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Dear Colleagues,</p>
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<span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">I’m part of a group that has started something called </span><b style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"><a href="http://videocan.ca/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(18, 100, 163); text-decoration-line: none;" id="LPlnk41707" previewremoved="true"></a><a href="https://videocan.ca/" class="OWAAutoLink">videocan</a></b><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">,
and I wanted to invite you to contribute to the project, if you were so inclined, or to spread the word to your artistic and research communities. I'd also like to suggest
<b>videocan</b> as a new pedagogical tool for the teaching of theatre and performance in Canada.</span></p>
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<span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></span><span class="x_para_break" style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></span><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">In
a nutshell, </span><b style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">videocan</b><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"> is
an online video archive for Canadian performance. Currently supported by a Canada Council for the Arts Digital Strategies Fund grant, it was started in July 2019 and is currently run by Patrick Blenkarn, </span><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">Milton
Lim, Sophia Wolfe, Mariah Horner, and myself. Milton, Patrick, Mariah and I presented on the project at the recent CATR/SQET Partition/Ensemble Online Conference. Feel free to have a look at that information here: <a href="https://partitionensemble2020.com/video-could-building-an-online-video-archive-of-canadian-performance-possibilites-video-creer-des-archives-audiovisuelles-numeriques-du-spectacle-vivant-au-canada/" class="OWAAutoLink" id="LPlnk217001" previewremoved="true">https://partitionensemble2020.com/video-could-building-an-online-video-archive-of-canadian-performance-possibilites-video-creer-des-archives-audiovisuelles-numeriques-du-spectacle-vivant-au-canada/</a>.</span></p>
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<span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">To paraphrase Patrick: Entirely artist-driven and always free to access,
<b>videocan's</b> mission is to gather </span><b style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">full-length</b><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"> </span><b style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">archival
video of contemporary performances from across Canada</b><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"> on a single private Vimeo account and </span><b style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">create
a catalogue</b><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"> that can be explored by professional artists in their studios and by art students in their classrooms.
We’re doing this in order to create an accessible, critical resource for Canadian artists and curators to engage with the work of their peers.</span><span class="x_para_break" style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></span><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">Why?
We can’t always travel to see each others’ work. And sometimes one night at a show isn’t enough to fully digest a work, or learn from what it is introducing into our arts landscape.</span></p>
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<span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">In our current COVID moment, when so many artists, teachers, and audiences are pivoting to the digital,
<b>videocan</b> can also serve as an important resource for extending the event horizon of a performance, including the dialogue around that performance.</span></p>
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<span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></span><span class="x_para_break" style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></span><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">To
be clear, videocan </span><b style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">does not</b><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"> support
the idea that a video can be a replacement for live performance. </span><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">However, we do think video can still help us
better understand the performances we are all making. Structures, techniques, gestures, and more. </span><span class="x_para_break" style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></span><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">As
you are of course aware, performing artists in our country are culturally conditioned to document their works in video format, and yet we have a cultural resistance and sometimes fear of that very documentation. Our project aims to clarify for artists and
publics what can and cannot be done with video documentation in the digital age, and we seek to democratize access to </span><b style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">documentation
materials as educational materials</b><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"> in order to create a more engaged, open, and connected conversation between Canadian
artists working in the performing arts. </span></p>
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<span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></span><span class="x_para_break" style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></span><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">In
short, our initiative builds a centralized infrastructure for the already-being-created and historic digital material in order to better share the knowledge and innovations of each performance production—large or small, urban or rural. We hope that this could
change both the way professionals learn from each other and the way students are being taught performance in schools. For most performance makers and students in Canada, there simply is not enough performance happening in their region to maintain a rigorous
practice and artistic dialogue. </span><b style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">Video can help us see more/different bodies, more/different forms, and more/different
ideas.</b></p>
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<b style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></b><span class="x_para_break" style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></span><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">We
have a ‘judge not by resolution’ policy—among others for taking care of the entries—and so we have both lo-fi and hi-fi entires. Most current entires are works that no longer tour. </span><span class="x_para_break" style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></span><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">In
the future we also aim to create a resource for helping performance makers produce their own documentation. We have also started to host director/choreographer commentaries/interviews overtop of works—think scrolling, pausing, rewinding, etc. while discussing. </span><b style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">If
the latter is of interest to you, let us know—the first episode is online already.</b></p>
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<b style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;"></b><span style="color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont; font-size: 15px;">Thanks
for reading this somewhat lengthy proposal and considering the project! Feel free to zoom around our website to get a sense of our access policies, and ask any questions. If you're potentially interested in having your work archived on the site, let us know.
If you envision using some of the work on the site in your teaching and research, there are instructions on how to do so.</span><br>
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<p style=""><font color="#1d1c1d" face="Lato, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont"><span style="font-size: 15px;">And please, by all means, forward this message on to your respective communities of practice and research.</span></font></p>
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<p style=""><font color="#1d1c1d" face="Lato, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, serif, EmojiFont"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Peter</span></font></p>
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<div class="ApplePlainTextBody" style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:12px"><span style="font-size:14px"><b>___________________</b></span></div>
<div class="ApplePlainTextBody" style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:12px"><span style="font-size:14px"><b><span style="font-size:10pt">Peter Dickinson, PhD</span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-size:10pt"></span>
<div class="ApplePlainTextBody" style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:12px"><span style="font-size:10pt">Professo</span><span style="font-size:10pt">r
</span><span style="font-size:10pt">and Graduate Chair</span></div>
<span style="font-size:10pt"></span>
<div class="ApplePlainTextBody" style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:12px"><span style="font-size:10pt">School for the Contemporary Arts | SFU</span></div>
<span style="font-size:10pt"></span>
<div class="ApplePlainTextBody" style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:12px"><span style="font-size:10pt">Director, Institute for P</span><span style="font-size:10pt"></span><span style="font-size:10pt">erformance Studies | SFU</span></div>
<span style="font-size:10pt"></span>
<div class="ApplePlainTextBody" style="font-family:Helvetica; font-size:12px"><span style="font-size:10pt">T: 604-908-0993</span><br>
<span style="font-size:10pt">W: http://www.sfu.ca/~ped</span><br>
<span style="font-size:10pt"></span><br>
<span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-size:10pt">At Simon Fraser University, we</span><span style="font-size:10pt"></span><span style="font-size:10pt"> live and work on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm
(Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.</span></span></div>
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