Day 2 - Département de danse - UQAM

The objective of this Seminar, therefore, is not to establish singular definitions of Practice-Based Research (or any of its
variations), nor to impose specific theoretical, methodological, or practical criteria. Rather, it is meant as a forum that will
celebrate diversity in PBR motivation, design, execution, and documentation. However, what participation in the seminar will
emphasize is pronounced rigour, reflection, and detail in the articulation of the PBR processes examined, across the following
aspects: focus, objectives, context, participants, methodology, process design, documentation, and results (as opposed to
“products”). A field as invested in multiplicity and variation as PBR/PaR is equally tasked with clarity and sophistication in its
self-presentation; it is my hope that this Seminar will contribute, in some small way, to this cause.
d) To Other Shores … with Love! A Canadian Abroad (to 3:45pm) Fine Arts 103
Curated Panel Moderator: Yana Meerzon (University of Ottawa)
“Canadians in Montenegro: Odysseus, Penelope, Citations and Iterations.” Kathleen Irwin
(University of Regina) and Dragana Varagic (Academy of Arts, Alpha University Belgrade)
This paper looks at a Montenegrin translation of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, by Toronto-based April Productions for
the Purgatorio Festival / 2012 in Montenegro, directed by Dragana Varagic, and scenography by Kathleen Irwin. Beyond the
unique material location of this production (an outdoor stage abutting the seventeenth-century tower of the Tivat Cultural
Centre, overlooking the historically contested Bay of Kotor on the Adriatic coast) and the current socio /political contingencies
of this part of the world, there are interesting links and interconnections bound up in this production. These reference the
multiple migrations and colonizations that interleave Atwood’s feminist retelling of the legend of the Odyssey—the hero’s
leave-taking for the Peloponnesian Wars and his eventual homecoming. This presentation cites the narratives that bind and
divide those who have lived through war and intense political turmoil, and those who haven’t; those who leave and those who
stay.
The Penelopiad is Atwood’s response to Homer’s epic poem retold from Penelope’s perspective. Destined to Hades, she
remains haunted by her twelve maids who are murdered by her husband upon his return after 20 years in battle. Varagic takes
her inspiration from Brecht and transports this contemporary Canadian play back to the story’s roots. Surrounded by a culture
and an audience firmly grounded in epic tradition, she and Irwin discover the resonances and echoes that form the multiple
layers of the production. At the same time, their interpretation introduces a modern and Canadian perspective on the
importance of women’s voices.
The presentation will move between Varagic and Irwin as both recount aspects of the project and their own relations with
this part of the world and with this particular production that uniquely connects Atwood’s play with its original mythical setting.
“Arabic Facts in Palestine: The Clash of Diversity, Transnationalism, and Hybridity in Cultural
Production.” Samer Al-Saber (University of Washington)
After negotiations with several Palestinian theatres in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Bethlehem’s Al-Rowwad Theatre
undertook the challenge of co-producing Arthur Milner’s Facts for a ten-city tour in the region. The successful production and
warm reception to the play highlighted the potential for more Canadian playwrights, companies and artists to engage with
Palestine through cultural and theatrical exchanges. It also highlighted a series of challenging political, cultural and
philosophical differences, which emerged in rehearsal, talkbacks, and audience reception. A textual analysis of the play and a
conceptual analysis of the production suggest that the transnational translation of the play occurred from Canada to Palestine
and within Palestinian communities as audiences in different cities reacted in remarkably different ways. In Hebron, the
audience responded to the engagement with settlers and the predominant presence of the Goldstein massacre in the end of
the play. In Bethlehem, political issues of security coordination dominated the discussion. The mixed Israeli-Palestinian
audience in Jaffa reacted in similar ways to the Canadian audience in Ottawa, focusing on the rift between religious and
secular Israel. In several cities, the production experienced its own diverse transnational experience, reflecting the Canadian
origins of the play, its hybridity in production, its international appeal, and its local significance. In this paper, I outline the
mechanisms and challenges of the production through a methodical description, analysis, and critique of the process that led
to opening night in Bethlehem’s Dar Al-Kalima, and closing night at Al-Rowwad. From the checkpoint to closing night, I recall a
road map for such successful partnerships, while revealing the inevitable clashes of values that take place in transnational
cultural productions.
“Crafting Native Idioms: Contemporary Indigenous Playwrights in Canada and Globalization.”
Marc Maufort (University of Brussels, Belgium)
Contemporary Indigenous theatre in Canada offers an ideal vantage point from which to examine the ways in which Native
playwrights have reinvented traditional Euro-American dramatic realism so as to assert the uniqueness of their culture in
today’s “global village.” Through such a reinvented stage realism, they seek to avoid the homogenizing impact of globalization
and offer a plurality of definitions of what Native aesthetics can mean, thereby resisting the Western tendency to ghettoize
Native writing in rigid literary categories. The innovative ways in which Native playwrights forge these localized idioms remains
a hitherto understudied form of resistance against globalization. The three case studies of this paper examine these idiomatic
aesthetic devices in detail, contrasting works by Marie Clements, Tomson Highway and Kevin Loring. Marie Clements blends
dramatic art and photography in her recent The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern Picture Story. In Ernestine Shuswap Gets
Her Trout, Tomson Highway uses language in such as a way as to encode the special bond between Native people and the
land. In Where the Blood Mixes, Loring resorts to magical realism in order to enact the identities of his Native community.
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