Day 2 - Département de danse - UQAM

“Three Women’s Festivals, Many Voices: Groundswell, FemFest, and The Riveter Series.”
Shelley Scott (University of Lethbridge)
In her 2005 Theatre Topics article examining the Women’s One World Festivals, Lara Shalson uses the idea of “subaltern
counterpublics” to explain the importance of women’s theatre festivals, unpacking assumptions about the role of the critic, the
function of degrees of separatism, and the oft-heard charge of “preaching to the converted.” Shalson argues that work done
within the sphere of a women’s festival, because it is “freed temporarily from dominant critical perspectives,” will find “the
necessary conditions for these artistic innovations to ultimately challenge dominant performance paradigms at the level of
content and form” (Lara Shalson, “Creating Community…”).
Taking Shalson’s terms for my own analysis, I will compare the most recent iterations of three Canadian women’s theatre
festivals: Groundswell, FemFest, and The Riveter Series. Looking to the CATR 2013 conference theme, @ the edge, this
paper will consider whether a women’s theatre festival is an event of self-imposed marginalization, if a women’s festival can
truly be a place to explore diversity and support emerging artists, and how works created for a festival context speak back to
the authority of the mainstream.
Nightwood’s annual Groundswell festival has been held in Toronto since 1986, but in 2011 it was re-branded as The New
Groundswell. In March 2013, The New Groundswell will feature productions of three new plays, including Judith Thompson’s
Who Killed Snow White? which was also read in excerpt at the 2012 FemFest. Presented by Winnipeg’s Sarasvati
Productions, FemFest celebrated its tenth anniversary in September 2012. Calgary’s Urban Curvz was founded in 2005, and
May 2013 will mark the second time they present The Riveter Series, their annual festival. On their website, Urban Curvz’ s
artistic team has described the Riveter event as being inspired by FemFest and Groundswell. By taking a close look at the
most recent editions of these three generations of festival, and by speaking with their artistic directors, I will draw comparisons
between intentions, purposes, and reception, focusing specifically on notions of “community-based,” “political,” and
“professional” theatre, to consider how these events provide a counterpublic space for women.
“‘Miss Behave’ in TruDynasty Carnival’s 2012 ‘Garden of Eden’ Mas: Biblical Eve goes
Bacchanal at Caribbean Carnival.” Jacqueline C. D. Taucar (University of Toronto)
Over a million spectators line the Scotiabank Toronto Caribbean Carnival parade route to watch groups of Masqueraders (Mas
Bands), in elaborate costumes called “Mas” (Derived from masquerade, the masking of the self to perform alternative
identities), create a kinesthetic landscape of colour as they wine and dance along Lake Shore Boulevard. Mas is more than
just the costume alone. Rather, it becomes Mas through performance, as Ferris and Tompsett contend, “when the player plays
it, connecting to its meaning from inside him/herself and giving that character or thematic aspect full life on the street” (47).
This paper will examine Michelle Reyes performance of TruDynasty Carnival’s 2012 Queen costume, “The Garden of Eden”
(hereafter “Eden”), at the Caribbean Carnival’s King and Queen Competition. “Eden” reimagines Biblical Eve within the
carnival aesthetic and in doing so opens up new ways of reading and interpreting Eve’s so-called Fall in Genesis and posits a
post-colonial, counter-discursive view of women in the story, in carnival and in society. The “Eden” Mas and its performance at
can be read as an example of what Helen Tiffin calls a “canonical counter-discourse” in which, “a post-colonial writer [or
performer] takes up a character or characters, or the basic assumptions of a … canonical text, and unveils those assumptions,
subverting the text for post-colonial purposes” (100). Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins (1996) contend that the Bible, in
aiding and abetting the imperial project, is ripe for post-colonial intervention. Women as Eve have been constructed in
Western, and colonial, culture as the root of temptation and sinfulness for having first succumbed to evil. Caribbean women
are objectified via a male-oriented, colonizing gaze, which has constructed racist and sexist stereotypes and fantasies of the
black female body and sexuality. Ownership of a slave’s body included access to the sexual services, consensual or by force.
TruDynasty’s “Eden” challenges the imperial, patriarchal and misogynistic gaze in the story of Adam and Eve by re-writing the
Eve’s story to transform from an innocent to a knowing being, eschewing shame, and instead embrace the carnival license to
enjoy and celebrate the body—especially the female body—on her own terms.
c) “Talking and Walking”: PBR/PaR Design, Methodology, Articulation (to 5:30pm) McIntyre
Seminar Organizer: Bruce Barton (University of Toronto). Participants: Conrad Alexandrowicz
(University of Victoria), Henry Daniel (Simon Fraser University), Natalie Doonan (Emily Carr
University, 2013 CATR Theatre practice award winner), Natalia Esling (University of Toronto),
Patrick Finn (University of Calgary), Chris Jackman (University of Toronto), Monica Prendergast
(University of Victoria), Lauren Shepherd (University of Toronto).
It has become a familiar understatement that “Practice-Based Research” (PBR) and “Performance as Research” (PAR) are
contentious categorizations. Both in Canada and internationally much energy has been dedicated to sorting through the
multiple variations of these terms (“artistic research,” “arts-informed research,” “reflective practice,” etc.). The early, high profile
initiative at the University of Bristol, PARIP (Practice as Research in Performance, 2001-06), remains a conspicuous
touchstone in the PBR discussion, given its pronounced emphasis on issues of methodology and documentation/
dissemination. In particular, PARIP foregrounded the myriad challenges facing performance training and scholarship in higher
education contexts. It also demonstrated how the articulation of PBR and PaR “best practices” is not only an artistic, scholarly
and pedagogical imperative, but a political and strategic one as well. In the decade since the launching of PARIP, PBR and
PaR practitioners, projects, and programs have proliferated, on this continent and internationally. And while the conversation
today has only increased in complexity, many of the same issues that preoccupied the PARIP ‘pioneers’ remain central to the
current discourse.[…]
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