Day 2 - Département de danse - UQAM

Paradoxically, globalization also facilitates the creation of such localized idioms. Indeed, it enables international partnerships.
As the last part of the paper indicates, New Zealand Maori/Pacific Islander playwright Miria George has developed her
innovative play Urban Hymns in collaboration with the Toronto-based Native Earth Performing Arts. The example of Canada
thus can be extended to various regions of the globe, as Aboriginal playwrights use dramatic form to gain cultural
empowerment.
3:45pm — break
4:00pm
a) Canadian Theatre in Broken English: Fine Arts 103
On Exiles, Outsiders, and Immigrants in Canadian Theatre Today (to 5:30pm)
Curated Panel Moderator: Yana Meerzon
“Railway Plays in Canadian Theatre: Asian Canadian Perspectives.” Eury Colin Chang
(University of British Columbia)
Vancouver maintains its status as Canada’s largest port city and the cultural and economic gateway to the Pacific Rim. While
Asian migration has heavily influenced the cultural demographics of the city, many of the larger state-funded regional theatres
in Vancouver still maintain what can only be called Eurocentric programming choices, favouring plays and stories imported
from the United Kingdom and the United States. Fortunately, a number of independent theatre companies are helping to
increase the representation of the city’s diverse population onstage. In particular, there has been a blossoming of stories that
represent experiences that are often outside of the “mainstream”. This paper will argue that many Asian Canadian playwrights
have reiterated the experience of their pioneering ancestors by focusing on the railway. By focusing on such an iconic event -
that is, the construction of the railway - these plays connect the immigrant to larger issues such as nation-building, citizenship,
and race relations. How do such plays represent the immigrant, the outsider? As the worker, the oppressed, or simply as a
pioneer who did what was necessary? I will focus on three particular case studies, all written by Vancouver-based playwrights,
that showcase how Asian Canadians migrants actually lived and how Asian Canadian actors continue to be represented
onstage. This topic is increasingly relevant and highly debated as ”minoritized” theatre artists continue to tackle issues such as
contemporary, “colour-blind” casting, and the broad-based representation of diversity and citizenry on Canadian stages.
“Foreign Accent Syndrome Play: Who Can Sound Differently on Toronto Stages and Why?”
Cynthia Ashperger (Ryerson University)
This paper will analyze the issues surrounding the representation of the audible minority and the relationship between English
pronunciation and stage identity in contemporary Toronto theatre scene. While the plight of the visible minority actor has been
has been made public and found a positive response within the main-stream employers the audible minority actor has not had
the same fate. The paper will attempt to answer why hasn’t the surge of Canadian language diversity been reflected within the
theatrical institutions. It will also examine why is the audible minority character such a rare commodity in contemporary
playwriting? While one in five Canadians—some 6.6 million people speak a language other than English or French at home
Canadian theatre does not reflect even marginally this kind of diversity in its casting. While in Toronto 32.2 percent of the
population speak an immigrant language at home the audible minority characters written for the Toronto stage represent a tiny
fraction of this number. When different sounding actors and/or characters appear upon the stage they commonly do so as the
archetypal immigrants, in that the themes they explore have to do with otherness expressed through national identity. What
are the reasons that audible minority is so strongly perceived through its national identity and at the expense of many other
possible themes. The paper will use experiences of a twenty-five year career of a Caucasian audible minority actor and
include examples of this actor’s casting both in a traditional (accented) and non-traditional (not defined by the accent) roles.
The starting point for this will be this actor’s newly written musical comedy which explores the above theme.
“Participatory Research: A journey of Discovery.” Lina de Guevera (PUENTE)
For the purposes of this abstract I’ll consider community based participatory research as an approach to research that is
founded on a commitment to sharing power and resources, and working towards beneficial outcomes to all participants,
especially communities; that is, groups of people who share something in common, e.g. a locality, ethnicity, identity, interests
or practices.
The topic of my paper is participatory research in intercultural applied theatre.
The problem I will address is the variety of participatory research techniques required by Intercultural Theatre as
compared with the approach used in traditional mainstream theatre. I believe that no single set of research techniques can be
applied to the preparation of applied theatre productions. The theme of the play, the group involved, the purpose of the project,
and other factors require different sets of techniques, chosen from interviews, storytelling circles, playback and image theatre
workshops, theatre forums, discussion groups, acting games, etc. This will be illustrated with examples taken from plays
directed by de Guevara and produced by PUENTE Theatre over a 22 years period, ranging from community plays to solo
shows.
35