Learn about what others have chosen to study and do through this innovative program.
Alumni List
Alanna Dunlop is currently working towards her MA in Theatre and Performance Studies. A dramaturg, creator, stage manger and occasional performer, she received her Bachelor of Arts Honours degree from York University in 2013, specializing in Devised Theatre and New Play Dramaturgy. Research and work interests include performance, politics, sexuality and gender.
Alex graduated from York in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in Law and Society. Shortly after an internship at Human Rights Watch Canada, Alex returned to York in 2014 and completed a second Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Studies. Currently working on a Masters in Theatre & Performance Studies, her interests include nudity and sexuality in Canadian theatre and has become newly interested in exploring marriage as performance in popular culture.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
When not a grad student, Alex allows Netflix to control her spare time. She also teaches piano to children ages 5 and up and enjoys spending as much time with family as possible, which often includes babysitting one of her nine younger cousins.
Alexandra Simpson is an interdisciplinary theatre artist and mask builder with a background in documentary, creation, playwriting, music, and performance. She is a graduate of the Ryerson Theatre School for Performance Acting and has an MFA in Documentary Media (Ryerson, 2016) and a MA in Performance and Environmental Studies (University of Toronto, 2017). Alexandra is interested in exploring cultural narratives and interspecies relations, particularly those surrounding the energy industry. She is the co-founder of Animacy Theatre Collective (animacytheatrecollective.com), a company that creates stories about more-than-human worlds and social and environmental justice. Most recently Alexandra was a collaborator and actor in Theatre by the Bay's The Five Points and is a mask builder for the immersive production of There Is No Word For Wilderness, written by Lisa Hamalainen on Manitoulin Island this October 2017.
Bio
Alison is a Toronto-based arts educator and fitness instructor with a strong background in performance. Her research focuses on wellness and embodied educational practices in secondary schools. After graduating from the University of Toronto and Sheridan College (Theatre and Drama Studies) in 2012, Alison discovered a love for fitness and the wellness of performers which led her on a path to a career in the fitness industry and ultimately in education. This year, Alison earned her Bachelor of Education from York University and began supply teaching at the Toronto District School Board. She looks forward to deepening her knowledge of embodied practices for the benefit of her students during her studies in the MA program.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
When not stuck under a pile of reading and theory, I can be found swinging kettlebells, lifting weights, or instructing community-minded group fitness at La Femme Strong. I also love getting lost, clearing my mind, and taking in the fresh air on Toronto's trails while out for long runs.
Allan is an actor from Panama City, Panama. He has a BA in Business Administration from Universidad Católica Santa Maria La Antigua and an Advanced Diploma in Theatre Arts from Instituto Superior de Bellas Artes. In 2012, he won a scholarship from the US Government to study Theatre Arts at VCU, Virginia, USA. He also studied improv in Brazil and physical theatre in Spain. In Panama, Allan has a theatre production company where he has directed and produced theatre plays, short films, and the first Improv Theatre Festival of Panama in August 2017 (@festivalfit2017). He was one of the lead actors of the national TV Series “Los Brownies”, and has acted and directed in various theatre plays (text-based and improvisational). His research focuses on multiculturalism in Improv Theatre and Latin American cultures and their inter-influences on theatre.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
I like to make masks, travel, play guitar, watch Netflix, go to the gym, play soccer, and last but not least, drink beer.
Dissertation Title & Supervisor
“Clash of the Barbarians: The Representation of Political Violence in Contemporary English and Arabic Language Plays About Iraq”
Supervisor: Christopher Innes
Anita is an award-winning actress raised in Port Moody, British Columbia with a degree in Theatre, English, and South Asian Languages from the University of British Columbia. Anita has also attended the Acting program at the National Theatre School of Canada and is a Dora Mavor Moore award-nominated choreographer who has trained in kathak, Bharata Natyam, and Odissi classical Indian dance forms and blended these traditions with contemporary dance for over fifteen years. She featured in a supporting role in Deepa Mehta's film adaptation of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2012 and has since played in theatres worldwide including the UK, India, and the US. First seen in the CBC film Murder Unveiled, for which she was awarded Best Actress of the Asian Festival of First Films, Anita went on to star in other leading roles such as the CBC's Diverted, Republic of Doyle, and Gavin Crawford's Wild Wild West. She is a noted theatre actress who has been seen everywhere from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and other reputed theatres across the country. In addition, she has worked with various social work conferences to blend theatre into advocacy and sensitivity training in both Toronto and Vancouver. Anita is also a playwright who was awarded the 2013 Governor General Protege Prize in playwriting under the mentorship of Governor General Lifetime Achievement Award-winning playwright, John Murrell. Her most celebrated work, her one-woman show Fish Eyes, continues to tour nationally and abroad. Anita is the long-standing Playwright-in-Residence at Nightswimming where she recently completed and premiered new solo show works, Boys With Cars and Let Me Borrow That Top, which had their world premieres as part of the The Fish Eyes Trilogy Canadian tour last season. As well, Nightswimming helped develop and tour Anita’s long-term development of her Bollywood musical about shadism, Same Same But Different, which premiered at Theatre Passe Muraille and Alberta Theatre Projects in early 2014 and was nominated for Betty Mitchell Awards in the categories of Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Lead Actress.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Watch old episodes of “The Golden Girls”.
Website
Dissertation Title & Supervisor
“Excursions into Otherness: Marketing Exoticism in Yoga, Kickboxing and Capoeira”
Supervisor: Laura Levin
Dissertation Title & Supervisor
“The Dramatic Use of Pictorial Structures in Proscenium Arch Plays: 1845-2009″
Supervisor: Christopher Innes
Dissertation/Thesis/MRP Title/ Research Interests
“The Habitus of Mackenzie King: Canadian Artists, Cultural Capital, and the Struggle for Power”
Becky is a creative arts facilitator, artist support worker, and emerging scholar currently pursuing her PhD student in York’s Theatre and Performance Studies program. She holds a BA Honours in Drama and English from Queen’s University and an MA in Theatre Studies from the University of British Columbia. Becky’s research interests include disability theatre, interdependence and care politics in performance, theatre for social change, performance ethnography, and imagining futures of disability through performance. Becky’s dissertation will focus on autobiographical theatre creation by neurodiverse artists as a demonstration of self-advocacy and community activism.
When I am not being a grad student, I teach a multi-arts program for teens and adults with disabilities—it's a blast! I also enjoy baking (watch out GBBO!), knitting hats, and visiting different coffee shops around the city.
PhD 2014
Byron is the director and dramaturg for the Morro and Jasp clown series with U.N.I.T. Productions. Morro and Jasp have received numerous awards including a 2014 Canadian Comedy Award, a 2012 Dora Mavor Moore Award, as well as over 10 NOW Magazine Awards including Outstanding New Play, Outstanding Production, and Outstanding Ensemble. He is also the Creative Director of The Mission Business, an experience design company. His criticism/art journalism has appeared in Scene Changes, EYE Weekly, AdBusters and IN Toronto magazine.
Dissertation Title & Supervisor
“From Clowns to Computers Performing Theatrical Interactivity and Pervasive Transmedia Fictions”
Supervisor: Don Rubin
Cara Whitfield (1993-) graduate of the Drama in Education and Community program at the University of Windsor, has focused her work thus far in arts for social action and healing. After doing some fieldwork in Ecuador Cara has recently taken an interest in dramatic play as a means of global communication. Believing that arts speak louder than words Cara promotes the idea that Performance holds the appropriate tools for social action and global change. As well as the opportunity for performance to create positive global change, Cara also sees the expressive qualities in which individuals can utilize arts to heal the self and the community. Cara has used many techniques in Agusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed to work with a variety of communities such as differently-abled communities in various camp settings as well as, refugees, youth at risk, small indigenous communities, and lately in long-term facility care homes with residents suffering from Alzheimer’s. Focusing on creative movement Cara hopes to continue her studies and aims to one day be a creative arts therapist.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student ?
I love to perform, anything from various dance styles, Plays(love musicals), jazz and classical vocals, and most of all karaoke! My newest hobby is salsa dancing; you will find me cha, cha-ing in various Latin themes clubs around the city as well as dancing in my own living room. I am fascinated by the effects it has on the “unapologetic body”. Other than salsa, you can find me in the brush, camping, canoeing, hiking, slacklining, truching away in the Amazon, you name it! I am an outdoor enthusiast and I find that being outdoors connects me to the natural way of being; this heavily inspires my work in photography, dance, creative movement, and painting.
Carly is currently a freelance arts journalist, theatre critic, theatre administrator, and student. She received a Bachelor of Journalism from Ryerson University in 2010 and has since written for The Toronto Star, Torontoist, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Guardian, and more. She is also a board member of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association and a member of the Toronto Theatre Critics Awards.
Her studies at York University look at the mainstreaming of performance art in Toronto, contemporary theatre criticism, and Canadian arts funding models.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
See plays, watch horror movies, see plays, drink coffee, see plays, and travel.
Celeste is an M.A. student from Toronto, returning to York where she also completed her B.A. in Theatre Studies with a specialization in Playwriting and New Play Dramaturgy. She has loved the art of performing since she was little and grew up singing, dancing, and acting. When she was in high school, she discovered her love of directing, playwriting, and design. Her research focuses on breaking stigmas through theatrical performances involving the cause and effects of mental disorders and male victimization by domestic violence.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
In my spare time, I enjoy adding lots of movies and television series to my endless Netflix list that I never come around to watching. I love having the house to myself so I can sing as loud as I want without being interrupted or being told to lower my voice because “people are trying to sleep!” Of all my extra-curricular activities, cuddling with my cat is my favorite.
Chelsea is a director, dramaturg, producer, and theatre-making facilitator based in Toronto. She has worked and studied theatre and performance in Montreal, New York City, and Toronto. Recently returned to school for an MA in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University, Chelsea’s research explores performing intergenerational trauma through practice-based research and collaborative creation. She aims to share lesser-known stories by lesser-known artists—specifically by and about women.
Select directing credits:
ASMRtist (Alma Matters/Pink Door Productions),
A Better Place (New Ideas Festival 2016),
Grapefruit (Theatre Hera Collective),
Salty Bachelors (Ryerson New Voices 2015),
The End of Civilization (as asst. Dir., Triple Bypass Productions),
This Is For You, Anna (Hart House 2014/15 Season),
Take It, Easy (Wrecking Ball 16),
Commencement: A work of fiction and musical of sorts (Toronto Fringe 2014),
This Is For You, Anna: A Spectacle of Revenge (UofT, Centre for Drama).
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
When I'm not face first in readings, I see a ton of theatre, take bike rides out of the city, and attempt to train my wild kittens.
Christine cricri Bellerose is a Québecois movement artist and researcher. Her journeys from musician, costume maker, clown, tanguera, responsive technology dancer, and playwright have matured into simple solo-explorations in the wild. Today she dances forms of butoh, durational performance art, and somatic arts, with cultural artifacts, and nature's elements—especially with water, snow, ice, and wind. Eastern-Western cosmologies permeate her art and research. Christine completed her classical music studies at the Conservatoire de Musique Classique du Québec. A grant from the Canadian South East Asian Foundation allowed her to contribute to Dr. Vu Thi Thanh Huong's body language project, with the Centre for Linguistics and Vietnamese studies in Hanoi. In Beijing, she founded Homônumos—art, literature, philosophy, and science multilingual magazine. She is a recipient of the Evelyn Carnie Rowe Dance Scholarship for her research contribution along Canadian geographies, and has received the Ontario Graduate Scholarship award. Throughout her graduate studies, she conducts archival/embodied research, assisting on projects funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council: for Dr. Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt and Carol Anderson: "Collective Historical Acts of Social Memory (CHASM)" on the National Choreographic Seminars; for Dr. Darcey Callison: AlCan Highway, homesteading in Dakotas and West Virginia, and Hollywood male dancers. Her project, "Performative Listening of Métis Artifact," funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, led to her current doctoral research in Dance Studies at York University (Toronto, Canada) on the significance of the body as site-of-research.
Completing her doctoral studies in Dance Studies at the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design at York University, in Toronto (ON Canada), she also holds an MA in Theatre and Performance Studies from York University, and a BFA in Theatre and Development from Concordia University, in Montréal (QC, Canada), and is certifying with Eastwest Shin Somatics® and Land to Water Yoga® as an ISMETA registered somatic movement educator and therapist. Her academic interests spans across theories and methodologies of performance as research (PAR), performance studies, feminist existential phenomenology, ecofeminism, Indigenous knowledge approaches, cross-cultural frameworks of epistemology, sensory ethnography, post-human qualitative inquiry, land-based pedagogy, historiography, with an aim to contribute research to decolonizing the imagination and re-membering land. Her scholarly articles are published in: PARtake the Journal of Performance as Research, Choreographic Practices Journal, Phenomenology and Practice Journal, and Contingent Horizons YorkU student journal of Anthropology. The book cover for Moving Consciously: Somatic Transformation through Dance, Yoga, and Touch features her eco-performance (Fraleigh). Her MA Major Research Paper, "Being ma in movement butoh, durational performance art, and somatic practices," appears as a chapter with the University of Illinois Press in a book titled Back to the Dance Itself: Phenomenologies of the Body in Performance and edited with essays by Sondra Fraleigh. Christine has practiced, trained, performed, given lectures and workshops in North America, Asia, and Europe. christinebellerose.com
A high school English and Dramatic Arts teacher by profession, Christine is coming back to complete her Masters in Theatre and Performance Studies after completing undergraduate degrees in Theatre and Education from York University in 2013. She thanks her cat Sadie, family, coffee and naps for getting her through her life in academia!
Christine is an MA student who recently completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts in Theatre studies at York University, and also holds a diploma in Musical Theatre from Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts. Her research interests include Theatre for Young Audiences, Applied Theatre, and the merit and effectiveness of exposing students to theatre through cross-curricular teaching. She is also interested in how theatre can be used to rehabilitate youth at risk, those with disabilities, and integrate recent young immigrants into society. Christine has a strong passion for theatre education and hopes to attend teachers college upon completion of her MA.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Dance, sing, pub trivia, and rock climb. I also work as an outdoor educator and get to spend lots of time up north adventuring through nature with high school students!
Christine Rankin is a recent graduate of Dalhousie University where she received her Bachelor of Arts Combined Honours in Theatre Studies and Creative Writing with a Minor in Italian Studies. While at Dalhousie, she explored the fields of directing, stage management, choreography, and others as president of the Dalhousie Theatre Society company and as an apprentice at DaPoPo Theatre. She aims to challenge her art and augment her artistry as an emerging theatre creator through her experiences as a Masters student at York. Her research focuses on “grand-scale” performance, physical performance, athletic spectacle, and the performance of national identity. Christine is also currently a volunteer at Theatre Ontario and a participant in the Emerging Artist Roundtable at Theatre Gargantua
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Write, figure skate, explore pubs, and dream of the Maritimes. Eat ice cream straight out of the container, watch Netflix, and ignore my existential dread.
Claudia Rene Wier sang professionally with the Regensburg City Opera Theatre. She published “A Nest of Nightingales: Cuzzoni and Senesino at Handel’s Royal Academy of Music” in Theatre Survey. She has instructed Voice and Articulation and Drama and Play in Human Experience at Eastern Michigan University. For Concordia University, Ann Arbor, she taught Music History and Living With the Arts. She has directed for Ann Arbor’s Young Actor’s Guild, and Ann Arbor Civic Junior Theatre, and led the Drama Club at Ann Arbor’s Slauson Middle School. She is a DAAD Scholarship alumnus and won an Ontario Trillium Scholarship for her study at York’s Theatre and Performance Studies. She recently won an American Society for Theatre Research Fellowship for research in Venetian archives. For her doctoral project, she is interested in the regulation of seventeenth-century comedic performers within Venice and beyond. She studies the combinations of humor and madness inscribed in scores, libretti, and facts about the performers’ lives in court documents, contracts, and Venetian secret police files. The nomadic company members performed multi-lingually across the interstices of: commedia and early opera, gender codes, court patronage, and proto-mercantilist economies moving from the streets, to the courts, and to the first commercial theatres.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Teach, direct, and produce youth opera.
Cristina began her academic studies at the University of Ottawa, studying Piano Performance in their Bachelor of Music program. She then transferred to York University where she received her Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in Theatre Studies. She spent the final year of her degree in England studying History and Archaeology.
Upon returning to Canada she received her first professional acting job as an actor/writer/researcher at the Canadian Museum of Civilization's within their resident theatre company, "Dramamuse". Since then she has developed and taught theatre workshops, primarily specializing in Interactive Theatre. Over the years she has worked as an actor with several different theatre companies. She also produced, directed, and performed her own show, a Commedia dell’Arte-based Italian Storytelling Cabaret.
In addition, she has experience both behind the camera and in front of the camera working on short films, including one award-winning short edited by the N.F.B.
Her roster of experience also delves into Festival and Theatre event management. She has worked as a translator in both French and Italian, most recently translating an Italian novel.
Her research interests focus on the roots of movement and gesture cross-culturally and in an interdisciplinary vein.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Watching films, and theatre. Reading, writing, hiking, boxing, and dancing.
David Owen is a PhD candidate in Theatre Studies at York University and holds an MFA in Directing and a MA in Dramatic Theory. He is a scholar, award-winning playwright, director, gamer, and member of the Playwright's Guild of Canada (PGC). His current research focus is on the intersection of performance and video games and was published last year in the anthology _Ctrl-Alt-Play: Essays on Control in Video Gaming_. His article, "Cyber Narrative and the Gaming Cyborg" is being published this fall in the _Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds_ and he recently had an article on burlesque and roller-derby published in the _Canadian Theatre Review_. For the PCAC he presented "The Paradox of Liveness: Presence and Intermediality in Performance" in Calgary in 2014 and in 2013 he presented "The Comedy of Loss: The Plays of Morris Panych" at the CATR conference in Victoria. He currently lives in Toronto, is writing his dissertation, and plays keyboards and theremin in the Goth band, Amy's Arms.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Play keyboards for the Toronto Goth band, Amy's Arms.
Diane Llewelyn-Jones hails from Alberta and is an actor, director, choreographer, playwright, and vocalist. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Theatre Arts from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and is now in the MA program in Theatre and Performance Studies from York University. Her first love is Musical theatre and has enjoyed many varying roles including Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town, Margaret Johnson in Light in the Piazza, Anna Leonowens in The King and I, Cleo in The Most Happy Fella, Charlotte Drake Cardoza in Titanic, Baroness Schroeder in The Sound of Music, Rose Alvarez in Bye Bye Birdie and Aunt Eller in Oklahoma! She has also performed throughout the western United States at the Playmill Theatre in West Yellowstone, MT and the Pink Garter Theatre in Jackson Hole, WY, toured with the Whittlin' Whistlin' Brigade children's theatre company and Equipoise Modern dance company and co-founded the Playwrights Workshop Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona. As the owner and artistic director of the Waterton Teenie Weenie Theatre Company in Waterton, AB, it was her privilege to write and produce TYA performances based in the recorded and natural history of Waterton National Park. Her directing and choreographing credits are numerous and she counts herself lucky to have such a rich and fulfilling career. She has served as a private musical theatre staging coach, musical theatre guest instructor for the Southern Alberta Vocal Experience through the University of Lethbridge, and a Musical Theatre Adjudicator for Alberta Music Festivals. She conducts musical theatre camps for children and master classes for Vocal teachers.
Her research project will be to recover, utilizing the theories of historiography, revival, and reconstruction, as much as possible of the original script of the Mock Parliament performed at the Walker Theatre in 1914 by the Political Equality League of Manitoba. Of particular interest is the influence of Maternal Feminism to then construct a research-creation script of historical reimagination wherein the details of the women’s lives performing the Mock Parliament are presented “back-stage” as they prepare for the opening night.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Diane loves to hang out with her husband and 15-year-old daughter. They are loving discovering the beauties of Ontario and spend all of their extra money and time flying to see their other 7 children and 12 grandchildren throughout the world (or having them come here!) and also visiting family in Wales. She loves to cook, read, hike, and discover as much about the world as possible.
Dylan is a director, performer, and digital content creator currently studying at York's MA program in Theatre & Performance Studies. His theatre experience ranges from theatre for young audiences to musical theatre, with stops on the side at stage management and arts administration. Recent credits include Bird Brain (Thousand Islands Playhouse), The Ugly One (TIP/Theatre Smash/Tarragon Theatre), RED (Theatre Kingston), and Assassins (Queen's Musical Theatre). His current research interests include digital performance, new media, and participatory performance. Dylan holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama and Psychology from Queen's University.
What you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student
When I'm not being a grad student, I enjoy playing guitar, cooking (and eating!), web design, and walks with my partner and Abby the golden retriever.
Website
Ellie Govinden is an MA student in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University. She spent three years living in the United Kingdom where she completed her undergraduate degree in English and Drama at Queen Mary, University of London. Her research explores burlesque and the history of black female bodies and their depictions in a variety of mediums. She is also interested in how these bodies become fetishized and they can attain autonomy through performance. Ellie is also a passionate burlesque hobbyist, who occasionally performs on stage when her nose isn’t in a book.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
I’m either on the go (I love exploring and getting lost in big cities), consuming anything with cheese on it, or sleeping. I’m either being the Roadrunner or being a giant huggable sloth! I also love collecting owls and watching cartoons.
Em was born in Denver, grew up in Seattle, and moved to St Louis in 2004 to look for America. Em trained in theatre and performance with the Young Actor Institute in Seattle, the British-American Drama Academy in London, and the Global Stilt Congress in San Francisco, and studied sociology and anthropology at Saint Louis University. Her first career was in social work, where she specialized in working with people coming out of prison, seeking recovery from substance abuse, chronically homeless, and registered sex offenders. She served as the lead case manager for a collaboration with the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Prison Performing Arts. She was the community engagement manager for a Theatre for Young Audiences, where her projects ranged from collaborations with members of the Negro League to transgender leaders in St Louis. She also moonlighted as an actor for a number of professional indie theatres. She is a co-founder of Glass Monsters experimental storytelling project and the founder and director of POW! Projects guerilla street theatre and performance installations, and is the founder of the Fringe Festival in St Louis, which she produced for six years. Em’s research interests focus on the physical and symbolic placemaking of theatre, and the role of performance in supporting cultural identities and social cohesion.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Blues dancing, recreational stilt walking, and exploring.
Emily Law is an artist, choreographer, producer, lifelong student, and mother.
Her choreographic work has been showcased on companies and in festivals such as Toronto Dance Theatre, Le Festival Acces Asie, Inside Out Film Festival, The Next Stage Theatre Festival, Toronto Fringe Festival, CanAsian Dance Festival, The Reel Asian Film Festival, Guelph Dance, Jeux de la Francophonie, Winterlude, Dusk Dances & Fall For Dance North.
She has had the pleasure of working with companies, collectives, and artists such as Tanya Lukin Linklater, Returning River, Kaha:wi Dance Theatre & The Dietrich Group among many other wonderful artists. She is the co-artistic director of Mix Mix Dance and Parks N’ Wreck. She has been nominated for two Dora Mavor Moore Awards, a Gemini, & the 2017 Premier’s Award. Emily is currently a TAC Leaders Lab Fellow.
Emily Law is an artist, choreographer, producer, lifelong student, and mother.
Her choreographic work has been showcased on companies and in festivals such as Toronto Dance Theatre, Le Festival Acces Asie, Inside Out Film Festival, The Next Stage Theatre Festival, Toronto Fringe Festival, CanAsian Dance Festival, The Reel Asian Film Festival, Guelph Dance, Jeux de la Francophonie, Winterlude, Dusk Dances & Fall For Dance North.
She has had the pleasure of working with companies, collectives and artists such as Tanya Lukin Linklater, Returning River, Kaha: wi Dance Theatre & The Dietrich Group among many other wonderful artists. She is the co-artistic director of Mix Mix Dance and Parks N’ Wreck. She has been nominated for two Dora Mavor Moore Awards, a Gemini, & the 2017 Premier’s Award. Emily is currently a TAC Leaders Lab Fellow.
EmmaRose is an emerging scholar, dramaturg, and theatre educator. She completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts at York University as a double major in Theatre Studies and Women’s Studies. Her research interests include feminist and queer theatre and performance, theatre for young audiences, new play development, and community-engaged scholarship and theatre practice. Particular areas of focus include the performance of success in social media in relation to race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as theatre and performance about violence against women and trans people. Originally from the Ottawa Valley, EmmaRose has a strong connection to her rural roots, which fuels her passions for site-specific performance, the revival of folk knowledge, and the accessibility of art.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Play music, knit, quilt, make art, cook, be outside, roller skate, and spend time with family.
Dissertation Title & Supervisor
“Lloyd Richards in Rehearsal”
Supervisor: Leslie Sanders
Garrett M. Ryan is a theatremaker and researcher hailing from Northeastern Ontario. As an emerging theatremaker, his works have been produced in Canada, the United States, and Singapore. Garrett completed York University’s BA program in Theatre: Performance, Creation at York University in 2021, where he specialized in playwriting. Drawing from his upbringing within a blue-collar family, the performative storytelling infused within the culture of Northern Ontario, and the intersections of theatricality and daily life, a theatrical obsession of rural isolation and the restorative powers of performance has been ingrained in the forefront of his mind. His research in his thesis project "Way up North" explores the ways we use storytelling to both qualify our identities in our environments and mend isolation, specifically investigating applied theatre methodologies for marginalized youth in a rural context.
Aside from my preferred hobby of reading for pleasure (which is an admittedly poor method of taking breaks from my required readings), I love watching sports (hockey, curling, cricket), making theatre, spending time with my guinea pigs and my amazing fiancée, and being involved in the Jewish community.
Hailey completed her Master’s degree in the Theatre and Performance Studies department and graduated from Queen’s University with a BAH and B.Ed. Hailey’s love of teaching and learning has encouraged her to pursue graduate studies, where she is currently researching the psychological dangers in participatory theatre.
When I’m not sipping tea and reading textbooks, I can be found teaching English as a second language to my wonderful students, working as a research assistant, hiking through the Muskokan woods, and making memories with my loved ones.
Haritha Popuri is an MA student hailing most recently from Halifax, on a thrilling detour from her BA in the history of science and religious studies. She is excited to complement her experiences producing, directing, stage-managing, and acting with an academic approach. Her research interests encompass memorial practices, political theatre, temporality, and alterity ethics in performance and site-specific interventions. She has an abiding love of Jewish ceremony, messianism, and diasporic humor, which she dreams of channeling into a side career in Yiddish dramaturgy—or a musical about Sabbatai Zvi. A new arrival in Toronto, she is endlessly fascinated by the volume, pace, and chance encounters of a big city. Through the program at York and her current internship with the Rhubarb Festival, she hopes to gain the courage and competence to execute an installation piece titled ‘The NeferTTC,’ in which the modern commute on the subway is juxtaposed with the cosmic, underground commute of ancient Egyptian deities.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Listen to podcasts, collect stationery, dance unabashedly, whistle poorly
Hayley Eidelman is an MA student in Theatre & Performance Studies. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Guelph in theatre studies with a minor in political science. Her experience at Guelph helped shape her research interests in Canadian theatre, specifically in regard to identity politics and what it means for theatre to be “Canadian”. Her interest in Theatre for Young Audiences is also a subject for research exploration through this nationalism lens, stemming from her work with youth and theatre. Hayley’s actor training from Guelph has additionally sparked an interest in feminist theatre, in particular examining what the union of female bodies onstage means for an audience through “collectivity” and an emphasis on movement-based theatre. Hayley looks forward to furthering these interests both in her academic and practical theatre work.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
When not a grad student, Hayley likes to focus on her theatre production experience through her love of stage management. She is currently working on a show as a stage manager, as well as furthering her technical skills through her GA ship’s focus on production. Hayley also loves to work with children in theatre, teaching them basic theatrical skills, and has even put on several children’s plays for a summer camp. She is currently working with the camp to help shape the program for the next summer in order to better the experience for the youth learning theatre as this is of great importance to her. She hopes to explore both of these passions through the internship component of her MA degree.
Dissertation Title & Supervisor
"Good Mourning Canada? Canadian Military Commemoration and its Lost Subjects."
Helene Vosters is an artist, activist, and scholar. She is a PhD candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University where her performance and research focus is on the role of public commemoration practices in constructing narratives related to nationalism, militarism, and violence. Helene has published articles on the performance and politics of memory in Performance Research, Canadian Theatre Review, Canadian Journal of Practice-Based Research in Theatre, and Frakicija; book sections in Theatre of Affect (Playwright Canada Press 2014), and Performing Objects and Theatrical Things (Palgrave 2014); and has performed her memorial meditations Impact Afghanistan War; Unravel A meditation on the warp and weft of militarism, and Haunting the Past’s Present throughout Canada, the U.S., and Europe. She presented her most recent memorial performance, Shot at Dawn in Toronto on Remembrance Day, 2014.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
craft, hang out with friends, walk, run, read, watch movies
Website
Dissertation Title & Supervisor
“Up/Staging Two-Spirit Plays: Unsettling Sexuality and Gender”
Supervisor: Marlis Schweitzer
MA 2010
Jen is currently the Artistic Director of both Theatre Asylum Canada and Isôko Rwanda, which she founded in 2008 to help create contemporary intercultural theatre for human rights. In 2015 she directed two plays by Maria Irene Fornés in Toronto and is adapting Sean Dixon's novel Kip Flynn into a site-specific piece for Kensington Market.
I began my teaching career at Toronto French School, before moving to New York to teach at the Lycee Francais. I have been teaching English at George Brown College for the past 9 years. After being diagnosed with cancer in 2009, I started learning about food, and I started a blog called Eating Through Cancer. I also began engaging my students in critical thinking exercises around food and discovered that the nutritional deficit in our educational system has left many students unprepared to take care of their health. I have returned to university to pursue a Masters degree and find ways to extend this problematic and sometimes controversial discussion about food.
Jessica Levy received a Bachelor of Arts Honors in Drama and Film and a Bachelor of Education with specializations in Arts Integration and Special Education, both from Queen’s University. Her experiences at Queen’s in both theatre and in education, as well as her work as a dance and drama teacher outside of school, have helped shape her research and performance interests. Jessica is interested in researching the benefits of an Arts Integrated education for those with special needs, as well as the positive impacts that Disability Theatre can have not only on individual performers and collaborators but on the artists’ community as a whole.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student
When Jessica isn’t busy doing grad student things and hiding out in the library, she spends the majority of her spare time practicing Ashtanga Yoga in order to complete her 250-hour Yoga Teacher Training Certification! She also teaches youth dance and fitness classes, and during the summer works as a dance Teacher Facilitator for the Ontario Educational Leadership Centre.
Jillian Groening is a dance artist and writer. She has been featured in choreographic works by Marie-Josée Chartier, Rachel Browne, Pablo Bronstein, Alexandra Winters, as well as Jolene Bailie, and has performed in Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Toronto. Groening’s art writing has been supported by The Dance Current, Dance International, and Young Lungs Dance Exchange. Groening holds a BA(Hons) in Dance from the School of Contemporary Dancers in affiliation with the University of Winnipeg and is currently pursuing a Masters in Theatre and Performance Studies from York University.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
When I'm not a grad student you can find me dancing, swimming, bowling, or making pizza with my friends.
Keith Barker is a member of the Métis Nation of Ontario. He is a playwright, actor, and director from Northwestern Ontario. Keith is the Director of the Foerster Bernstein New Play Development Program at the Stratford Festival and the former Artistic Director at Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto. He is the winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Playwrights Guild’s Carol Bolt Award for best new play. Keith was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for English Drama in 2018 for his play, This Is How We Got Here. He received a Saskatchewan and Area Theatre Award for Excellence in Playwriting for his play, The Hours That Remain, as well as a Yukon Arts Award for Best Art for Social Change.
Kim McLeod is a PhD candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University. Her research investigates how performance can work with new media forms to facilitate political engagement. Kim's dissertation chapters look at a diverse range of performances—from performance interventions in first-person shooter games to mobile phone walking tours to theatre productions that use social media as a mode of participatory engagement. Kim's paper presented at the 2013 meeting of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research, which discussed two performances using mobile media, won the Robert Lawrence Prize for outstanding paper by an emerging scholar. Her work has been published in Canadian Theatre Review and Theatre Research in Canada. With Helene Vosters, Kim organized the Theatre & Performance Studies Graduate Symposium, Performance in/and the Street (2013), and the 360 Degrees of Engagement: Publicly-Situated Performance—Publicly-Situating Performance Process Seminar for the Canadian Association for Theatre Research (2014). Kim is also a performer, deviser, and dramaturg whose work has been seen across Canada, Ukraine, Belgium, and the UK. Most recently, she devised a site-specific and digital performance project for the Encuentro conference of NYU's Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, held at Concordia.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Outside of theatre and academia, Kim likes to cook, travel, and take care of cats.
Kira is a queer, feminist, theatre artist whose work focuses on LGBTQ++ issues. She is an alumnus of The Women’s Room, an all-female playwriting unit facilitated by Sounderlust & Pat the Dog Theatre Creation. Recent writing credits include The Queer Baby Project (Swelling with Pride: Queer Conception and Adoption Stories), Futch/Bemme (OutFest 2018, Gay Play Day), Under (HamilTEN Festival), and Under the Fire (in collaboration with Erika Reesor, Dark Crop Festival). Select acting credits include: Self in Queer Spawn (Heels on the Diving Board, Impact17, Queer on Stage: Hamilton Pride, Taps Untapped, Dark Day Monday), Mina in Letting Go (West End Theatre Festival), Mrs. Plumm in Uncommon Women and Others (Theatre Erindale), Hetty in Overtones (Beck Festival) and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet; Occupy Verona (Theatre Erindale). Upcoming show dates of Queer Spawn and other productions can be found on her website kirameyersguiden.weebly.com.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
When I'm not being a Grad student, I am an actor/ playwright who hangs out with my wife and three fur babies.
Kitti is a graduate of York University's B.A. in Bilingual Drama Studies at Glendon Campus and has attended George Brown Theatre School for Acting, with credits including Lady Anne from Richard III and Allashua from Its Munsch Time!, Theatre for Young Audiences. Research interests include Intercultural Performance Practices, Directing, and Movement Studies. Kitti has been involved in various community and professional theatres, including performing and directing at the InspiraTO Festival in 2014 and playing Little Prince in a Canadian tour of The Little Prince.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Outside of school, I audition and take classes in film acting, and perform in independent film projects. 2015 will be the release date for an upcoming short film, "Amicum". I will also look forward to directing in this year's Fringe Festival as well as performing in other theatre festivals next season.
Leah is a Master's student in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University in Toronto. She holds a Master of Teaching from the University of Toronto and is currently a high school English and drama teacher at a small private school. Her research focuses on Shakespeare's education with the purpose of empowerment and resistance for young people. Currently, she is working on the intersection of performance and pedagogy while staging A Midsummer Night’s Dream with an all-female cast in a traditional community, using a contemporary feminist lens.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
When I’m not grad student-ing, you will find me reading, or singing musical theatre songs loudly in the shower.
Dissertation Title & Supervisor
“Myth and History: Representations of War on the Canadian Stage from 1960-2011”
Supervisor: Don Rubin
Lisa Marie is the incoming Artistic Producer at Theatre Direct Canada, a company that creates theatre with, by, and for young people. She is the founding Artistic Director of FIXT POINT Arts and Media and co-creator of The Tale of a Town—Canada, a multi-media initiative developed with the National Arts Centre which has inspired their animated series for TVO, “Main Street Ontario” now in its second season. Past posts include Playwright-in-Residence at Theatre Passe Muraille, Associate Artistic Director at Jumblies Theatre and Education and Audience Development Coordinator at Canadian Stage. Ms. DiLiberto is a graduate student in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University, on faculty at Centennial College where she teaches Clown and Acting, and a mother of two young boys.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
When I'm not being a grad student I like to play pretend—on stage, as a clown teacher, and at home with my little boys!
Liz graduated from Skidmore College with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Theatre. Her current research interests include Ethnography and performance, Urban performance, Olympics, Horses, and performance.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Liz loves to horseback ride and has been horseback riding for 15 years. She also enjoys traveling and baking.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
When I am not being a grad student I am either playing ultimate frisbee, volleyball, soccer, handball, football, or basketball... So pretty much just sports!
Malia Rogers is an MA student in the Theatre & Performance Studies Dept at York University. Her practical background in performance and her undergraduate training in Sociology at Acadia University have converged to spark her interest in performance as a critical pedagogical tool and catalyst for community-building and social change. She is particularly interested in theatre in health education, community-engaged arts, forum theatre, affective labor, and empathy.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student
When I’m not being a grad student I enjoy creating and performing music, running, traveling, knitting/crafting, going to shows, and exploring Toronto’s coziest pubs and cafes.
Marco is a twenty-two-year-old Master’s Student in Theatre and Performance Studies. My main areas of research interest include sex and sexuality and their connection to law and legal policy as a performative instruments. I have analyzed and deconstructed the complex relationship between law and society. I have encountered numerous examples which articulate that changes in public policy and legislation do not necessarily coincide with changes in societal attitude, social norms, and discourse. There is an undeniable miscommunication between the institution of the law and the construction of society. Through my research, I wish to explore the connection between theatre and sexuality, queerness, and gender identity. Further exploring theatre and drama as a pedagogical instrument through which meaning connections and personal narrative can come together to inform our views on sexuality and legal policy.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student
Oddly, When not completing grad work, I can usually be found with my nose in a book! I love to read and experience new worlds, stories, and ideas.
Born and raised in the state of Ohio, Margaret Hild has been involved in the theatre all her life. She saw her first production of Macbeth when she was 4, and by the time she was 5-and-a-half, her parents decided it was probably a good idea to let her get on stage before she climbed up there herself in the middle of a performance. She became the youngest member of Yellow Springs Kids Playhouse when she was 6 (usually only for kids 7-17) and performed in their outdoor amphitheater for ten summers. When she was 18, Margaret and her parents emigrated to Canada and made their home in Newfoundland where Margaret attended Sir Wilfred Grenfell College (now Memorial University: Grenfell Campus) to earn her BFA in acting. During the summers in St. John’s, Margaret performed with Shakespeare By The Sea Festival on the windswept Signal Hill and in Bannerman Park. Often fighting the wind to be heard, Margaret learned just how much power was available to her through the engagement with a fully supported instrument. Not only was there more power to access, but more emotion to match it. Since then, Margaret has developed a deep affection for the breath-voice relationship and all that it has to offer us as people and artists. Now chasing her MA in Performance Studies at York, Margaret hopes to dive deep into the effects of Service Industry work on performers, our tools, and how those effects in turn affect the quality of art being consumed by society which relies heavily on the Arts to provide social commentary and—at the bare minimum—remind us of what it is to be human.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
When Margaret is not in Grad School, you can find her offering one-on-one voice coaching to actors and non-actors who want to get to know their voices better. She also enjoys lazy Saturday mornings with her partner, watching dogs in the park, and daydreaming about the ocean. You can also see Margaret on stage this November at Hart House Theatre performing in Portia’s Julius Caesar by local playwright, actor, and director Kaitlyn Riordan.
A graduate of the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris (2015), Maria Wodzinska is a physical theatre maker, director, and researcher. Prior to Lecoq, she studied theatre performance at Humber College in Toronto. Her research interests involve physical theatre pedagogies and their applications for applied contexts and cultural resistance.
Bio
Marissa began performing in musicals at the young age of seven. Through various and several performances around the world, she realized that she didn’t only enjoy theatre but had a passion for the performing arts. She began to get involved in children’s theatre and developed an interest in the way it united children into a creative environment. Using participatory practice, Marissa plans to bring children of various cultures, ages, and disabilities into a place where the arts are used as a source for developing educational content. Performance is also an excellent way for children and youth to learn about the importance of expressing themselves and building respectful communities.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student
I truly enjoy spending time with children doing active activities such as drama games, arts and crafts, and sports. I have always loved viewing live theatre in addition to participating in theatre. Life is about trying new things and taking chances, so that’s basically what I do! I try new things and go on adventurous trips!
Dissertation/Thesis/MRP Title/ Research Interests
“Stage-Struck Girls: Challenging Female Identity and Creating Space for the Modern “Girl” in Theatre (1900-1914)”
Singer, Songwriter, Actress, and An Honoured Artist of Ukraine with more than 10 years experience of traveling internationally to share her music and culture with the world.
She holds a Master's Degree in Choreography from the National Academy of Leading Staff of Culture and Art of Ukraine (Kyiv) and worked successfully as the main soloist (folk-pop singer) of the State Ensemble of Song and Dance of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Marta recorded 5 CD albums of ancient, folk, electro, and original pop songs; released a few official music videos; collaborated with children's folk-ethnographic group “Malenki boiky”.
These days, Marta is working on MA in Theatre and Performance program at York University, participating in the ethnographic research-creation project “The Morning I Died” by Lynn Hutchinson Lee, led by Magdalena Kazubowski-Huston within the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography, collaborating with Canadian musicians, movie directors, and continuing her world-music performances. Marta’s research is based on the Culture of Politics and Environmental Activism; Multiculturalism and Ethnography.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student
I am working on my English Music Album with Canadian multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Denny DeMarchi and our upcoming music videos. One of them, ”Christmas Day”, you can already watch:
Mary Sword is an M.A. student with a passion for creating theatre in any sense; devising, writing, directing, performing, lighting design, and/or any other miss-en-scène design all hold special places in Mary’s overall love of theatre creation. Inspired to combine this love of performance creation and her personal history with disability studies, Mary’s research focuses on the portrayal of individuals with severe disabilities and their families. It is Mary’s goal to write and create theatrical performances that can allow such individuals to see themselves portrayed on the stage in such a way that their often isolating lives can feel, if only for a moment, slightly less so.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
An alum of Carleton University’s English Literature Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in Drama Studies, much of Mary’s academic training is housed in literature and creative writing. As such, when not in class as a graduate student, Mary can often be found writing. She is currently working on a manuscript revolving around the writings of her great-grandmother’s experiences throughout the Second World War. If not writing, then Mary can be found in some way working within theatre, most commonly performing. A new Toronto resident, Mary has spent the past four years performing in productions with Sock ‘n’ Buskin Theatre Company, Ottawa’s Youth Infringement, and The Ottawa Fringe Festival. She has also directed productions of The Elephant Man and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Mary can be found, at any given moment, taking her very excitable 9-year-old dog, Ginny, for a walk.
MA 2013
Matt was recently made the New Play Development Coordinator at Factory Theatre. He oversees submissions, new play development, and works with the artistic director for season planning and grant writing.
Megan is a performer, scholar, arts administrator, and producer. She holds an M.A. in Theatre & Performance Studies from York University, an M.A. in Musicology from the University of Ottawa and a B.Mus. in Vocal Performance from Acadia University. Her research interests are diverse, ranging from theories of embodiment, social and cultural interpretations of the body, and disability performance, to contemporary vocal music, research-creation, new play dramaturgy, and feminist performance. Her performing life ranges from the traditional to the wildly theatrical and in recent years she has turned to Practice as Research (PaR) methodologies to serve her interest in both academic inquiry and live performance. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Theatre & Performance Studies at York University.
When I'm not being a grad student I like to run, hike, swim, play the banjo (really badly!), and seek out all the vegan bakeries in Toronto!
Melissa Domingos is a twenty-three-year-old Mississauga/Toronto native and MA student with a passion for theatre and the arts. She recently completed an undergraduate degree in Theatre Studies and English, with a series of classes in Devised Theatre, at York University this past spring. She is back at York with research interests in theatre for young audiences, drama and education, contemporary and devised theatre, and gender and sexuality in theatre. Melissa has also been a producer and solo writer at the 2015 Devised Theatre Festival and has worked with Great Big Theatre Company. She is currently a staff writer and critic at The Theatre Reader.
What you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student
SLEEP, watch and learn about as much theatre and film as possible, try new and adventurous activities with family and friends, and prepare for Christmas (Seriously).
MA 2015
In December 2015, Mirette began a new position as Emerging Producer at the Toronto Fringe Festival.
Mirette received her bachelor's of business administration specializing in marketing from the American University in Cairo. Her research interests center around political theatre and cultural policy.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
I love to read and go out to see a good show. I also enjoy cooking probably because I enjoy eating a lot.
Morgan holds a Bachelor of Arts Honors degree in Drama from Queen’s University (Kingston). Her research interests include the agency of objects in performance and the human body as object and performer. In her practical work she likes to create devised, immersive theatre experiences and most recently worked with Colliding Scopes Theatre in Kingston on a site responsive adaptation of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Through her work with Huronia Historical Parks Morgan became interested in theories of historic interpretation and how we perform the past. She is also an avid juggler and unicyclist who is always seeking ways to incorporate those passions into her academic life.
Creating and directing performances, Daydreaming, and Laughing.
PhD 2012
Naila is an assistant professor of Drama in the Faculty of Arts, University of Waterloo. She is a practicing performance poet, playwright, and recording artist. Her innovative teaching on performance and popular culture has recently been featured on CBC.
Dissertation Title & Supervisor
“(Re) Positioning Myself: Female and Black in Canada”
Supervisor: Leslie Sanders
Nora Smith is an artist-student-storyteller. As a theatre performer, she has toured her original work throughout Canada, the United States, and England. Her training as a theatre creator and performer includes Humber College’s Theatre Performance Program, in Toronto, and Ecole Philippe Gaulier, in France. Nora is a co-founder of the Toronto-based film collective Hysterical Hearts. She wrote and performed in Hysterical Hearts’ first film Savage Breakup, which premiered at the St. John's International Women's Film Festival in 2020. Most recently, Nora completed her Master's Degree in Theatre and Performance studies at York University. Her research explores Canadian nationalism, settler-responsibilities, memory, and form in performance and storytelling.
Dissertation Title & Supervisor
“Presentness: Developing Presence Through Physophysical Actor-Training”
Supervisor: Laura Levin
Dissertation/Thesis/MRP Title/ Research Interests
“An Unrecognized Legacy: Michel Saint-Denis and the Canadian Theatre”
Rachel C. McNamara is an emerging theatre artist originally from the Ottawa-Gatineau region. She is a performer and creator who also engages in devising, lights, costume design, and directing. Rachel recently graduated with distinction from Bishop's University (Quebec), where she completed a BA (Hons) in Drama and a double major in Arts Administration. She is interested in blurring the lines of creation with education, museum and historical interpretation, and current political discussions. Through her MA at York University, Rachel will be exploring how form informs audience impact and connection.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
When I'm not racking my brain in grad school, you can find me swing dancing, somewhere in a theatre, or eating pastries. I might also be trying to figure out how to fit more treats I baked into my fridge.
Romina is a performer and academic. She is excited to be pursuing her MA here at York. She holds a BAA in Music Theatre Performance from Sheridan College and has been actively acting and performing for many years. Romina has a keen interest in Canadian Cultural Policy and the investigation of how it’s formed and upheld.
Samantha is a performer, creator, and scholar who is interested in memory, embodiment, puppetry, ethnography, and the ethical conversations surrounding empathy. She attained a BAH in Drama, with a minor in Film and Media studies, from Queen’s University and has since been focused on traveling, learning, growing, and trying to understand her place in the world. Samantha adores interacting with animals and nature, enjoys swimming and water, and is passionate about contributing positively to the environment of the planet in every way she can imagine – starting with pursuing what makes her light up.
MA 2014
Sara has begun the role of Administrative Coordinator at Playwrights Guild of Canada as of February 2016.
Sean Robertson-Palmer is an interdisciplinary performer whose work has been seen at Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto's Nuit Blanche, and the Summerworks Festival just to name a few. He is a founding member of the Kadozuke Kollektif, a Toronto-based performance company that has been producing theatre and performance installations since 2005. Sean is a Course Instructor at Humber College and has also lectured and taught workshops at the Schulich School of Business and York University. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Performance Studies at York University, where he focuses on hip-hop performance, audiences, and globalization. Sean's editorial work and writings on music, culture, and fashion can be seen in GQ Magazine and on GQ.co.za.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Get my hands on spray cans or non-stick pans.
Shira (she/her) is an award-winning performance creator, actor, writer and facilitator. She makes performances that imagine and rehearse new ways for us to be together. She's interested in what happens when we replace traditional dramatic conflict with collaboration, with an invitation to make something together. She makes much of her performance work with UnSpun Theatre, and has received large-scale performance commissions from organizations like Harbourfront Centre and the Gardiner Museum. Shira has written for Canadian Theatre Review and her work has been written about by others in publications like Theatre Research in Canada and American Literary History. She's a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, and completed her MA in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University. Her MRP was titled Making the Imperfect Thing: Three Collaborative Attempts, which explored performing relationships, archive, collaboration, and failure as a way to rehearse for building new worlds. She also wrote about how the performance of feminized labour is devalued in contemporary performance, and how notions of difficulty in performance map onto a gendered idea of value. Shira lives and works in Tkaronto with her husband Chris and is raising two children, Calla and Geneva, who are very cool and funny people.
Shira is entering her sixth year of doctoral research in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at York University. After completing her undergraduate degree in 2007 with a specialization in collective creation, Shira lived in Jerusalem for six months and studied in an orthodox seminary for women. Upon her return, she began her M.A. in Jewish performance, which she completed in 2009. Shira works in ethnography, dramaturgy, consulting, and new play development. Her area of research is performing Jewishness and sexuality and her dissertation is entitled, "Between Letter and Spirit: the Ontology of Jewish Performance."
When she's not being a grad student, Shira is also an indoor cycling instructor and is often on the bike and practicing plank. Outside the studio, she organizes multiple study groups in the orthodox Jewish community in Toronto of which she is a part, and cherishes time with her family including her ten nieces and nephews.
Dissertation Title: Between Letter and Spirit: the Ontology of Jewish Performance
Signy received her Bachelor of Arts Honours in Drama from Queen’s University in 2014, with a minor in Psychology. At Queen’s, she served as Artistic Director of Vagabond Theatre and also appeared in and produced many productions. Her many research interests include Canadian theatre and audience studies, and she is particularly interested in direct address.
When I'm not being a grad student I like to read comics and see theatre.
Sodienye Waboso Amajor is a Dora Nominated Nigerian Actor, Writer, Performer and Mother who lives and works in Ontario. Dienye has played roles such as Puck in Shakespeare in Action’s adaptation of “A Midsummer Nights Dream”, Memory in Theatre Directs “Binti’s Journey” *, Gigi in New Harlem productions, “Gas girls” *, Beka in Volcano Theatre’s Africa Trilogy “Shine your Eye” * Luminato, June 2010 reprising her role as Beka in a Canstage/ Volcano Theatre’s production of “Another Africa” Canstage 2011 and Harriet Tubman in “The Power of Harriet T” YPT 2013. Dienye holds a master’s degree in Theatre and Performance studies from York University with a keen interest in Pre-Colonial African Theory and Development. She currently works with Suitcase in Point Multi arts company as the Arts Mentorship Program director. Dienye is a published writer whose work can be found on the online publication She Does the City. She is also currently developing a new visual and photographic work titled “Rest” which seeks to prioritize and localize the exploration and imagery of Black bodies in a state of Rest. Dienye intends to continue her studies as a PH. D candidate in the Theatre and Performance program at York University, 2023.
Sophie Traub is a performing artist, theorist, arts organizer, and director of The School of Making Thinking. Her performance work focuses on group process, conflict studies, anti-oppression, improvisation, and embodiment. As a performance artist, Sophie has performed at DUMBO Arts Festival, Dixon Place, White Rabbit Festival, the Norman Felix Gallery, Artscape Gibralter Point, the Microscope Gallery, Medicine Show Theater, and The Last Weekend Arts Festival. Film credits include Mother's Day (Adina Smith), Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (Decker), Fugue (Torres-Torres), Tenderness (Polson), Bite Radius (Par-sons), The Interpreter (Pollack). Theatre acting, devising, and directing credits include This Is How I Don't Know How To Dance (SITI Company/Barrow Street Theatre), Won't Be a Ghost (Prelude 2014, Dixon Place 2015, The Brick 2016), and The Beach Eagle (Dixon Place 2013). Sophie has studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse, HB Studio, Studio 303, Stonestreet Studios, SITI Company Conservatory, NYU, and is currently a Master's candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies at York.
Tahsis Jensen
Tania worked for a Broadway producer in NYC for 10 years. In that capacity, she worked on over 30 theatrical productions on Broadway, off-Broadway, on tour in North America, in London, on tour in the UK, in Canada, in Australia, and throughout East Asia. Tania was also involved in the creation of 54 Below — a cabaret space built in the cellar of the iconic Studio 54 building in New York City. She is currently the General Manager of Obsidian Theatre in Toronto and an instructor in the theatre program at Ryerson University.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student?
Spend time with friends and family and watch way too much trashy reality TV.
Thea Fitz-James is part academic, part journalist, and part theatre practitioner. She holds an undergraduate degree in Drama/Theatre from McGill (Montreal) and Journalism from the University of King’s College (Halifax) and a Masters in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University (Toronto). Her performance work and research interests focus on contemporary feminist theatre, explicit body art, performance art, and textiles in performance. When not in the library or on stage, Thea teaches and directs youth theatre. She is currently working on her PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University.
What do you like to do when you aren’t being a grad student
Knit, watch crappy TV, patio beers with friends, go to plays.
Website
I am analyzing the techniques and processes necessary for professional theatre performance, and how these same skills might help children develop and maintain a more holistic process of learning and creative self-educating.
When not at York, I am constantly engaged with all things related to theatre, education, and creative writing. I am into the second draft of a novel, the theme of which is how failure to honour significant premarital responsibilities can potentially shatter the most solid of marriages.
MRP Title: The Affect Continuum in Performance and in Education
Wiktor Kulinski is an experimental ethnographer working with Polish/Canadian 1.5-generation migrants living in Kaszuby, Ontario. He is interested in how migrants negotiate the complex and disparate sociocultural forces that shape identity at the ground level of the everyday. His methodology is interdisciplinary, traversing theatre of political engagement, anthropology, and performance theory. Kulinski is a playwright, has published and produced work that reimagines Eastern European absurdist drama. He has directed adaptations of absurdist works, under his acting company Billy Walsh, and has served as dramaturg in others. Kulinski is the inaugural President of the Theatre & Performance Studies Graduate Students’ Association and serves as a board member of the Brantford Arts Block.
Whenever I can, I hack and assemble electronics. I especially love building things that do the spectacular, in places that you would never expect technology to be. My home is smarter than most (think Jetsons). I have a vision of how technology can be incorporated into the every day, and strive to make a cyborgian fantasy come true. My interests are as broad and disparate as my own cultural identity. The desire to tinker comes from being an astute observer. I love to figure things out, to understand how it all works.
Dissertation Title & Supervisor
“Signs of Wanting: Re-thinking Dramatic Motivation Within the Terms of the ‘Return to Freud”
Supervisor: Laura Levin
Learn More
The Graduate Program in Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies at York is an exciting environment to pursue innovative, socially engaging, career-ready education. Contact our Graduate Program Assistant to learn more.