Five researchers from York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD) have been awarded a Connection Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for their collaborative project Facing Backlash: Performance in the Age of Reactionary Politics.
The project, led by Professors Marlis Schweitzer, Courtney Lancaster, Jamie Robinson, Keira Loughran and Laura Levin, examines how artists and performers are responding to the rise of reactionary political movements. Through performance and creative expression, the research will consider how theatre and live art can confront, resist and reimagine politics in an era of polarization and backlash.
About the researchers
Dr. Marlis Schweitzer
Department of Theatre, Dance & Performance
Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre, Dance & Performance, Dr. Schweitzer works at the intersection of material culture, visual culture, business history, and feminist historiography, with an emphasis on Anglo-American performance cultures from the eighteenth-century to the present.
Keira Loughran
Department of Theatre, Dance & Performance
Professor Loughran is a theatre, performing and martial artist. In her 25+ year career as an actor, director, playwright, dramaturg and producer, she has played a significant role in the diversification of the Canadian Theatre landscape.
Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster
Department of Theatre, Dance & Performance
Professor Lancaster is a Dora-award winner performer and theatre creator. She is a founding member of the theatre collective The Howland Company, a recent assistant artistic director at Tarragon Theatre and a recent resident artist at Soulpepper Theatre.
Jamie Robinson
Department of Theatre, Dance & Performance
Professor Robinson has been a Toronto based professional artist since 1997 as an actor, director, producer, teacher and writer. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate level Acting and Directing.
Laura Levin
Department of Theatre, Dance & Performance
Professor Levin teaches courses on contemporary theatre and performance art, devised theatre, and practice-based research. Her research focuses on site-specific, immersive, and urban intervention performance; performing gender and sexuality; activist and political performance; performance, human rights, and environmental justice; intermedial and digital performance; research-creation methodologies; and performance theory.
The SSHRC Connection Grant supports projects that mobilize knowledge and spark change. Learn more about SSHRC.
This article contains excerpts from a story originally published in YFile.