About the Project

The main goal of this project is to design a new intellectual framework for research/creation in choreographic practice that deploys and foregrounds intersections of difference, and to produce the full-length multidisciplinary performance work Barca within that framework. Its objectives are:

1. To bring together a unique team of senior researchers and professional artists/performers to explore new models of art making, without jeopardizing the integrity of both artistic and academic deliverables.
2. To train a new generation of undergraduate, and graduate students in the innovative and interdisciplinary research/creation techniques we will develop.
3. To create the performance work Barca as an example of how new roles can be formed and performed against a backdrop of strong local, indigenous, and multiple intersecting identities.
4. To present this work, with accompanying workshops, seminars, and papers at national and international academic colloquia and peer reviewed journals.
5. To enhance the theoretical development of both intersectionality and performance studies.

Collaborators

Dr. Henry Daniel - Principal Investigator, Associate Professor of Dance and Performance Studies, Artistic Director of Full Performing Bodies. Daniel’s research concentrates on strengthening notions of practice-based-research or research/creation in the performing arts in Canada. He is a performer and choreographer with numerous inter- and multi-disciplinary performance works to his name and also publishes scholarly articles in the area.
http://www.sfu.ca/~hdaniel/

Dr. Rita Dhamoon - collaborator/scholar, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy and Political Science, University of the Fraser Valley. Dr. Dhamoon’s current research program expands and develops existing work on identity/difference politics, culture, critical views on multiculturalism, race-thinking and racism, feminism and gender, and democracy. She is the author of Identity/Difference Politics: how difference is produced and why it matters (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009).
http://www.ufv.ca/politicalscience/Faculty_and_Staff/Faculty_Members/Rita_Dhamoon.htm

Dr. Olena Hankivsky – collaborator/scholar, Associate Professor in the Public Policy Program at Simon Fraser University (SFU); founder and director of the Institute for Intersectionality Research and Policy. She is internationally recognized for her contributions in the use of intersectionality theory in research and public policy. Dr. Hankivsky publishes widely on the use of intersectionality as a paradigm for health research and policy.
http://www.sfu.ca/mpp/about/faculty_and_associates/olena_hankivsky/

Professor Owen Underhill – collaborator/composer, Professor Underhill is co-Artistic Director and conductor of Turning Point Ensemble, former Artistic Director Vancouver New Music, winner 2007 Western Canadian Music Awards Outstanding Classical Composition, Vice-President Canadian Music Centre, and current Director of the School for the Contemporary Arts at SFU. He has an immense portfolio in composing for orchestra, opera, chamber and choral ensembles, and music for dance and theatre.
http://owenunderhill.ca/

Workshops + Performances

Project Barca InfoShop
Date: Saturday October 15th 2011
Time: 10.00am-4.00pm.
Place: Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Studio (Rm. 2555). School for the Contemporary Arts at SFU Woodward’s (Goldcorp Centre for the Arts).

Project Barca (2011-2014) is a new choreography-based interdisciplinary research/creation project initiated by Principal Investigator Henry Daniel with collaborators Owen Underhill, Olena Hankivsky and Rita Dhamoon.

These key members of Project Barca are holding an open InfoShop for those interested in learning more and/or becoming involved in the three-year research initiative.

To reserve please call or email:
hdaniel@sfu.ca
778 782 3897
A light lunch will be provided.

Project Barca starts with an idea that was quite revolutionary in 15th century Europe; that the world is round and by sailing west one would eventually arrive in 'the East'. Conceptually, philosophically, and politically, going West to find East raises a host of questions, not least about the human urge to adventure, to discover, to take possession of, and to colonise what we find in our paths. The research positions contemporary choreographic practice at the centre of a scholarly investigation that is framed by our primary research question; how can embodied personal and collective memories be shaped into new ‘architectures’ of identity and belonging in the form of innovative performance works that speak to wider sections of society?

More info on Project Barca at: http://www.sfu.ca/~hdaniel/

Resources + Links

Content coming soon