Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture
Dr. Catherine Parayre
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Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture (IACC)
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Articles tagged with: In the Soil
Much work to be done on live theatre's road to recovery, says Brock prof
Sunday, August 29, 2021 | By dvivian
Editor's note: The following article tells about the challenges, enthusiasm for, and success in relaunching the performing arts in the Niagara Region, now 18 months into the pandemic. Students of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture may register for the course taught by Professor Fricker, DART 1P91 Introduction to Theatre and Performance, as part of their degree program.
(above) Brock Dramatic Arts graduate Amanda McDonnell (BA '15), who is part of the front of house team at the Shaw Festival, welcomed audiences back this summer.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 2021 | by Gillian Minaker
After 17 months, the live theatrical experience is slowly making its return — but not without challenges ahead, says Brock theatre expert Karen Fricker.
"Amidst the adversity that live performing arts have been faced with through the pandemic, a wonderful thing has happened this summer: the return of live theatrical performance, because it has been able to be outside," says the Associate Professor and Undergraduate Program Officer in Dramatic Arts (DART), who is an expert in theatre criticism, theatre theory and contemporary theatre.
The Shaw and Stratford Festivals, two of Ontario's most celebrated repertory companies, have been staging performances outdoors under canopies (tents with no walls) with mandatory masks for audiences in addition to capacity limits in accordance with provincial guidance. Both festivals are taking audience, artist and staff safety seriously, with COVID-19 protocols in place, says Fricker, who is also a theatre critic for the Toronto Star, writing about performances in the city as well as the Shaw and Stratford Festivals each summer.
Although these outdoor performances do not come close to hosting the usual number of spectators, Fricker says this is a "big step in the right direction."
"Artists are being paid and creativity is happening," she says, adding that while "innovative digital work has been heroic during the pandemic, experiencing live performances in a shared space is a joyous return."
Brock's Dramatic Arts Department engages with the Shaw Festival in numerous ways, including the annual DART/Shaw internship and course-based experiences with Shaw artists and arts workers. A number of DART students and graduates work at the festival in front of house, producing and administration, and creative capacities.
Seeing some of those familiar faces at Shaw this summer has been a particular highlight, Fricker says.
While outdoor performances are a step in the right direction, Fricker says there is still more work to do. There will be limited live, in-person programming in the performing arts sector this fall, mainly due to unclear guidance from the provincial government around reopening, she says.
In the early summer, the performing arts industry lobbied the government to address live performances in the official stages of reopening. Now that the performing arts have been included, companies have been able to plan. However, "you can't just lift a theatre production off in a few weeks; you need a runway," Fricker says.
Colleen Smith, Executive Director of the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre (PAC) adjacent to Brock's Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, says the team at the PAC has experienced these challenges first-hand.
"Never did any of us whose lives revolve around bringing together artists and audiences believe that we would witness the end of the age-old adage, 'the show must go on,'" she says. "In fact, the show stopped for months at a time. It's been an unbelievable period of disruption, heartache and loss of purpose for so many artists and arts workers."
Smith says that "buoyed by our partners at the City of St. Catharines and Brock University, as well as the support from our Board of Directors, we have used the first half of 2021 to develop a three-year recovery strategy that will place the PAC firmly within our community as a centre for creative and artistic experiences and learning."
The PAC is planning a gradual return, starting with the annual Celebration of Nations gathering, which will be in a hybrid format in September.
Among the local theatre organizations taking important steps to make innovative work and engage the public in Niagara safely is the young people's theatre company Carousel Players, which is focusing on new play development in August and September.
"We are experimenting with a range of forms, including clown, puppetry and mask," says Artistic Director and Brock graduate Monica Dufault (MA '11). "We want to offer new pieces that are dynamic and theatrically alive when we meet our audiences again."
The company will present an outdoor performance, The Giant Puppet Party, for Culture Days in October, a new digital play for ages 12 to 17 called Meet Chloe starting in November, and a school touring production of The Velveteen Rabbit for ages four to seven in March 2022.
Suitcase in Point, another St. Catharines-based theatre company, recently announced the launch of a reimagined In the Soil Arts Festival running Friday, Aug. 27 to Saturday, Sept. 25. The festival includes opportunities to see live, original theatre, new music, comedy acts, installations and participatory workshops. All-inclusive festival passes are available for purchase online.
DART graduate Deanna Jones (BA '02), the Artistic Director of Suitcase in Point and In the Soil, says the limits of the last 17 months have been a "unique test on our arts organization and the arts community at large."
"We knew this 13th edition of our annual In the Soil Arts Festival would be different, and we were determined to find inspired ways to get off of our screens and offer artists and audiences safe ways to connect — in person."
During In the Soil, artists from Essential Collective Theatre will be set up on James and St. Paul Street interviewing community members about their pandemic experiences. Working on this initiative are DART graduates Jordine de Guzman (BA '20), Kristina Ojaperv (BA '19) and Ren Reid (BA '20). The project will culminate in the Pandemic Stories Project, a new play to be read at St. Catharines' Culture Days in early October.
Tags: carousel players, Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, Colleen Smith, community engagement, dart, Deanna Jones, Department of Dramatic Arts, Dramatic Arts, Expert Advisory, FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, Humanities, In the Soil, Jordine de Guzman, Karen Fricker, Kristina Ojaperv, Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, MIWSFPA, PAC, Ren Reid, Rhiannon Flemming, Stratford Festival, Suitcase in Point, The Shaw Festival
Categories: Alumni, Announcements, Current Students, Events, Faculty & Instructors, Future Students, In the Media, Media Releases, News, Uncategorised
Graduates of the Department of Dramatic Arts are on the boards again and this time they are playing IN THE SOIL.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 | By Brock University
The Clockmaker by Stephen Massicotte
April 27 @ 8:00pm and April 28 @ 2:00pm
Sullivan Mahoney Courthouse Theatre 101 King Street, St Catharines
Tickets: $10 at the door
Festival pass: $25 through inthesoil.on.ca
Nathan Tanner MacDonald – Director
Geoffrey Heaney – Performer
Dylan Mawson – Performer
Michael Pearson – Performer
Caitlin Popek – Performer
Kate Hardy – Stage Manager
Finn Archinuk – Designer
Nathan Tanner Mac Donald – a resident of the St Catharines and recent graduate of the Department of Dramatic Arts – has brought together a company of DART students to present The Clockmaker by Stephen Massicotte. A metaphysical rollercoaster, The Clockmaker may seem like little more than a love story set inside a murder-mystery-to-be, but it just might end up exposing the very truth of existence itself. The show will be performed April 27 @ 8:00pm and April 28 @ 2:00pm at the Sullivan Mahoney Courthouse Theatre in downtown St Catharines.
Nathan recently performed in the 2011 STRUTT wearable art show and this past summer he wrote and directed Circus, which played at Factory Theatre in the 2011 Toronto Fringe Festival. Nathan's company includes graduates and Geoffrey Heaney, Dylan Mawson, Michael Pearson, Caitlin Popek as Performers, current student Kate Hardy as Stage Manager and graduate Finn Archinuk as the Designer.
In the Soil Arts Festival brings Niagara artists from a range of disciplines together to provide unique audience experiences. The festival nurtures the creation of new work, showcases talent, encourages innovation, offers learning opportunities for youth and provides intimate and uncommon platforms for audiences to experience work by contemporary performing and literary artists, musicians and media artists. In the Soil is Niagara's homegrown arts festival and is working to make a Niagara that is self-determining and culturally distinct.
for more information see the IN THE SOIL website.
Break-a-leg, Nathan, Caitlin, Dylan, Finn, Geoffrey, Kate and Michael!
Tags: caitlin popek, dylan mawson, Finn Archinuk, Geoffrey Heaney, In the Soil, Kate Hardy, Michale Pearson, Nathan Tanner MacDonald, The Clockmaker
Categories: Alumni, Current Students, Events, News
Virtual Launch of 'Savoirs littéraires et arts narratifs autochtones': 8 December 2021, 7 pm December 6, 2021
Concepts of land and ownership in Canada at centre of upcoming Brock panel discussion November 4, 2021
PROJECT: Soundscape, on exhibit September 24 September 24, 2021
Brock community members nominated for St. Catharines Arts Awards September 24, 2021