Interdisciplinary approach to making in theatre and the arts

By Jesse Fulcher Gagnon

Sunday, April 20th - 1PM-2:30PM (Online Waiting Room Opens @ ~12:55PM) - Digital via Zoom, Yukon Time

Join Métis experimental artist Jesse Fulcher Gagnon for a discussion about how an interdisciplinary approach can support a life in the arts. We will discuss how practices outside of the theatre can bolster further theatre opportunities. Promotional image by Studio D YXE.

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Jesse Fulcher Gagnon is a Métis experimental artist whose scattered mind leaves him frequently moving between mediums. He is a theatre rat, dabbling in sound design, acting, directing, stage managing, and teaching. As a performer Jesse has taken on such roles as a ladybug, a cow, a bison, a rock, and a corner— like, the corner of a square. Outside of the theatre he holds an MFA in Studio Art and maintains a studio practice involving performance and installations, projections and animations, or just junk food and bad jokes.

Practical Cultural Considerations in Theatre Costuming

By Jensine Emeline

Monday, April 21st - 1PM-2:30PM (Online Waiting Room Opens @ ~12:55PM) - Digital via Zoom, Yukon Time

When working on a show with diverse cultural representation, costuming decisions require careful consideration. How do you balance cultural accuracy and sensitivity with the pressures of time and budget constraints? How do your own cultural background and biases influence your design choices, and what strategies can you employ to ensure respectful and inclusive representation? Let’s explore these questions together!

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Jensine Emeline (she/they) is an award-winning Métis-settler ADC theatre designer, Equity stage manager, and arts administrator from Treaty 6 Territory (Saskatoon) and an alumnus from the U of S drama department. They have a passion for collaborative, independent, and local theatre and environmental sustainability in the arts.

www.jensineemeline.com

Building Our Village

By Balancing Act

Wednesday, April 23rd - 12PM-1PM (Online Waiting Room Opens @ ~11:55AM) - Digital via Zoom, Yukon Time

There are a lot of caregiving needs in our northern artistic community from children, to Elders, to our peers when they struggle with grief, and more. As Gwaandak Theatre is committed to improving its support for caregiver and care receiver artists in the community, we invite Artist Caregivers (and those that support them) to join this online session and continue weaving connections. Our goal is to leave this short discussion with a greater sense of what we can do for each other - over the next month, six months, this year, and beyond. This event will be facilitated by the team from Balancing Act, a national initiative to support parents, caregivers, and care practices in the arts across Canada.

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Susie Burpee - Executive Director, Balancing Act

Susie Burpee is a lover of the arts, working for many years as a professional dance artist, a choreographer, and a teacher. She is Executive Director at Balancing Act, a national initiative to support parents and caregivers working in the arts in Canada. Highlights of her work with Balancing Act include an affinity group series for artist and arts worker caregivers, and Level UP!, a systems-change project to pilot caregiver supports in arts spaces and workplaces. As a mother and an artist, Susie brings lived experience and passion to her role at Balancing Act and her service to the arts and culture community.

Meryl Ochoa - Managing Producer, Balancing Act

Meryl Ochoa (she/they) is a multi-disciplinary artist and producer who immigrated to Canada with her family in 2012. She studied Dramatic Arts and Psychology at Brock University and had worked in new and devised pieces with several St. Catharines-based theatre and art companies. She is co-founder of Tethered the Ghost theatre collective, creating new works about the Filipinx-Canadian diaspora. She joined Balancing Act in early 2024, and continues to devote themself to supporting and developing work that tells untold truths and empowers those who are under-represented.

Fund Development - Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance

By Cynthia Lickers-Sage

Friday, April 25th - 12PM-1PM (Online Waiting Room Opens @ ~11:55AM) - Digital via Zoom, Yukon Time

This workshop is designed to cover the fundamentals from taking an idea and putting it into a grant application to accepting and final reporting.

The Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance is a member-driven organization serving Indigenous artists and arts organizations across Turtle Island. We provide opportunities for arts and culture workers to connect with one another, gain skills and knowledge, and advertise their work and events among the network.

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Cynthia Lickers-Sage [Kanienkeha:ka, Turtle Clan] is a proud recipient of the Governor-General of Canada’s Meritorious Service Cross. Following her graduation at the Ontario College of Art and Design, she Co-Founded The Centre for Aboriginal Media, imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival, Tkaronto Music Festival, Tkaronto Productions and is the sole proprietor of Clickers Productions. She has spent the last three decades working in the Government and not-for-profit arts sector as the former Executive Director at the Association for Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts, and the General Manager at Kaha:wi Dance Theatre where she gained valuable skills to take on her current position as the Executive Director at the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance.