[Candrama] Welcome to the Gatherings Newsletter

Gatherings gatheringssshrc at gmail.com
Wed Apr 3 15:24:30 EDT 2019




** Welcome
to the
Gatherings Newsletter
------------------------------------------------------------

We are thrilled to deliver the first edition of the monthly newsletter for the Gatherings project.

About the Project

Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories seeks to preserve and disseminate the rich histories of performance in the territories commonly known as Canada.

Our research project is funded in part through a Partnership Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, with the support of a number of academic institutions from across the country, and with the crucial participation of the Canadian Theatre Museum, Dance Collection Danse, and Playwrights Canada Press, all leaders in the preservation and dissemination of our performance heritage.  Those involved include:  Stephen Johnson (Principal Investigator); Allana Lindgren and Sasha Kovacs (University of Victoria); Justin Blum and Gabrielle Houle (University of Lethbridge); Heather Fitzsimmons Frey (MacEwan University); Seika Boye, Jill Carter, Martin Julien (University of Toronto); Jenn Cole (Trent University); Mark Turner (Memorial University of Newfoundland); Amy Bowring (Dance Collection Danse); Annie Gibson (Playwrights Canada Press); and Michael Wallace (Canadian Theatre Museum).

The project has two main goals:

Gathering Together
The first goal is to develop a Pan-Canadian partnership with the purpose of collecting, archiving, and disseminating the history of theatre and performance.  Participants will support one another in pilot projects using archival research and interviews, paying particular attention to the documentary evidence and oral history of Canadian theatre and performance.  In the process we will compile an online set of guidelines, specific to the study of performance, that can be used by local and regional historians.

Gathering Networks
The second goal is to develop a network of other interested scholars, institutions, and collectives with the purpose of establishing a broader partnership serving the study of and public education in Canadian performance.
About the Newsletter
Watch this space for news, information, and ways to connect with Gatherings. Each month we will highlight research, events, and investigators who are working on the project.

Please share this newsletter with your networks - we look forward to connecting with you!
Coming soon: More ways to connect with Gatherings.

In This Issue
* A Word from Principal Investigator: Stephen Johnson
* Spotlight on Gatherings Contributors: Seika Boye
* More about our Partners
* CATR 2019 @ UBC
* Ways to Share the Newsletter
* Ways to Connect with Gatherings


Seika Boye in image from her project, This Living Dancer
Photo by Craig Boyko


** A Word from Principal Investigator: Stephen Johnson
------------------------------------------------------------

Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories of Performance is, in a phrase, an 'archive of archives.'  We are a partnership of scholars, curators, archivists, historians, and practitioners, all interested in identifying, collecting, preserving, and disseminating the raw materials of performance history in Canada.

No small task!  We understand that many people from across the country are involved in this good work--pouring through local archives, creating performance calendars, preserving and cataloguing the documents and recording the memories that will allow histories to be written.  We all have this passion, and our own work in all of these areas will be a part of this project.

Our interest, first and foremost, is in providing a service that will support and extend our stated goals, through a number of initiatives.
*  We want to identify projects and archival repositories from across the country, making them more visible and accessible.
* We want to support people who have archives to find the repository best suited for preservation and access, providing advice and a public profile that will put those interested in the history of performance in touch with those who have the materials necessary to write that history.
* We want to support those who want to conduct interviews that provide insight and information about performance in this country, helping them in any way we can to collect that history in an ethical manner, to better preserve the past in an appropriately accessible manner.
* And, finally, we want to provide an infrastructure that allows for the accumulation of documents and oral histories, and the writing of histories, that have tended to be silenced and neglected, for all of the usual reasons--no time, no funding, no support. In particular, we will encourage and support the study of performance history in regions, among cultural groups, and about styles and genres of performance that have received less attention, with the goal of broadening the definition of 'performance history,' and proving its significant role in our many cultural histories.

We hope, through a website, newsletter, and our own expertise, to provide a set of tools that others can use to facilitate this work, and where they can find advice, support, contacts, and models of archival and oral histories in all their diversity.


** Spotlight on Gatherings Contributors: Seika Boye
------------------------------------------------------------
Photo by Craig Boyko

Co-investigator Seika Boye examines the role of dance in daily life and in performance through archival research, oral history and the close reading of photographs. While her work focuses on dance within Canada’s Black population, her broader interests are in accessing undocumented dance histories and recontextualizing archival ephemera in order to question the legislation of bodies, and dominant narratives of geographic locations and cultural institutions. Seika has worked in various capacities with Gatherings partner organization Dance Collection Danse for fifteen years. In collaboration with a team of researchers affiliated with the Institute for Dance Studies, University of Toronto, this work will continue with a focus on lesser known and accessed collections and archival holdings.

Seika is a scholar, writer, educator and artist whose practices revolve around dance and movement. She is a Lecturer in the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, Director of the Institute for Dance Studies, and was recently appointed Adjunct Curator at The Art Museum, University of Toronto. Seika also works as an advocate and consultant for dance across the arts sector.

Recent Work
>From August 2018 – February 2019, Seika was an Artist in Residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario. She developed This Living Dancer, a self-archiving and archival simulation project and took vernacular jazz dance (and history) lessons with choreographer and artistic director of Holla Jazz, Natasha Powell. Seika will be giving a talk about her work on March 27, 2019. See the AGO website (https://theatredocs.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=54b5aef86234d488b6a13b7a1&id=05536f139e&e=7b764b10d1) for details.

In February, Seika’s exhibition It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900-1970 (commissioned by Dance Collection Danse) was presented as part of the Progress International Festival of Performance and Ideas at the Theatre Centre in Toronto. www.progressfestival.org
Her work was featured in Now Toronto (https://theatredocs.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=54b5aef86234d488b6a13b7a1&id=401c1103f6&e=7b764b10d1)  and on CBC TV's Our Toronto (https://theatredocs.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=54b5aef86234d488b6a13b7a1&id=8d905689d5&e=7b764b10d1)
Upcoming Work and Opportunities to Connect

Upcoming this spring, Seika is a facilitator for the dance and motion capture component of The Hanging Gardens (https://theatredocs.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=54b5aef86234d488b6a13b7a1&id=14cafe8953&e=7b764b10d1) , a permanent outdoor installation in Lawrence Heights by the collective Public Studio (filmmaker Elle Flanders and architect Tamira Sawatzky).

She is also the curatorial consultant and dramaturg for the School for the Movement of Technicolour People by artist taisha paggett (https://theatredocs.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=54b5aef86234d488b6a13b7a1&id=224a87a908&e=7b764b10d1) . The exhibition of this project runs September 12 – November 2, 2019 at Gallery TPW in Toronto.


Further curatorial and research projects

Seika has just begun work as a co-curator with Evadne Kelly (project lead), Dolleen Tisawii’ ahsii Manning and Peter Park, for an accessible curated exhibition focused on the role of eugenics at the Macdonald Institute (1915-1948) in Guelph, Ontario. This project is generously supported by Dr. Carla Rice, Canada Research Chair and Founding Director of Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice and Principal Investigator and Co-Director with Eliza Chandler of the SSHRC Partnership Grant, Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology, and Access to Life (BIT), and the Re•Vision and Bodies in Translation team. The exhibition will be featured at the Guelph Civic Museum from September 14, 2019 to January 5, 2020.

In May, Seika will make a site visit to The Mitchell Gallery at Grant McEwan University, to begin preliminary research for the expansion of It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada, into the local dance histories of Edmonton and Alberta’s Black population. Stay tuned for details in 2020!

Seika will continue to work on This Living Dancer as a vehicle for questioning the dancing life beyond performance; archival practices and privacy; museum/gallery digital imaging of performance; and dance in the museum.

As part of her work with Gatherings, Seika is excited to be interviewing Franco Boni, to document his remarkable fifteen years as artistic director of The Theatre Centre (Toronto), before he begins his new position as artistic director of Vancouver's PuSH International Performing Arts Festival in June 2019.
This Living Dancer by Seika Boye, installation detail
Photo by Dean Tomlinson


** More about our Partners
------------------------------------------------------------
In future issues we will spotlight events and initiatives from our partnering organizations.  Learn more about our partnering organizations below.  Each organization has their own mailing list - sign ups can be found on each individual website.
Dance Collection Danse
>From their website: "Dance Collection Danse is a unique organization straddling the performing arts, museum and archival communities. At its core, DCD exists to preserve Canada’s dance heritage and share it internationally through programming such as virtual and live exhibits, screenings, lectures, workshops, education, dance animation, catalogues, annual magazine, books, and by supporting research." (dcd.ca/whatwedo)

Visit Dance Collection Danse Here (https://theatredocs.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=54b5aef86234d488b6a13b7a1&id=42df323ecd&e=7b764b10d1)
Playwrights Canada Press
>From their website: "Playwrights Canada Press is a publisher of new Canadian plays. We exist to publish Canadian plays as well as, from time to time, theatre history, criticism, and biography. Through this we endeavour to raise the profile of Canadian theatre and theatre practitioners, promote dramatic literature, and contribute to the Canadian theatrical canon. Playwrights Canada Press strives to publish diverse and engaging Canadian plays and dramatic criticism of literary merit." (playwrightscanada.com/About-Us)
Visit Playwrights Canada Press Here (https://theatredocs.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=54b5aef86234d488b6a13b7a1&id=4527b86ae3&e=7b764b10d1)
Theatre Museum Canada
>From their website: "Theatre Museum Canada seeks to share the wonder of Canada’s rich theatre legacy with Canadians and theatre enthusiasts everywhere.
We exist to serve the theatre community of Canada by preserving and interpreting the work of nationally significant theatre artists for the Canadian public.
We believe that the legacy of the past will inspire even greater achievements in the theatre arts in the future." (theatremuseum.ca/about-us)

Visit Theatre Museum Canada Here (https://theatredocs.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=54b5aef86234d488b6a13b7a1&id=b0e8c8e850&e=7b764b10d1)


** CATR 2019 @ UBC
------------------------------------------------------------
The 2019 conference of the Canadian Association of Theatre Research will be at the University of British Columbia. The conference will be held June 3 - 6. We are looking forward to gathering and making connections with colleagues at CATR.

for more information:


** https://theatredocs.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=54b5aef86234d488b6a13b7a1&id=ae63a5d4a4&e=7b764b10d1
------------------------------------------------------------

More About Gatherings
We are working on a comprehensive website which will be available soon.
To see where we have been, visit https://theatredocs.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=54b5aef86234d488b6a13b7a1&id=c43ff5aab9&e=7b764b10d1


** Ways to Share the Newsletter
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** Ways to Connect with Gatherings
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https://theatredocs.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=54b5aef86234d488b6a13b7a1&id=2d77004cc8&e=7b764b10d1
mailto:gatheringssshrc at gmail.com

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