in physical space to a virtual one. He is also Director of Artistic Research at SpiderWebShow Performance, Canada’s first live digital performance company, and a Co-Curator of FOLDA (The Festival of Live Digital Art).