FOOT33: Interdependent Networks
When and Where
Description
You are invited to the 33rd annual Festival of Original Theatre (FOOT) Conference at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies! Please register and check out this year’s conference agenda on our FOOT33 webpage! The conference theme, “Interdependent Networks,” prompts participants to consider what networks they are a part of and crucially, how they are interdependent. We would love to inquire: What networks are you a part of? What does interdependence mean to you? What does it look like in your research/practice?
We are excited to announce this year’s keynote lecturer is Dr. Natalie Alvarez.
Natalie Álvarez is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies and Associate Dean of Scholarly, Research and Creative Activities in the Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her research on immersive simulations in the public sphere, Latina/o/x performance, and performance activism in the Americas has been widely published in international journals and compendiums. She is the author, editor, and co-editor of five books, Theatre & War (Metheun/Bloomsbury, 2023), Sustainable Tools for Precarious Times: Performance Actions in the Americas (Palgrave, 2019; winner of ATHE’s Excellence in Editing award), Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance (U of Michigan P, 2018; winner of the Ann Saddlemyer Award by CATR), Essays on Latina/o Canadian Theatre and Performance and Fronteras Vivientes: Eight Latina/o Canadian Plays (Playwrights Canada Press, 2013; winners of the 2014 and 2015 Patrick O’Neil Book Prize by CATR). She is also the incoming co-editor of the Theatre & book series with Metheun/Bloomsbury. Alvarez is co- investigator (with Laura Levin, PI, York U) of Hemispheric Encounters: Developing Transborder Research-Creation Practices, a seven-year, SSHRC Partnership Grant-funded research program that brings together scholars, artists, activists, and community organizations from across the Americas to explore hemispheric performance as an artistic practice for addressing social and environmental justice. She is also Principal Investigator of the SSHRC Insight study “Scenario Training to Improve Police Response to Individuals in Mental Crisis: Impacts and Efficacy”, a multidisciplinary research team she has led with Dr. Jennifer Lavoie (WLU) and Dr. Yasmine Kandil (UVic) composed of people with lived experience of mental illness, clinicians, Indigenous cultural safety experts, simulation experts, researchers, and de-escalation trainers, who have designed a scenario-based training curriculum and evaluation framework, the Mental Health and Crisis Response Applied Training and Education Program (MHCR). As of 1 April 2024, the MHCR is now a regulatory requirement and mandatory training for all police officers in Ontario, establishing for the first time in history a professional standard in de-escalation and mental health crisis response.
Our Keynote Performers are Isabel Ahat and Kathy Vuu from Mammalian Diving Reflex with their Workshop Performance: Everyone is Interesting.
Isabel Ahat is a Tkaronto (Toronto)-based artist and the Associate Producer and Assistant Finance Manager at Mammalian Diving Reflex. At the age of twelve, she first joined Mammalian as a Food Critic for Eat the Street in Toronto (2009). As one of the original crew from the neighbourhood of Parkdale, Isabel is an important part of the company’s succession strategy, which is focused on diversifying the cultural sector with young creators of colour. Isabel currently produces many of Mammalian’s new works, including Walk With Me While I Remember You and Everything Has Disappeared. She continues to tour Mammalian’s productions and social-engagement methodologies, both locally and internationally, all while managing their finances.
Kathy is a regular Mammalian collaborator, and has worked on numerous projects including: All the Sex I’ve Ever Had at Sydney WorldPride in Sydney, Australia (2023), Freedom Festival in Hull, UK (2022) and True Colors Festival & Kyoto Experiment in Japan (2020 & 2021), Sex, Drugs and Criminality to ANTI Festival in Kuopio, Finland (2019), Teentalitarianism to The Lowey in Manchester, UK (2018) and the Ruhrtriennalle in Germany (2016), and Nightwalks with Teenagers to The Benway in Toronto (2022), LIFT in London, UK (2018), Hangö teaterträff in Hanko, Finland (2018), Theaterfestival Base in Basel, Switzerland (2016), University of Leeds in Leeds, UK (2012) and Cape Breton (2011), as well as The Producers of Parkdale, Dare Night: Lockdown, How to Hook Up, Promises to a Divided City, the film mini-series High School Health and the short film Teen Thoughts. In spring 2016, Kathy presented a talk and workshop at the Lunenberg Symposium on Mentorship in the Arts. Kathy continues to be an important part of the company’s succession strategy, which is focused on diversifying the cultural sector with young creators of colour.
Mammalian Diving Reflex creates site and social-specific performance events, theatre productions, participatory gallery installations, videos, art objects and theoretical texts to foster dialogue and dismantle barriers between individuals of all backgrounds. Our work has been experienced in 105+ cities in 29 countries across 200+ unique tours and is known in Canada & abroad for innovative approaches to performance, receiving numerous accolades for creative collaborations. In 2022, we were awarded South Korea’s prestigious Dong-A Award for ‘Best New Conceptual Play’ for All the Sex I’ve Ever Had. We have been shortlisted for a number of awards: the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art (2019); the BKM Preis Kulturelle Bildung (2017); the Ellen Stewart International Award (2016) for promoting social change & in 2016 were named to San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center’s Top 100, an international list of creative minds shaping the future of culture.
Workshop Abstract: Everyone is Interesting is a community-focused project that aims to explore, engage with, and unite the individuals within a community. Inspired by our internationally acclaimed social acupuncture workshops and performances, we use intensive exercises to facilitate flows of energy and connection between people, providing a series of intimate, unusual, and joyful experiences that prove the universal truth: Everyone is Interesting. Everyone is Interesting is a format that produces a bespoke experience and performance tailored to a specific community. This performance operates with a deep awareness of the effects of connecting with others and the understanding that, in the right context, people will take care of even the most random stranger.
Please register to receive meeting details and check out the full conference agenda on our website. The conference is free, so please join us for our presentations, workshops, and panels planned for this year’s FOOT!
To learn more, visit the FOOT33 website.