Arts

Fancy footwork: Dance takes centre stage at Hart House

siddiq22 — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 15:01:50 +0000

Fancy footwork: Dance takes centre stage at Hart House

siddiq22 Wed, 04/26/2023 - 11:01

Cutline

This spring, Hart House is home to all kinds of dance – from championship events to performances and classes to learn a wide variety of genres (supplied image)

Megan Mueller

Topic

Our Community

Dance

Arts

Culture

Fitness

Hart House

Hart House Theatre

Student Life

From a popular dance festival to hosting the qualifying round for Canada's national breakdancing championship, the University of Toronto's Hart House is centre stage for dance this spring.

U of T will welcome some of the best breakdancers (known as "breakers") in Canada on April 29 when Hart House Theatre hosts the Ontario Open – the qualifying rounds of the Canada DanceSport (CDS) National Championships, which will be held in Vancouver in June. The winner of that series will progress to the World Dance Sport Federation's World Breaking Championship, taking place in Belgium in September.

The event comes as the status of breaking (also called "b-boying" and "b-girling") is steadily rising – the sport will even be included in the summer Olympics for the first time next year when the Games are held in Paris.

Geoff Reyes, lead organizer of the
Ontario Open breaking championship at
Hart House (supplied image)

Geoff Reyes, a graduate of U of T's civil engineering program in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, has been involved in the Canadian breaking scene for many years – the former Varsity athlete and dance instructor, who is the breaking sports director for CDS and the president of Breaking Canada, is the lead organizer of the Ontario Open at Hart House.

For Reyes, the founder of Ontario-based breaking groups How Hip Hop Helps and You Be ILL, returning to Hart House will be like a homecoming.

“During my time at U of T, Hart House meant community and gathering. I taught breaking with the U of T Dance Club and hip hop dance at the Fitness Centre," Reyes recalls. "My dance group, as well as my students, performed at the Hart House U of T Festival of Dance."

Hosting the Ontario Open is just one of many ways Hart House has supported and showcased the art form of dance over the years.

“There’s a substantial dance community at U of T, and Hart House Theatre is a key part of this,” says Doug Floyd, Hart House Theatre's director of theatre and performance art.

The theatre often hosts and collaborates with dance groups of all genres, including student-led ensembles such as the Silhouettes Dance Company – one of the largest U of T dance troupes on campus – who will perform at Hart House Theatre later this year. Another student-run dance group, the Only Human Dance Collective, often rents the Hart House Theatre to run classes for students of all experience levels.

The University of Toronto Dance Team – which won three consecutive dance competitions in March against 28 teams across Canada, are another campus group taking to the Hart House Theatre stage to wrap up their season, presenting some of their best dance pieces in a performance on April 29.

Such collaborations are key to Hart House's ongoing commitment to programming dance, says Michelle Brownrigg, Hart House Theatre's senior director and chief program officer.

“Community and academic partnerships are so important,” she says. “For example, we have several collaborative workshops with U of T's Institute for Dance Studies, with most recent support to their keynote on disability and dance earlier this year."

Kiki Ballroom Alliance (supplied image)

Some of those partnerships include the one with Breaking Canada, rehearsal space for vogue dance group Kiki Ballroom Alliance and initiatives with Dance Immersion that focus on the African dance diaspora in tap and jazz dance – a connection that was fostered by Seika Boye, director of the Institute for Dance Studies.

Hart House Theatre's longstanding association with dance is highlighted each year through the annual Hart House U of T Festival of Dance – one of the largest university dance festivals in the country, the showcase offers a wide variety of performances across genres, including jazz, ballet, ballroom, modern, hip hop, musical theatre, Irish, Latin, belly dancing and k-pop. This year's event ran from March 31 to April 1 and included 60 different dance numbers.

“Some dance groups have their own large shows, but some don’t – so the festival is even more important for those smaller companies," Floyd explains.

“With such an abundance of dance groups associated with U of T, participation in the festival is a great opportunity for dance groups to interact, collaborate and promote their own work and ventures.”

Breaking Canada holds a class on breakdance at the Hart House Fitness Centre (supplied image)

Dancers don't have to be onstage to enjoy some fancy footwork at Hart House, which offers several popular classes at the Fitness Centre, including Zumba, cardio dance party, Afro cardio dance, Bollywood and k-pop.

Those who get inspired by the breakdancing competition can take a new breaking class this spring. Breaking Canada, in partnership with Canadian Women & Sport, will be offering B Thee Rise, a national b-girl initiative where participants will learn the fundamentals of breaking with guidance from leading b-girls.

“Whether you’re a novice to breaking or looking to improve your abilities, this program is inclusive, safe and most of all, fun,” says Vanessa Treasure, director of fitness, wellness and recreation at the Fitness Centre.

With its focus on experiential learning through the arts and active living, Hart House's longstanding pas de deux with dance offers something for everyone on campus – from showing off skills in the spotlight to learning new moves for the first time.

Who are you calling a new girl? U of T alumna Rebecca Addelman on writing comedy in Hollywood

vzaretski — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 20:02:43 +0000

Who are you calling a new girl? U of T alumna Rebecca Addelman on writing comedy in Hollywood

vzaretski Fri, 07/28/2017 - 16:02

Cutline

Alumna Rebecca Addelman has written for the Fox hit ‘New Girl’ (photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

Author legacy

David Silverberg

Topic

Subheadline

She landed a job with the hit show ‘New Girl’ and worked on Judd Apatow's Netflix show ‘Love’

After graduating from U of T, Rebecca Addelman started acting in improv and sketch troupes in Toronto. She loved comedy and was soon jetting off to Los Angeles, where she landed a writing job with the hit Fox show New Girl.

Addelman graduated from U of T in 2004 and has been writing for TV ever since, most recently for Judd Apatow’s Netflix show Love. Her first feature film – Paper Year – comes out this fall.

The Q & A below was originally published at U of T Magazine.

L.A. is the big time. What did you find most challenging about writing for New Girl?

It’s a big operation and there are a lot of people involved. You might be a writer of a given episode, but what’s challenging is that your writing gets vetted at so many different levels. Sometimes as many as 20 writers read the script and go through it.

That reminds me of something Amy Poehler once said about writing comedy for television: “Be open to changing all the material you think is really brilliant. Even the most talented people don’t fight every day for every one of their jokes.”

That’s something you learn with experience, and I find experience leads to confidence. When starting out as writer, you want to prove yourself and show that you can hang with the more seasoned writers. For me, at least, I had a tendency to be more defensive and not accept criticism or notes.

I learned to be generous. What I mean is that the greatest gift is to let others have interesting ideas and let them know when they have the answers to a story’s problem. Those defensive walls come down, and then it’s easier to work with fellow writers in a really open way. What’s created together is much stronger than what’s created alone.

Comedy has a reputation for being a boy’s club. How do you find it?

It definitely used to be male-centric, whether you look at The Simpsons or Saturday Night Live. But today, I don’t see that anymore. Love’s writer room is 50 per cent women, the same with New Girl. To me that means TV series are offering more voices to viewers and telling stories that reflect the actual world around us.

Judd Apatow is one of Hollywood’s most successful screenwriters right now. What did you learn from him while writing for Love?

He always pushes to make the story more truthful in some way. He ensures we hunker down and basically write psychological analyses of these characters we create. He asks us a lot, “What truly makes them tick?” He wants big comedy too, which means any set piece or moment in a script that you can point to and say, “That will be funny.” But he wants it to come from a place that feels honest. Otherwise, you’re writing something fake. He learned a lot of that from his mentor, the late comedian Gary Shandling.

When you’re running a show, you need to make decisions quickly and stick with them. Judd knows what he finds funny and what story he’d like to tell and knows right away how he wants something changed. And that’s a great skill to have in television.

You wrote and directed Paper Year about young newlyweds, who start to question their relationship. How much is autobiographical?

The story is definitely inspired by my life. I got married young and also divorced young, and the film is about what a couple goes through on their first – and only – year of marriage.

Getting divorced and living through the aftermath was tough, but it felt cathartic to write about it. I needed to get it out of my system.

It doesn’t sound like a comedy.

The film is funny in parts. It’s very serious in others. Some scenes are so awkward that I think they’re funny. The humour is less obvious, and I like to think that it’s woven into the fabric of the characters. There is no big comedy in the movie! But the last thing I wanted to make was a deathly earnest film. Those are the worst.

What do you find funny?

I don’t think you ever know if what you find funny will make anyone else laugh. Only through trial and error and experience do you start to hone your instincts and begin to trust your gut. But even your gut can have an off day. If I think it’s funny then that’s enough for me. And as long as a few other people get what I’m doing, I’ll feel good.

Were there any U of T experiences that inspired you to be a film and TV writer?

I threw myself into the sports editor position at the Varsity newspaper, and it allowed me to do a lot of writing. I wanted to expand the sports section to broaden the idea of what athletics could mean, such as a piece we did on transgender athletes.

How would you describe your career trajectory?

One thing has often followed the next for me: live comedy to writing for TV to writing a movie to directing. I’ve always been attracted to a challenge. Each new career incarnation has been more challenging than the last.

And your dream job?

I felt like I just did it with Paper Year. I feel guilty even calling it a job because I was able to realize my own work, and that’s very satisfying. I’d love to do it again but maybe next time with a bigger budget.

20th anniversary of ‘OK Computer’: tribute concert by U of T faculty and grads in Radiohead cover band

geoff.vendeville — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 11:30:06 +0000

20th anniversary of ‘OK Computer’: tribute concert by U of T faculty and grads in Radiohead cover band

geoff.vendeville Wed, 07/19/2017 - 07:30

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

In the 1990s, five friends from Oxford provided the antidote to the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys and other mainstream pop dominating the airwaves.

Radiohead's OK Computer “tapped into a general sense of unease about the oncoming 21st century,” said Rolling Stone recently in a story about the album's 20^th anniversary.

The dark and melancholic album still resonates today, says Don Scott, lead singer of the local Radiohead tribute band Idiotheque and a graduate of U of T’s music program.

“Some of the themes on it lyrically and musically – people having trouble with politics, technology, loneliness, privacy – all these things are still very much true,” he said.

Idiotheque (the band's name comes from a track on another Radiohead album, Kid A) started in 2010 as a side project by graduates of U of T's jazz program. In addition to Scott, the current lineup features U of T Faculty of Music alumnus Ernesto Cervini on drums, alumna Teri Parker on keyboard, Jessica Stuart and Charles Tilden on guitar and providing backup vocals, and Liam Smith on bass.

On July 21, the band will be playing OK Computer note-for-note in concert at the Horseshoe Tavern.

Scott and Cervini spoke to U of T News about the album's significance two decades since it was released.

As jazz musicians what do you like about Radiohead?

Don Scott: I suppose we all have our own individual stories about our connection with Radiohead and when we discovered them. Maybe there's some nostalgia involved. But I guess it's not surprising for musicians to be fans of Radiohead because their music is – I don't want to use the words complex or sophisticated – but there's a lot going on. It has very interesting forms, chords and ideas that musicians love. There is a history of well-known jazz musicians that we all listen to who have covered a Radiohead tune on their album.

Thom Yorke says OK Computer was influenced by Miles Davis' Bitches Brew.

Don Scott: Sonically, I can see some of the connections to Bitches Brew just because there are some wild ethereal sounds. Maybe it's even a reckless abandon approach to the playing of the material that can be related back to Miles Davis' work.

OK Computer's 20th anniversary has gotten some attention. Does the music stand the test of time?

Ernesto Cervini: The music stands up. You don't listen to it and think, ‘Yeah, that sounds 20 years old.’ If someone released that album today, I still think it would be cutting edge.

Don Scott: This album struck a nerve with a lot of people and really predicted some of the atmosphere to come in the early 21st century. Some of the themes on the album lyrically and musically – people having trouble with politics, technology, loneliness, privacy – all these things are still very much true.

Music can sometimes be a generational thing. What do your parents think of Radiohead and your covers?

Don Scott: My parents are funny because they're totally not musical at all. I don't know where I came from. My mom just kind of listens to what's on the radio and keeps the radio on to keep the cats company. I don't even know if she has an opinion.

Although, she was just in town for our last show a couple of months ago, and she was floored by how much she enjoyed the music. She was like, 'I want to come back for the Horseshoe show.'

Ernesto Cervini: It was really adorable. She's pretty awesome.

Alumna Teri Parker runs through "Everything in its Right Place" from Kid A at a rehearsal with bassist Liam Smith and Jessica Stuart (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

What are the hardest parts of covering Radiohead? Is it hitting those Thom Yorke high notes?

Don Scott: The hardest thing is divvying up the parts when we start a new tune.

We don't have defined roles like, you're Jonny Greenwood, and you're Ed O'Brien. You're playing all that person's parts, and you dress like them and act like them on stage. Basically, it takes a while to decide who's playing which part. In rehearsal, we'll see how that works.

Ernesto Cervini: We try to learn the studio version which isn't necessarily how they perform it live. Between the three guitarists and the keyboard, and as we've been developing this band, we've been buying more gear. The bass player has a synth that he plays sometimes. I bought myself a drum pad, and I know all three guitar players are adding different pedals.

Don Scott: We're always trying to figure out the logistics, and how we're going to get these sounds. If you look at what they do in studio or even live, they have 20 times the gear we'll have. They have $20,000 to 40,000 worth of gear to make the sounds we're making with probably a couple of grand.

I think the challenge for us is to come as close to the recordings as we can. Even after so many shows and studying the music, I keep hearing new things in their songs. I'll be like wait there's this weird little wobble at three minutes and 27 seconds – who can play that?

Ernesto Cervini: It's amazing to listen to something for the 78th time and be like, 'Oh wait, I never heard that before. Crap, no one's covering that.' That to me is also the fun of it.

U of T historian's “Five Ways of Being a Painting” wins prestigious Notting Hill prize

ullahnor — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 20:24:06 +0000

U of T historian's “Five Ways of Being a Painting” wins prestigious Notting Hill prize

ullahnor Wed, 07/12/2017 - 16:24

Cutline

Assistant Professor William Nelson won the prestigious Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize (photo by Ken Jones)

Don Campbell

Author legacy

Don Campbell

Topic

Subheadline

He typed parts of the essay on his iPhone at night

A U of T historian's unique essay exploring the experience of estrangement through art has won the prestigious Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize.

Assistant Professor William Nelson, an expert on the Enlightenment and French Revolution, won the top prize of £20,000 ($33,000 CDN) for his essay Five Ways of Being a Painting.

Judges were impressed by the way he was able to combine text and images, weaving together how historical figures from Europe and China – and even his own memories from childhood – form the experience of estrangement.

“I started by recognizing a conceptual relationship between these things, but I didn’t want to write an argumentative piece,” he says. “I wanted to weave them together, to create a resonance and range of meaning that would engage readers and slowly draw them in.”

“The Vues des ports de France” (Scenes of the harbours of France) is a series of paintings by French painter Joseph Vernet, made between 1754 and 1765, that are featured in William Nelson's essay

Nelson says the experience of estrangement explored in the essay is a subtle one, a way in which people can step outside of themselves in order to reassess aspects of their life.

He originally drew inspiration for the essay from a few sources, including a photograph of German philosopher Walter Benjamin who had talked about being totally immersed by looking at objects as a child, and from Chinese artist Liu Bolin who is known for immersing himself in environments for his artwork.

Nelson also was inspired by a piece of art criticism for the Salon written by the French Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot. In it, Diderot eloquently describes going on a picnic with a priest and some students before Diderot sets off on a walk around the French countryside. It’s only after the description that Diderot reveals he’s actually talking about a specific painting – not a personal experience.

“It’s an interesting example of being a painting by placing himself inside the art he’s describing. It’s a very creative way to tell readers about the painting, but it also allows them to believe that they took this imaginative leap,” Nelson says.

While Nelson started collecting his thoughts for the essay about three years ago, it wasn’t until he learned about the Notting Hill prize that he fully committed himself to finishing it.

What’s remarkable is he was able to complete the essay while teaching a full course load, writing an academic book and raising his young son. He was so busy that he committed to writing sections of it on his iPhone at night before going to sleep.

University Arts Women’s Club–University of Toronto Women’s Association

mdipaul — Mon, 08 May 2017 21:07:25 +0000

University Arts Women’s Club–University of Toronto Women’s Association mdipaul Mon, 05/08/2017 - 17:07

URL

https://uawc.artsci.utoronto.ca/

Canada 150: U of T symposium examines Canadian Opera Company’s revival of “Louis Riel”

hjames — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 18:06:58 +0000

Canada 150: U of T symposium examines Canadian Opera Company’s revival of “Louis Riel”

hjames Tue, 04/25/2017 - 14:06

Cutline

Author and essayist John Ralston Saul spoke to a packed room at Innis College Town Hall on Friday (photo by Hannah James)

Hannah James

Author legacy

Hannah James

Topic

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Opera enthusiasts, activists, scholars and students gathered at U of T the morning after the Canadian Opera Company’s premiere of Louis Riel to analyze the revival of the opera.

“Hearing Riel: An Interdisciplinary Symposium” was hosted by the Canadian Opera Company at Innis College last week in partnership with U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs and the Faculty of Music.

Backed by U of T's Canada 150 projects fund, the symposium examined the 2017 production of the opera – the original is considered by many to be contentious and provocative – and the steps the Canadian Opera Company took to restore a more inclusive and expansive history this time around.

Former Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson introduced Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin (photo by Hannah James)

Symposium panelists talked about the Métis leader, and the opera company's efforts to include more Indigenous voices in the opera, which is a modern production of the original composed by Harry Somers for Canada's 100th birthday.

Peter Hinton, the director of the 2017 production, said that there were many factors to take into consideration when doing a piece about Louis Riel.

“It was my intention with the production to treat it as an artifact,” he said.

“I use that term deliberately,” said Hinton, adding that in 2017 there's an opportunity to take another look at the beauty and the musical virtuosity of the opera “and to cast light on its colonial biases, its absences, its silences, and what it doesn’t speak to and not be afraid of that.”

Estelle Shook, assistant director of Louis Riel talked about how she put together the opera's ensemble of 36 Indigenous men and women who represent those directly affected by the outcomes, victories and losses of history.

Estelle Shook (left), assistant director of Louis Riel with Joanna Burt (right), the soprano who sings the part of Sara Riel (photo by Hannah James).

Shook is Métis and the descendant of Saskatchewan pioneer, Thomas McKay, who testified at the trial of Louis Riel in 1885. She said it was important that the 2017 production had to reframe the original telling in 1967.

“It was a way to interrogate the piece, put the opera on trial,” she said.

Jean Teillet, the great-grand-niece of Louis Riel, spoke about her ancestor and about the historical documentation she found in family collections. She's now working on a book about the history of the Métis people.

Jean Teillet, great-grand-niece of Louis Riel, shared some documents she discovered in family troves while working on her fortcoming book on Riel (photo by Hannah James)

Linda Mitchell and Judith Burgess said they came to the symposium as a primer, before seeing the production. Burgess said it’s a part of Canadian history, and she felt it was important to come and learn.

Joanna Burt, the soprano who sings the role of Riel's sister, Sara in the opera opened a roundtable discussion titled, “Collaborations: Indigenous Art and Western Art Forms,” with a song and drum performance.

Linda Mitchell (left) and Judith Burgess (right) came to learn more about Louis Riel prior to seeing the opera (photo by Hannah James)

The roundtable included Shook, along with Hinton, the playwright, performer, director and producer, Marie Clements, and the dramaturge Paula Danckert.

“There's nothing more Eurocentric than opera,” said Danckert, a graduate student at The Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance at U of T. “So how do you operate in this form with this content? This is the time to hand over the story to the people to whom it belongs.”

Sarah Koval and Taryn Jackson, graduate students in the Faculty of Music, participated in another roundtable discussion titled, “A Year with Riel.”

U of T students, Taryn Jackson (left) and Sarah Koval (right) created the Louis Riel podcast (photo by Hannah James)

The grad students spoke about what it took to create their Louis Riel podcast.

With funding from U of T's Canada 150 student fund, Koval and Jackson spent months researching Riel and interviewing experts, historians and people involved in putting together the sesquicentennial Louis Riel opera.

Twice as many white students, many wealthy at TDSB's arts schools, U of T study finds

ullahnor — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 15:49:54 +0000

Twice as many white students, many wealthy at TDSB's arts schools, U of T study finds

ullahnor Mon, 04/24/2017 - 11:49

Cutline

The study shows the majority of students entering the TDSB arts high schools come from a narrow set of feeder schools that also have an over-representation of white, wealthy students

Lindsey Craig

Author legacy

Lindsey Craig

Topic

Subheadline

“Our research is important because it suggests that these schools undermine the board’s commitment to equity by benefiting those who are already socially advantaged by race and class”

A recent U of T study shows students entering specialized arts high school programs in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) are twice as likely to be white and many come from wealthy families, compared to students across Toronto public schools.

Despite the arts high schools’ open enrolment status, the study shows the majority of students entering them come from a narrow set of feeder schools that also have an over-representation of white, wealthy students.

Researchers at U of T's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) say the findings are concerning because the arts high schools – also known as specialized arts programs, or SAPs – were established to provide greater access to arts training to all students across Canada’s most ethnically diverse city.

“Our findings show that these specialized arts schools are implicated in producing racial segregation and inequality, that they are places that cater primarily to white and privileged students in the board,” said the study’s lead author Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, associate professor and acting director for OISE’s Centre for Urban Schooling.

Read the Toronto Star story

Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, associate professor at OISE, is the lead author of the study

Researchers examined three of Toronto’s four specialized arts high schools, which are dispersed throughout the city. The study was published on April 23 in the journal Education Policy Analysis Archives.

“Our research is important because it suggests that these schools undermine the board’s commitment to equity by benefiting those who are already socially advantaged by race and class,” said Gaztambide-Fernández, who is also the lead investigator of the Urban Arts High Schools research project, which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Using demographic and program data collected by the TDSB – one of the only school boards in Canada to collect such extensive data – Gaztambide-Fernández and fellow researcher Gillian Parekh compared the students entering specialized arts high school programs in Grade 9 to students across TDSB in elementary schools with Grade 8.

Three variables were explored – race, family income and parental education.

In all three categories, researchers say their findings show Toronto’s publicly funded arts schools are “remarkably homogenous” when compared with the student demographics across the TDSB.

Findings include:

Students entering into specialized arts schools are 67 per cent white. They are more than twice as likely to be white compared to students across all TDSB elementary schools with Grade 8, who are 29.3 per cent white.
More than half – 56.7 per cent – of arts high school students come from families representing the top three highest income deciles in the TDSB compared to only 30.4 per cent of students within elementary schools across the TDSB.
Students at specialized arts high schools are 1.4 times more likely to have parents with a university education compared to those at non-arts TDSB high schools. Data shows 73.2 per cent of students at arts schools have university-educated parents, compared to 53.2 per cent of students within elementary schools across the TDSB.

“The pattern across all three demographic variables shows that the student populations in specialized arts high schools do not reflect the population of our very diverse city,” Gaztambide-Fernández said.

Study results also show that the student demographics at SAPs mirror the student demographics of the feeder schools. Researchers say this means most students are coming from schools in predominately white, wealthy neighbourhoods – despite the fact that arts schools are intended to serve students from across the TDSB.

“Our study shows that over a quarter of the students come from only five elementary schools. And, over half come from just 18 schools out of almost 200 elementary schools within the board,” said Gaztambide-Fernández. “This suggests other mechanisms beyond admissions are at play in producing such homogeneity.”

Researchers drew on their own previous studies of specialized arts programs in TDSB schools to try and explain the latest findings. They suggest admissions practices, curriculum and student experience may play an important role in excluding students who are neither white nor wealthy.

“For example if a school focuses on Eurocentric forms of art such as ballet or piano, those who excel in other forms of art such as South Asian dance or slam poetry may not do well in that audition process,” Gaztambide-Fernández said.

The admissions process is only partially to blame, he said.

“If we could say that the reason is because of admissions, the policy solution would be simple – change the admission process or eliminate it,” he said.

“It’s not just that the admissions process works to exclude students without the right kind of background or talent. It’s also that a very Eurocentric idea of the arts shapes the curriculum, which attracts students who see themselves mirrored within it, and who share the same ideals of the school in terms of what it means to be an artist.”

Researchers say that’s going to play a role not just in who is admitted but in who even knows about the existence of the schools and then chooses to apply.

Leslie Stewart Rose, associate professor at OISE, teaches courses in music education and is director of OISE’s concurrent teacher education program.

She shares the concerns of Gaztambide-Fernández and Parekh, and says the decisions and choices made by educators reflect their personal beliefs, values and experiences.

“Even well-intentioned educators teach only what and how they have been taught. So, they continue to replicate Eurocentric curriculum and pedagogies. When a teacher rejects rap or DJ’ing as legitimate musical practices for example, then so too are they rejecting the motivations and histories behind those practices along with the students who identify with those movements,” Stewart Rose said.

On the other hand, an inclusive curriculum reflects the identities of the students, is relevant to their lives and invites the student to “proudly bring their full selves into the classroom,” she said. This is known as culturally relevant and responsive curriculum, which she says is part of the solution.

Researchers hope their findings will lead to change.

“If the idea behind such programs is to be inclusive, and if we are committed to ensuring access to all students across the city not just a privileged few, then we need to reconsider not just how students access such programs, but what kind of arts training they provide and what image of the artist we want to promote through our education system,” Gaztambide-Fernández said.

Five Ways of Being a Painting: U of T historian crafts essay on smartphone, longlisted for elite prize

ullahnor — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 18:11:04 +0000

Five Ways of Being a Painting: U of T historian crafts essay on smartphone, longlisted for elite prize

ullahnor Wed, 04/12/2017 - 14:11

Cutline

Assistant Professor William Nelson's essay is up for the $33,000 Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize (photo by Ken Jones)

Berton Woodward

Author legacy

Berton Woodward

Topic

William Nelson, an assistant professor of history at U of T Scarborough, has been longlisted for the prestigious Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize, worth £20,000 ($33,000 CDN).

Nelson’s innovative 4,700-word essay, “Five Ways of Being a Painting,” combined text and images to examine “the ways that people have used paintings to think about the experience of estrangement.”

Historically, other U of T essayists have done well in the competition. Michael Ignatieff, then a professor at U of T's Munk School of Global Affairs, won in 2013, the first year of the biennial prize. In 2015, Philosophy Professor Mark Kingwell was longlisted and received special mention.

In Nelson's essay, he mentions anecdotes and musings about historical figures and images from the past 400 years in Europe and China, as well as memories from his own childhood.

“I wrote the essay in an experimental form that weaves together five storylines exploring the ways that people can ‘be’ paintings,” he said. “I am an academic historian of ideas. This is another type of exploration of ideas.”

He began writing the essay about three years ago, then put it aside to work on a book. Last year, seeing the deadline coming up, he completed the essay in fragments in bed at night, typing on his smartphone.

The Vues des ports de France (Scenes of the harbours of France) is a series of paintings by French painter Joseph Vernet, made between 1754 and 1765, that are featured in William Nelson's essay

Notting Hill Editions, a website and publisher aiming to “reinvigorate the art of the essay,” was founded by games inventor and entrepreneur Tom Kremer, who helped popularize Rubik’s Cube. The shortlist for the prize will be announced on May 3, and the winner and five runners-up will be selected June 28.

Nelson, whose piece is one of 76 on the longlist, said he has published a number of academic works but never a literary essay. Most of the other authors on the list, he noted, are professional writers.

“When I was doing my PhD, I realized I wanted to pay a lot more attention to writing,” he says. “So, I practiced writing in a number of different styles.”

Nelson, who grew up outside Washington, D.C., did his PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was a post-doc researcher and a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge, the University of Miami and the University of Texas at Austin. A specialist in 18th-century intellectual history, he came to U of T Scarborough in 2011.

'Lost' silent film rediscovered by U of T Libraries

ullahnor — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 15:12:28 +0000

'Lost' silent film rediscovered by U of T Libraries

ullahnor Mon, 04/03/2017 - 11:12

Cutline

ZaSu Pitts from a scene in “Secrets of the Night” (1924)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

A movie on the Library of Congress's list of “Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films” has recently been rediscovered thanks to a donation to U of T Libraries.

The black-and-white murder mystery-melodrama comedy from the early 1920s boasts a cast of well-known actors from the time – James Kirkwood Sr., Madge Bellamy and ZaSu Pitts.

Titled Secrets of the Night, the film was discovered by Media Commons Assistant Media Archivist Christina Stewart as she was looking through a recent donation of silent films. The gift came from a family who had come into possession of the films when an Eaton's store in Winnipeg stopped offering silent film rentals in the 1940s.

Read the story at Metro News

There is a 16 mm print of the film in a private collection, which is available digitally, but it does not contain the original opening credits and is missing three scenes from the ending, Stewart said. At the time, many studios like Universal lost a lot of the silent catalogue in vault fires.

“So to come by a Universal title makes this unique,” Silversides said.

Read the City News story

Blaché was a well known director at the time. His then-wife Alice Guy-Blaché, who also worked on the film, was one of the pioneering film directors at the time. Like most black-and-white films, it is actually tinted – amber colour for daytime and indoor scenes, and blue for night scenes.

The film and 14 others were donated by Richard and Wayne Scott. Most of the films were produced by Universal Studios.

Richard Scott was part of the screening last week, participating in a Q & A, following the movie.

“Back in the 1940s, my father worked for Eaton's in Winnipeg,” Richard Scott said. “Eaton's offered every product you can imagine, including a film library for people who wanted to rent out films. Eaton's decided to do away with the service and offered the films to employees to purchase, and that's what my father did. The 16 mm copies of what are now very rare films gave rise to the interest in the collection.

“It's been in the family for 70-odd years.”

A scene from Secrets of the Night (image courtesy of Robarts' Media Commons Library)

U of T’s Winter Stations warm up Toronto’s beaches

Romi Levine — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 17:15:42 +0000

U of T’s Winter Stations warm up Toronto’s beaches

Romi Levine Tue, 02/28/2017 - 12:15

Cutline

Beachgoers enjoy U of T's Winter Station installation named, “Midwinter Fire” (photo by Romi Levine)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

landscape architecture

On Location

Subheadline

The event runs until March 27

Torontonians have been flocking to the sandy shores of Lake Ontario to check out the whimsical structures lining the beach.

Winter Stations is the annual design competition where creative teams from all over the world build art installations around the lifeguard posts scattered across Toronto's east-end beaches. This year, University of Toronto architecture and landscape architecture master’s students from the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design made their debut.

The event is a chance for students and budding designers to show off their talent, alongside more experienced architects. Three schools, including U of T, were chosen to participate.

“To me, this is a great opportunity for young designers to design, build and deliver pieces where normally in the studio, they don't necessarily see things out and work through problems,” says Aaron Hendershott of RAW Design, one of the event organizers. “I think it's a great learning experience for the students and they do really compelling work.”

Students at U of T participated in an internal competition to decide which installation would be included and it was Midwinter Fire that got the vote.

U of T architecture and landscape architecture students assembled Midwinter Fire on a snowy beach, days before the Winter Stations event opened to the public (photo by Romi Levine)

The structure utilizes local vegetation to brighten up the wintry beach and reflective walls to make the installation appear larger, almost infinite.

Arts

Fancy footwork: Dance takes centre stage at Hart House

Who are you calling a new girl? U of T alumna Rebecca Addelman on writing comedy in Hollywood

Read more about writing comedy at U of T

20th anniversary of ‘OK Computer’: tribute concert by U of T faculty and grads in Radiohead cover band

U of T historian's “Five Ways of Being a Painting” wins prestigious Notting Hill prize

Read more about his essay

University Arts Women’s Club–University of Toronto Women’s Association

Tags

Canada 150: U of T symposium examines Canadian Opera Company’s revival of “Louis Riel”

Read more about the Louis Riel podcast

Twice as many white students, many wealthy at TDSB's arts schools, U of T study finds

Read the Toronto Star story

Five Ways of Being a Painting: U of T historian crafts essay on smartphone, longlisted for elite prize

'Lost' silent film rediscovered by U of T Libraries

Read more at CBC

Read the story at Metro News

Read the City News story

U of T’s Winter Stations warm up Toronto’s beaches

Read more about U of T's Midwinter Fire