Artists In The Original Contemporary Artists Working With(in) Traditional Cultures March 10, 2009

How do artists balance the time-tested with the innovative?

The artists on this panel have very divergent practices, yet they are like all other contemporary artists in their fields; they are honing skills, inventing in a variety of media, building bodies of work, exhibiting, performing and publishing.

Where they differ from most contemporary artists is they are also conversant in the knowledge bases of traditional cultures, some dating back thousands of years. Their works evoke rich junctures of meaning through history, and they bring contemporary relevance and life to our Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Working outside Eurocentric art movements that have exploited or excluded traditional cultures, these artists are instead embracing, preserving and reinventing traditional knowledge in context as well as transposing them in contemporary settings.

This panel explores the experiences of creative practitioners, and the challenges and insights they have encountered. The panelists all approach their trajectories from unique vantage points, and they each have made outstanding contributions in their fields. ~ Kaspar J. Saxena

Panelists:
Lee Maracle – Lee Maracle, Sto: Lo nation, grandmother of seven, mother of four, was born in North Vancouver, B. C. and now resides in Ontario. Her works include: the novels, Ravensong, Bobbi Lee, Sundogs, and Daughters are Forever, Will’s Garden, the short story collection, Sojourner’s Truth, the poetry collection, Bent box, and non-fiction work I Am Woman. She is Co-editor of My Home as I Remember and Telling It: Women and Language across Cultures, editor of a number of poetry works, Gatherings journals and has published in dozens of anthologies in Canada and America. Ms. Maracle is a both an award winning author and teacher. She currently Aboriginal writer-in-residence for First nation’s house, and Visiting Scholar in the Aboriginal Studies and English dept. at the University of Toronto.

Hari Krishnan – Toronto based Hari Krishnan is an internationally respected dancer, choreographer, teacher and dance scholar. His creative output is eclectic-holistic, combining the allied arts of Bharatanatyam dance, music, theatre and theory with contemporary, urban, post-modern culture. Krishnan received his M.A. degree in Dance from York University. Krishnan is Artistic director of Toronto-based inDANCE. His experimental and vintage choreographies continue to be performed at international venues in Canada, USA, UK, India, Malaysia and Singapore. Krishnan is also a professor of dance at the department of dance in Wesleyan University (Connecticut, USA). His research brings together several interpretive and theoretical approaches, as it integrates the disciplines of performance studies, anthropology, history, and gender studies. Canadian organization Skills for Change had awarded Krishnan the 2007 New Pioneer Award for the Arts in recognition of his outstanding contributions to South Asian dance in Canada. Krishnan has been appointed to the board of directors of CORD (Congress of Research in Dance), one of the world's leading organizations devoted to dance academia, research, teaching and scholarship.

Nalo Hopkinson – Nalo Hopkinson, born and raised in the Anglophone Caribbean, is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She's a recipient of the John W. Campbell Award, the Ontario Arts Council Foundation Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Her work draws in part on elements of Caribbean, Canadian and European folklore, history, culture and language. She's the author of six books of her own fiction, and editor/co-editor of four fiction anthologies. She currently teaches creative writing through Humber College in Toronto.

Moderator:
Jill Carter - (Anishinaabe) is an avid theatre practioner who has worked for almost two decades as a performer, director, dramaturg, and instructor. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama at the University of Toronto, where she is completing her dissertation, Repairing the Web: Spiderwoman’s Grandchildren Staging the New Human Being. Apart from her studies she is a Sessional Instructor for the Aboriginal Studies Department at U. of T.

Where And When: OCAD Auditorium 100 McCaul Street, Mar 10, 2009, 6:45 PM.

Accessible Event. ASL Interpreted. All Are Welcome. Free Admission!

For specific questions or accommodation needs please contact Susanne Seinader at the Centre for Students With Disabilities at (416) 977-6000 Ext. 288