SESSION 8
VANESSA RICHARDS on UNSILENCING OURSELVES – THE QUIET SITE OF SHAME
and MARCUS YOUSSEF on the THE THEATRE OF ACTIVISM
Tuesday February 21st | 7 pm
222 E. Georgia, Vancouver BC
VANESSA RICHARDS will lead a conversation-in-action on the reclamation of the body as instrument of change and song in common life.
MARCUS YOUSSEF will share his insights on how good activism needs good theatre. He’ll address how the process of collaborating across difference affects, challenges, and strengthens creative practice.
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BIOS
Vanessa Richards has a social arts practice that explores what life becomes when we turn more often to each other than away. Community engaged initiatives have been devised with The Arts Club Theatre, Public Dreams, ECUAD, Capilano, SFU and PHS. In the UK her interdisciplinary work has been presented at the Tate Modern, ICA, Oval House Theatre, South Bank Centre. Poetry and critical works are anthologized in the UK, Holland, United States and Canada. She is the founder and song leader for the Woodward’s Community Singers and director of Creative Together, a song based facilitation process.
Marcus Youssef’s dozen or so plays – many of which investigate questions of culture, difference and “otherness” – have been performed at dozens of major festivals and theatres (and school gyms!) across North America, Australia and Europe, from Seattle to New York to Reykjavik to Berlin. Selected awards and nominations: Governor General’s, Rio-Tinto Alcan Performing Arts, Chalmer’s Canadian Play, Arts Club Silver Commission, Seattle Times Footlight, Vancouver Critics’ Choice (three times). Marcus is Artistic Director of Vancouver’s Neworld Theatre, sits on the city’s Arts and Culture Policy Council, co-chaired the Coalition of Progressive Electors and co-founded the East Vancouver artist run production studio, PL1422. He has served on the faculties of Concordia and Capilano Universities, teaches widely, and is a Canadian Fellow to the International Society of Performing Arts.
Photo Credits
Youssef: A face in the crowd at a rally against draconian arts cuts, circa 2009
Richards: Thinking about singing. Hans Edwards. Richards Family Archive
Audio of the event:
Part 1
Part 2