teacher
photo by Eish Van Wieren
post-secondary | community | workshops | talks
My work as an educator centres around an abundance based practice, which honours and celebrates every students/participants gifts and means meeting students/participants where they are at. In my teaching/education/facilitation I assert that Indigneous education practices benefit all with an emphasis on Tatawaw/Tawaw (Cree/Michif) – welcome there is room, there is space, there is time, there is a path for all of us.
I have taught at post-secondary institutions, developed and implemented workshops and talks, and directed residencies and training through theatre organizations.
I am currently pursuing an MEd in Urban Indigenous Education through York University where I will continue to develop decolonizing pedagogies and methodologies for learning and education.
2022 & 2023 Facilitator - Directors Lab | Paprika Theatre Festival
2022 Acting Coach - Sheridan Preparation for the Performing Arts Program
2021 Residency Director and Designer | Gwaandak Theatre
Assisting Gwaandak Theatre in developing four residency programs – Directing, Technical Directing, Performing Arts Residency, and the Quick n’ Dirty Indigi/Queer Cabaret. Serving as the primary director for the Performing Arts Residency.
Ongoing, Workshops | Variety
Facilitating workshops on clown, devising, creation, decolonizing theatre practice, and Indigneous leadership. To organizations including Theatre by the Bay, York University, Victoria School of the Arts, The Centre for Indigneous Theatre, Buddies in Bad Times, Gwaandak Theatre, and independently.
2021, Untouched Ripples | York University
A collaborative project created with York University students. Where I served as director/facilitator.
2022 Co-Director - Emerging Creators Unit | Buddies in Bad Times
Working with co-director Tawiah M’Carthy to continue to develop the ECU and introduce the Emerging Artist & Producer Series. We developed and implemented a 4-month long creative unit for Queer and Trans artists focused on furthering artistic process and practice.
2021 Associate Director - Emerging Creators Unit | Buddies in Bad Times
Working with unit director Tawiah M’Carthy to move the ECU into it’s 15th year. We developed and implemented a 4-month long creative unit for Queer and Trans artists focused on furthering artistic process and practice.
2020,2021,2022 Instructor | The Centre for Indigenous Theatre
Creating and instructing uniquely decolonizing and Indigenous curriculum through one of the foremost Indigneous training organizations in ‘Canada’.
2019-2021 TA/Instructor | York University
Hands on teaching and instruction of a first year acting course in a university setting. Implementing the curriculum of the course director.
learner
writings | events | conversations | research
I am learning in all that I do.
A part of the journey of learning is articulating what my practice is in any given moment. Which includes writing and publishing work that interrogate my ways of working, creating spaces of knowledge sharing, and speaking at conferences and events. I am a privileged Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship winner, amongst other academic funding and awards.
Founding member of the (de)collective. A collective of 6 international performance-scholars, practitioners, and cultural theorists –from a diversity of lived and ancestral experiences – examining the nuances of decolonizing individual/collective practice within performance. Gathering since late 2020, we have hosted a decolonizing unconference with over 40 attendees of scholar-practitioners from across Turtle Island. Our research has furthered with a week-long in-person (un)learning to (re)member residency. We have presented our developing practice at the University of Toronto’s Festival of Original Theatre (FOOT) conference. With an upcoming publication in Performance Research Journal. Amongst us we have over 25 articles published and are active practitioners in a myriad of disciplines from food, movement, puppetry, land-based dramaturgy, play(writing), and (re)claiming craft(s) as material resistance.
JUST BECAUSE IT’S A ROAD DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO TAKE IT: A JOURNEY OF DECOLONIZING RESISTANCE THROUGH STORYTELLING, MFA Directing Thesis through York University
manifesto of self (governance) in The Mamawi Project’s ‘zine governing/owning ourselves.
A Proposed Guide to Witnessing: Dailoguing with Streaming Life: Storying the 94 as a Site for Call and Response, Vol. 192, Fall 2022 Ethics and Socially Engage Theatre, Canadian Theatre Review
Good Beginnings: Decolonizing Protocols and Agreements or Mouse Crosses River, Percées - Explorations en arts vivants in the collection: “Indigenous theatre and performance: rules of engagement”. The piece is an exploration of good beginnings and positive encounters between Indigenous artists and non-Indigenous artists and institutions.
Co-organizing a four day un-conference that created a circle of sharing around decolonizing practices. With over 6 guests, including Donna-Michelle St.Bernard and Dr. Jill Carter, and 40 participants, the virtual event mobilized decolonizing praxis across communities. WEBSITE
Presented at “Urgent-Emergent: Imagining Differently: Research-Creation Practices in Urgent Times”
Indigenous and Decolonizing Theatre Techniques Through Cultural Praxis. An interactive presentation that questions our relationship to land and the exploitation of land.
Presented at “IS|CS Intersections | Cross-Sections 2020 Graduate Conference, Changing the Current”