Bodies in Difference: Race and Performance in and beyond North America
Part of McGill University's AHCS Speaker Series, 2016 - 17
April 20-22: Bodies in Difference: Race and Performance in and beyond North America
Bodies in Difference is a multifaceted three-day event combining a main-stage performance, student-led performance workshops and showcase, and an academic conference on the topic of race in performance. The overarching goal of Bodies in Difference is to bring together artist-practitioners and academic researchers working in Canada and internationally, to create dialogues around the study and practice of race in performance. Racial representations permeate the industries of theatre, performance, film, media, and the arts, with consequences for how people are perceived in daily life. Across Canada, the United States, and Europe, arts organizations are increasingly interested in utilizing theatre and performance to bring the stories and perspectives of racial minorities to national stages. In Canada, the goals of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission include enhancing Indigenous artists’ participation in arts networks. Nuanced scholarship on race and performance is flourishing as well. But theatre’s tools for critiquing racism remain unevenly implemented, and all too often scholars are not in dialogue with artist-practitioners, audiences, students, or members of the general public. Bodies in Difference seeks to correct this situation by creating an inclusive, accessible event that will sensitize diverse audiences to the importance of teaching and staging performances of racial identity and difference, and the ways that theatre and the arts can address racial stereotyping and discrimination. All activities and events will be free of charge and open to the public, video-recorded and livestreamed on the conference website, and archived for up to five years after the event.
Bodies in Difference commences with a performance of the autobiographical solo play Monstrous, or the Miscegenation Advantage, by Caribbean-Canadian playwright, performer, scholar, and artistic director Sarah Waisvisz. Subsequent events include: two plenary presentations by internationally renowned scholars of race and performance Helen Gilbert and Harvey Young; panels and roundtables touching on pedagogical and dramaturgical approaches to staging race; and student-created original performances of 10-15 minutes and 30-60 minutes, paired with invited presenters who will provide critical feedback. Panels and roundtables address: pitfalls and techniques of teaching race in the theatre theory and practice classroom; challenges and methods of staging racially complex plays and performances and creating nuanced reception of these works; local artists’ experiences making performances that tackle issues of race in Montreal, Quebec, and Canada; conversations on race and performance across the theory-practice divide; and research challenges of the race and performance archive.
Venue: Department of Art History and Communication Studies, Arts building, room w-215 at 5:30pm.