Hailing it as “one of the best film schools in Canada”, the Canadian Film Centre’s Worldwide Short Film Festival (WSFF) is honouring York University’s Department of Film with a dedicated retrospective screening at the Royal Ontario Museum on June 1. Now in its 17th year, WSFF is the leading venue for the exhibition and promotion of […]
Sixty years later, many historians consider [Rocket 88 by Ike Turner] the first-ever rock 'n' roll song, and musicians revere the tune, as well as the band's livewire performance, wrote The Canadian Press May 22: And yet, most regular people don't know that the track even exists. "If I went to my local grocery store […]
Douglas Drysdale Davidson, a film editor, television producer and director who taught film at York for 30 years, died April 3 at his home in Toronto. He was 82. A memorial service will be held today in the A.W. Miles Chapel at the Humphrey Funeral Home, 1403 Bayview Ave., at 11am. York has lowered the flag […]
Over the next four months, ethnomusicologist Judith R. Cohen will spend her days in Washington, DC’s Library of Congress poring over the 1952 diaries of Alan Lomax, the legendary field collector of folk music in the 20th century. For the past 10 years, Cohen, a York lecturer and performer who specializes in Judeo-Spanish Sephardic songs, […]
Faculty of Fine Arts professors are bringing three plays to Canadian stages this week – each packing a political punch. The thought-provoking plays tackle the Rwandan genocide, the Canadian election and the untraceable ghost population of the city of Whitehorse. A catalyst for dialogue and healing is York film Professor Colleen Wagner’s Governor General’s Award-winning play The Monument. […]
The Gaelic Song Project is York music Professor Dorothy de Val’s next project once her book on Lucy Broadwood, the English folk song collector, is published in May. De Val is studying traditional Gaelic songs and aiming to foster an awareness of the language while also contributing to its preservation. A key part of this […]
Everyday life. Everyday people. Most of us say "everyday" almost every day. Academically, it is a term that has been theorized, used as a concept and developed into narratives. But what does it really mean? The Everyday: Experiences, Concepts, Narratives is an upcoming Graduate Program in Humanities conference looking at the "everyday" as it relates to […]
Toronto helped lead the world in its embrace of diversity when the first same-sex couple to be legally married in North America was wed here in 2003. That local tradition of re-examining legal attitudes to gender issues will carry on as York University Professor Nancy Nicol [Faculty of Fine Arts] has received $1 million in […]
Artists of all stripes from around the world are reducing their carbon footprint in creative ways. Many prominent ones – including the Cirque de Soleil’s Gil Favreau – are coming to York this month to share how at a conference on sustainability and the arts. Hosted by York’s Faculty of Fine Arts, Staging Sustainability: Arts, […]
Nancy Nicol’s team receives $1 million to study LGBT human rights around the world York University visual arts professor Nancy Nicol will lead a major international project on the impact of criminalizing sexual orientation and gender identity, with $1 million in funding over five years from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). […]
Shan Chandrasekar (Hon. LLD ’10) once said that “education is the greatest opportunity.” Now, the founder, president and CEO of Asian Television Network (ATN) has ensured that students in York’s Faculty of Fine Arts will benefit from a unique opportunity. Making good on a collaboration he first outlined as part of last spring’s convocation address, […]
Lovebirds, a mix of animation and live action from by Toronto company Starz Animation, is the showcase production of the Toronto-based 3D Film Innovation Consortium (3D FLIC), a York University initiative that has brought academic researchers and filmmakers together to explore the burgeoning world of 3D filmmaking to achieve better results, wrote Liam Lacey in […]
York researchers and students displayed their research projects and innovations at the York Technology Alliance’s Solutions Showcase event, which took place at the Markham Convergence Centre (MCC) on March 10. Titled “Game Changers: How local innovations are creating a new ‘business as usual'”, the York Technology Alliance (YTA) showcase encouraged participants from industry, academia and government agencies […]
A slew of entertainers will perform at the Winters Gala Fundraiser to raise awareness and funds for the renovation of student space in Winters College. The gala evening will take place Tuesday, March 22, starting with student performers at 6pm, followed by headlining acts from 7 to 10pm. Right: Rita di Ghent Jazz musician and […]
York University will host the Canadian premiere screening of a new feature-length documentary about Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the few professional women painters of 17th-century Italy. The film A Woman Like That will be screened tonight in the Nat Taylor Cinema, N102 Ross tonight from 6:30 to 9:15pm. Created by New York filmmaker Ellen Weissbrod, this documentary […]
With the rich monastic history of some of England’s universities, the tradition of choral evensong still thrives, creating a thirst for new settings for the canticles. As Canada is not steeped in the same rituals, few Canadians take this work on, making York music Professor Stephanie Martin the exception. She composed a new setting of the […]
The Department of Film celebrates the work of recent alumni and current candidates in the master's program in film production with a screening of graduate works from 2009 to 2011. Dubbed "Depth of Field", two free programs of short films will be screened tonight, March 7, at 7pm and 9pm at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox. […]
York visual arts Professor Katherine Knight’s documentary film about influential Winnipeg artist Wanda Koop in some ways mirrors the style found in Koop’s paintings: full of colour and precise, playing with the idea of glancing and observation, and entering into a world where the real and the abstract co-exist. The world premiere of the 52-minute […]
York University's Oscar Peterson Chair in Jazz Performance, Ron Westray, makes his Faculty Concert Series debut March 1 with a swinging concert of jazz standards and original works in the Tribute Communities Recital Hall on York’s Keele campus. Joining Westray on stage will be Toronto jazz artists Chris Banks and John Maharaj on bass and […]
Alumna Lata Pada (MFA ’96), adjunct professor in the Department of Dance's graduate program, has already received Canada’s highest award – the Order of Canada, in 2009 – but now she can add one of India’s highest honours to her collection. In January, Pada accepted the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award for her contributions to Indian dance and […]