Toronto Symposium: "Performing Ephemera"

Performing Ephemera: towards a reimagination of the future of theatre and performance archives, museums, and methods in oral history

13-15 October 2023 | Toronto Metropolitan University

symposium schedule

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2023
ELGIN AND WINTER GARDEN THEATRE CENTRE

189 YONGE ST, TORONTO M5B 1M4

WELCOME

RECEPTION AND TOUR OF SPACE

Hosted by Canada’s Theatre Museum and Michael Wallace

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2023

THE COLLABORATORY, TORONTO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

345 YONGE ST, TORONTO M5B 1M4

COFFEE AND LIGHT BREAKFAST WELCOME

Land Acknowledgement and Opening Remarks from Matt Jones

INTRODUCTION TO THE COLLABORATORY WORKING SESSION 1

LUNCH

WORKING SESSION 2

CONCLUSION: RESPONSE & FUTURE CONVERSATION

DINNER

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2023

THE COLLABORATORY, TORONTO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

345 YONGE ST, TORONTO M5B 1M4

COFFEE AND LIGHT BREAKFAST WELCOME

GATHERINGS BUSINESS MEETING - Stephen Johnson, Sasha Kovacs & Sarah Robbins

CLOSING REMARKS

PRESENTERS & PARTICIPANTS

Martin Julien

Sasha Kovacs

Allana Lindgren

Maria Meindl

Robert Motum

Jimena Ortuzar

Sarah Robbins

Jenny Salisbury

Mark David Turner

Michael Wallace

Jessica Watkin

Roberta Barker

Justin Blum

Amy Bowring

Seika Boye

Jill Carter

Jenn Cole

Heather Fitzsimmons Frey

Annie Gibson

Gabrielle Houle

Kelsey Jacobson

Stephen Johnson

Matt Jones

Lethbridge Symposium: "Widening the River"

"Widening the River: Communicating Performance Research Beyond Scholarly Communities"

Friday, June 10 – Saturday, June 11, 2022

University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge (Alberta)

Presented with the support of a SSHRC Connections Grant, the Gatherings Project, and the University of Lethbridge, among others

"Widening the River: Communicating Performance Research Beyond Scholarly Communities" will gather scholars of performance, public historians, and artists from across Canada who share an interest in performance history and a desire to have their academic and artistic work reach communities beyond already established networks of academics and fellow artists. The first goal of the symposium is to help University-based artists and scholars of performance share existing methods for disseminating knowledge beyond academia, while collaborating to develop and refine new models for knowledge mobilization with and to diverse publics outside the scholarly community. Our second goal is to connect researchers and artists from Southern Alberta with a pan-Canadian cohort of peers, and to do it on the ground in Lethbridge. Situated on the banks of the Oldman River Iniskim, as the University of Lethbridge is known in the Blackfoot language, is an ideal place to consider bringing scholarship to broader communities: as a mid-sized University in a relatively small and rural city, local researchers and artists are doing important work with the Blackfoot community, with a large Japanese-Canadian community brought here by the policy of internment, with Black cultural heritage, and with Queer communities on the prairies, just to name a few. Our presenters use a variety of mediums to meet their publics including traditional publication, virtual reality, live theatrical performance, and cinematic production; we aim to foster the sharing of skills and development of capacities among all attendees, who will be empowered to seek out new channels through which to distribute their research.

INVITED PRESENTERS

Jenna Bailey

Liam Monaghan

Josephine Mills

Christine Clark

Danielle Heavy Head

Melissa Shouting

Jay Whitehead

Peter Balkwill

Amethyst First Rider

David Lane

Carly Adams

Darren Aoki

Eury Chang

Antiques Roadshow #2

gatherings antiques roadshow

After the success of December's Gatherings Antiques Roadshow event, we're hosting a second iteration with six new presenters on February 22 from 4:00 - 6:00pm EST via Zoom.

This month's exciting lineup features presentations from: Amy Bowring, Seika Boye, Jill Carter, Matt Jones, Stephen Johnson, and Martin Julien. Moderated by Robert Motem.

Antiques Roadshow #1

Gatherings' Antiques Roadshow and Holiday Party

December 10th from 1-3:30pm EST via Zoom.

Join us for an Antiques Roadshow style presentation of unique archival finds from Gatherings co-investigators. From masks and costumes, to excel sheets and spruce roots, it promises to be an exciting event to learn about what your fellow Gatherings folks are working on.

Featuring presentations from Stephen Johnson, Matt Jones, Sasha Kovacs, Kelsey Jacobson, Mark Turner, Gabrielle Houle, Jenn Cole, and Heather Fitzsimmons-Frey.

Following this programming on Zoom, we'll retire to Kumospace for casual social conversation at the (virtual) bar. Feel free to dip in and out as you are able or stay for the whole thing. Come raise a (real or virtual) glass to the holidays!

STEPHEN JOHNSON

MATT JONES

KELSEY JACOBSON

Quarantine Performance

Please join us this Friday, October 9th at 1:00pm EDT for a conversation with performing artists from around the globe about the challenges of maintaining an artistic practice during the COVD-19 pandemic. 

 

Featuring:

Yannos Majestikos (Democratic Republic of the Congo/France), Aron De Casmaker (UK), Anne Sabourin (Canada), Jonathan Zak (Argentina), Imaginario Colectivo (Peru)

 

Join Zoom Meeting:

https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/89502765996

Passcode: 803499

 

Hosted by Matt Jones, Nae Hanashiro Avila, and Sebastian Samur

Quarantine Performance Research Team

University of Toronto

quarantineperformance.weebly.com

An Online Gathering to Think About Gathering


GRAPHIC ARCHIVE - GATHERINGS VIRTUAL ROUNDTABLE

Artwork by Andriana Contreras Correal


EVENT DESCRIPTION

YOUR INVITATION TO PARTAKE AND PARTICIPATE

Host: Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories of Performance

Co-organizers:  Jill Carter, Lisa Aikman, Jenn Cole, & Stephen Johnson

Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories of Performance invites all CATR delegates to join the Gatherings research-team in an ONLINE Long-Table Gathering, adhering to Lois Weaver’s Long-Table protocolsThis Event will take place in on August 1, 2020.  Watch this space for further details.  

Date and Time:  Saturday, August 1, 2020, from 12noon to 3pm EDT

Place:  Zoom; we will be looking to make full use of this platform, approximating a Long Table event in every way  possible.  We will be engaging Drawing Change to document this event.  

All CATR members are invited to meet within a specially curated, online salon within which to engage in a collaborative discussion around gathering, archiving and accessing the stuff (digital, printed, material) out of which Performance Histories are woven. We believe that, as culture-workers who build, maintain or contribute to performance history archives or who utilize these archives in your research, you share our questions. And we hope that you share our conviction that a collaborative exploration of these questions is a relevant and timely exercise that will greatly inform our research-processes and the works produced therefrom. Adapted from Lois Weaver’s Long Table practice, this salon opens space for questions around archival practices of collection, curation, display, and archival accessibility.

Questions to be explored at the Long Table include the following: 

(a) What do our graduate students, colleagues and fellow researchers appreciate about the archives they have visited? 

(b) What improvements/alterations to the archives they have visited would better facilitate their work? 

(c) What obstacles/irritants might they have encountered that set back their work or inspired their distrust of the archive? 

(d) What are the ethical questions around the practices of collection, curation and display that inform their approach to, confidence in, and use of the archives that inform their work?

All conference attendees are invited to participate in this session. We ask that all register to receive their link to the session and a guide to the protocols we will be following. These protocols have been adapted (for online gathering) from Lois Weaver’s Long Table Protocols. The session will be recorded and made available for asynchronous viewing throughout the conference.

A guide to the Protocols for the LongTable can be found HERE.

Inquiries about this event may be directed to Jill Carter at jill.carter@utoronto.ca

Preserving Performance in the Pacific Northwest: A Symposium hosted at the University of Victoria Department of Theatre

Preserving Performance in the Pacific Northwest

February 20th (University of Victoria) — Feb 21st (Royal BC Museum) Victoria, British Columbia

On the traditional and unceded Coast Salish territories of the Esquimalt, Songhees and WSÁNEĆ nations.

This gathering highlighted the vibrant performance history of the Pacific Northwest region and gathered together many of the region's leading voices in archival knowledge, performance research, and artistic practice to...

  • deepen knowledge related to the performance activity of the Pacific Northwest region

  • imagine best practices for the preservation of performance materials by surveying and discussing the approaches currently used by local, regional, and national performance organizations

  • highlight the significant role archives play in creative process and production

Click one of the options below to access documentation of the event’s talks and conversations and find out more about our speakers’ ongoing research into performance history.

Keynote: Living Culture and Sleeping Collections

Gerry Lawson

Currents in Pacific Northwest Performance Research

Patrick Blenkarn, Eury Chang & Selena Couture

Performance in the University of Victoria Archives

James Hoffman & Lara Wilson

The Place of Performance in Pacific Northwest Museums, Archives and Galleries

Katherine Bunn-Marcuse, Michelle Jacques,
Lou-ann Neel & Lara Wilson

Approaches to Archival Practice in the Performing Arts

Amy Bowring, Carolyne Clare, Matthew Payne, & Janis La Couvée

Performance In/As Archive

Danette Boucher, Kathy Carbone & Lindsay Delaronde

Considering Curation: A Symposium

Hosted by Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories of Performance in Canada 

SSHRC Partnership Development Project 

August 12-14, 2019 

Toronto, ON 

SYMPOSIUM AT A GLANCE 

MONDAY, AUGUST 12 

Location: Art Museum, 15 King’s College Circle, University of Toronto Boardroom 

9:30-10:00am Supervisory Committee Arrival (catered light breakfast) 

10:00am - 11:45am Gatherings Supervisory Committee Meeting 

12:00pm -1:30pm Lunch – open to all (catered at Art Museum) 

2:00pm - 5:00pm Afternoon session: In Conversation with Tracy Tidgwell, Bodies in Translation Research Project Manager 

Bodies in Translation/Re:Vision Project (University of Guelph) 

Facilitated by Jenn Cole 

END OF DAY 

Dinner on your own 

Summerworks is on for those interested http://summerworks.ca/ Considering Curation Symposium August 12-14, 2019 PROGRAM p. 2 

Archival & Oral Histories of Performance 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 13 

Location: 

Art Gallery of Ontario 

317 Dundas St W 

Prints and Drawing Centre 

9:30am - Arrival 

*Please arrive at 9:30am sharp as we will have to be escorted to our location. The gallery does not open until 10am so you won’t be able to make your way on your own. The tour will begin at 10am sharp so arriving early will give everyone time to settle etc. 

10:00am-12:00pm Conservation Tour with Sherry Phillips, Conservator, Contemporary & Inuit Art 

12:00-1:30pm Lunch, Sin and Redemption, 136 McCaul Street 

2pm - 5pm Interpretive Planning Session with John Summers, Museum Studies, 

University of Toronto 

Creating Exhibits That Engage: A Very Short Introduction 

Group Dinner, Valens http://www.valens.ca 

19 Baldwin St. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14 

Location: Stephen’s House 

50 Wolfrey Ave. 

Near the Broadview Subway Station. 

This will be a child-friendly event 

10am - 12pm Closing Reflections and Breakfast (catered) 

END OF SYMPOSIUM Considering Curation Symposium August 12-14, 2019 PROGRAM p. 3 

Archival & Oral Histories of Performance 

CONSIDERING CURATION DETAILED PROGRAM INFORMATION AND BIOS 

Welcome to Considering Curation. Over two days we shall engage in workshops to help us consider curation from the perspectives of collections care and preservation, exhibition installation and interpretation, interpretive planning and digital storytelling. 

Topics of discussion to carry with us through our time together might include the following: 

  • shifting collections and exhibition policies, 

  • the dilemma of liveness in museums and galleries, 

  • interpretive planning as intervention, 

  • arts- and social justice-informed use of digital platforms for storytelling and oral history dissemination, 

  • individual action within institutional structures, 

  • the impact of the material needs of archival objects on curatorial decision-making. 

As we meet with experts Tracy Tidgwell, Sherry Phillips and John Summers, who work in in digital arts and social justice, contemporary art conservation and museum studies, respectively, we shall inquire, how will the Gatherings collective’s specialized knowledge in performance and embodied practices meet, challenge and develop frameworks, practices and methodologies developed for material archival and art objects? 

These sessions and discussion will move us towards the Gatherings’ mandate “to help to encourage a more complete understanding of how performance pervades and informs the many cultures that share this country: performance in all regions of the country; performance of all genres and idioms; and performance by the broadest spectrum of participants.”

ABOUT GATHERINGS—ARCHIVAL AND ORAL HISTORIES 

Gatherings—Archival and Oral Histories, is a project initiated to serve the preservation and study of our performance histories. Our research project is funded in part through a Partnership Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, with the support of a number of academic institutions from across the country, and with the crucial participation of the Theatre Museum Canada, Dance Collection Danse, and Playwrights Canada Press, all leaders in the preservation and dissemination of our performance heritage. 

The Project has three main goals: Gathering Together, Gathering Networks, and Extending Definitions

Gathering Together The first goal is to develop a partnership with the purpose of collecting, archiving, and disseminating the history of theatre and performance in the territories commonly referred to as Canada. Participants will support one another in pilot projects using archival research and interviews, paying particular attention to the documentary evidence and oral histories of Canadian theatre and performance. In the process we shall compile an online set of guidelines, specific to the study of performance, that can be used by local and regional historians. 

Gathering Networks The second goal is to develop a network of other interested scholars, institutions, and collectives, in the process establishing a broader partnership serving the study of, and public education in Canadian performance. 

Extending Definitions We hope, with this project, to encourage a more complete understanding of how performance pervades and informs the many cultures that share this country. This includes performance in all regions of the country, performance of all genres and idioms, and performance by the broadest spectrum of participants. 

More information is available in our Partnership Description below, and through the examples contributed for our Pilot Projects. 

DETAILED SCHEDULE AND PRESENTER BIOS 

MONDAY, AUGUST 12 

Location: Art Museum, University of Toronto 

Boardroom 

9:30-10:00am Supervisory Committee Arrival (catered light breakfast) 

10:00am - 11:45am Gatherings Supervisory Committee Meeting 

12:00pm -1:30pm Lunch – open to all (catered at Art Museum) 

2:00pm - 5:00pm Afternoon Session: In Conversation with Tracy Tidgwell, Bodies in Translation Research Project Manager 

Bodies in Translation/Re:Vision Project (University of Guelph) 

Facilitated by Jenn Cole 

This conversation will emphasize digital storytelling process and the virtual exhibition of oral histories. 

Tracy Tidgwell is a community organizer, researcher, activist, and cultural producer who has been working in the folds of Toronto’s queer arts communities over the past many years in performance, video, analog photography, and writing. She explores process, connection, creativity, love, and queerness in all of her work and is dedicated to the wellness, resilience, and liberation of all people. Tracy is the Research 

Project Manager at Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice at the University of Guelph and manages Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology and Access to Life, a 7-year SSHRC Partnership project that creates collaborations between artists, arts organizations, activists, scholars, and educators and cultivates art produced by disabled, d/Deaf, fat, Mad, and E/elder people with the goal of expanding understandings of vitality and advancing social justice. 

https://revisioncentre.ca/about/who-we-are/revision-team/tracy-tidgwell 

https://revisioncentre.ca/projects/bodies-in-translation 

https://revisioncentre.ca/ 

END OF DAY 

Dinner on your own 

Summerworks is on for those interested http://summerworks.ca/ Considering Curation Symposium August 12-14, 2019 PROGRAM p. 6 

Archival & Oral Histories of Performance 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 13 

Location: 

Art Gallery of Ontario 

317 Dundas St W 

Prints and Drawing Centre 

Lunch and dinner reservations have been made, details below 

9:30 a.m. Arrival 

*Please arrive at 9:30am sharp as we will have to be escorted to our location. The gallery does not open until 10am so you won’t be able to make your way on your own. The tour will begin at 10am sharp so arriving early will give everyone time to settle etc. 

10:00am-12:00 pm Conservation Tour with Sherry Phillips, Conservator Contemporary and Inuit Art 

On this tour Sherry will take us to the Inuit Art vault (not open to the public) to discuss storage, collection care and her approach to preservation with living artists. From there we will travel to the J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous and Canadian Art (permanent collection) where Sherry will share her knowledge and experience of installing and caring for the exhibition of contemporary art objects and installations that are part of the permanent collection. To end, we will visit one or more visiting exhibitions for a chat about installation, and how contemporary art conservators might lean in on the world of performance for documentation and interpretation. 

The tour will be intimate and casual, encouraging discussion and reflection as we go. The sites we will visit aim to draw attention to shifts in museum/gallery collections and preservation policies and relationships with living artists as well as the dilemma of liveness in these institutional spaces. Sherry’s extensive experience will provide insight into how individuals negotiate personal practice and ethics within the structure of institutional policies and mandates. 

Sherry Phillips has been employed at the Art Gallery of Ontario since 1989, working as Conservator of Contemporary Art since 1996. Following an Honours BSc in microbiology and zoology from the University of Toronto, Sherry studied art history and studio techniques before continuing her education at Queen’s University, Kingston in the Master of Art Conservation program. Although her original focus was the conservation of paintings, working with contemporary objects and installations over the years has cultivated a working knowledge of the unusual. Anything from modern materials to electronics, traditional art materials or living systems may require her intervention for conservation treatment or preservation.

12:00-1:30pm Lunch, Sin and Redemption 

2pm - 5pm Interpretive Planning Session with John Summers, Museum Studies, 

University of Toronto 

Creating Exhibits That Engage: A Very Short Introduction 

Creating Exhibits That Engage: A Very Short Introduction 

In this presentation, we will explore both the ends of museum exhibits and their means. Situating the creation of exhibits in the context of visitor experience design, we will touch on the power of the museum and its exhibits to both reinforce and interrogate dominant cultural narratives. With this in mind, we will consider the means by which exhibits can accomplish this, including the development of the big idea, the work of curating, interpretive planning methodologies, design strategies and museum writing. Along the way, we will consider how these might be applied to advance the specific goals of the Gatherings Project. 

Presenter’s Biography 

Drawing on more than three decades of work at cultural institutions in Canada and the United States, John Summers brings a wide variety of skills and perspectives to the planning and design of museum exhibits. His teaching and practice combine a curator’s attention to detail and authenticity with an educator’s sense of audience, a designer’s eye for color and layout, a fabricator’s knowledge of tools and materials and a manager’s ability to build and lead collaborative teams and keep on top of budgets and schedules. He is currently Manager of Heritage Services and Curator for the Regional Municipality of Halton, Ontario, Canada, where he leads, develops, designs and fabricates exhibit projects. He has taught students about museology, material culture studies, museums and technology and exhibition design and planning for the Ontario Museum Association, the Fleming College Museum Management and Curatorship Program, the University of Victoria’s Cultural Resource Management Program and the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information, where he is an Adjunct Lecturer in the Museum Studies Program. Since 2013 he has been Course Director for Exhibit Planning & Design, one of nine courses in the Ontario Museum Association’s Certificate in Museum Studies Program. https://www.johnsummers.ca/ 

5:00pm Group Dinner, Valens. http://www.valens.ca 

19 Baldwin St. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14 

Location: Stephen’s House 

50 Wolfrey Ave. 

10am - 12pm Closing Reflections and Breakfast (catered) 

END OF SYMPOSIUM Considering Curation Symposium August 12-14, 2019 PROGRAM p. 8 

Archival & Oral Histories of Performance 

SYMPOSIUM ORGANIZERS 

Seika Boye 

Kelsey Jacobson 

Jenny Salisbury 

VENUE SPONSORS 

Art Museum, University of Toronto 

Art Gallery of Ontario 

*With thanks to Barbara Fischer (Art Museum), Maureen Smith (Art Museum) and Johnson Ngo (Art Gallery of Ontario) for their support of Considering Curation. 

PARTNERS 

Amy Bowring – Dance Collection Danse 

Annie Gibson – Playwrights Canada Press 

Michael Wallace – Theatre Museum Canada 

CO-INVESTIGATORS 

Stephen Johnson – Principal Investigator, University of Toronto 

Allana Lindgren, University of Victoria 

Sasha Kovacs, University of Victoria 

Mark Turner, Memorial University 

Justin Blum, University of Lethbridge 

Gabrielle Houle, University of Lethbridge 

Heather Fitzsimmons-Frey, MacEwan University 

Jill Carter, University of Toronto 

Seika Boye, University of Toronto 

Martin Julien, University of Toronto 

Jenn Cole, Trent University 

Kelsey Jacobson, Queen’s University 

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS 

Lisa Aikman – Project Management 

Matt Jones – Oral Histories Management 

LIST OF RESEARCH ASSISTANTS FOR TORONTO SYMPOSIUM 

Anna Paily 

Elif Isikozlu 

Marjan Moosavi 

Jessica Watkin 

Jessica Thorpe 

Maria Meindl