Connected Currents: Working Across, Within, and Alongside Cultures

Join us on Friday April 10, 1:30pm - 3:00pm ET for a Connected Currents Session on the subject of Working with, Across, Within, and Alongside Cultures.

“IBPOC” is an umbrella term that captures many diverse cultures and ways of working. Instead of assuming homogeny in values and methodologies, let’s learn how to see and work with each other both in our similarities and differences to create more impactful, successful, and safer culturally specific work. 

We will cover a few different viewpoints such as: facilitating different Canadian Indigenous groups working together, programming globally diverse works alongside each other, managing conflict and differences, recognizing diversity within identity groups, and commissioning culturally diverse work. 

This session is for both Member and non-Member IBPOC arts administrators and managers. 

SESSION SPEAKERS:

Keith Barker, Stratford Festival (commissioning culturally diverse work; diversity among Canadian Indigenous groups)

Keith Barker is a Métis artist from Northwestern Ontario. He is the Director of the Foerster Bernstein New Play Development Program at the Stratford Festival, the former Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts, and a former Theatre Program Officer for the Canada Council for the Arts. An award-winning playwright, actor, and director, Keith is the recipient of the Johanna Metcalf Prize (2023), the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, and the Playwrights Guild of Canada’s Carol Bolt Award. He was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama in 2018 for This Is How We Got Here. He received the Saskatchewan and Area Theatre Award for Achievement in Playwriting for The Hours That Remain and a Yukon Arts Award for Best Art for Social Change. Keith's play, Raised by Women, will be published in the Fall of 2026, and in April he will be directing Frances Koncan's Women of the Furtrade at A Thousand Island Playhouse.  

Pam Patel, MT Space (ways of approaching bringing globally diverse artists and work together for a production or festival; managing differences)

Pam Patel performs with numerous Canadian companies, touring nationally and internationally. A graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University’s music program, Pam specialized in new music and improvisation, establishing a career as a multidisciplinary artist. Pam is currently the Artistic Director of MT Space where she pursues her passion for centralizing racialized voices through theatre. Previously, Pam acted as board chair for both NUMUS and Arts Awards Waterloo Region, participating in critical strategic planning for both organizations. In line with efforts to advocate for the arts on a local level, Pam also sat on the Arts and Culture Advisory Committee for the City of Kitchener where she played an active role in voicing concerns on behalf of the larger arts community. In 2018, Pam was a recipient of Rotary International’s ‘Paul Harris Fellowship for Service Above Self in Arts and Culture’, which was given at the Mayor of Waterloo’s State of the City Address. Pam has also received the ‘Emerging Leader in Performing Arts Award’ from CAPACOA, where she is now a part of the board and sits on their International Market Development Committee. Pam is a recipient of Zonta’s 2021 Women of Achievement Award and most recently, received the King Charles III Coronation Medal. Pam now lives in Ottawa, Ontario where she looks forward to her next adventure.

Beatriz Pizano, Rutas Festival (speaking about diversity within a specific identity (Latine)) 

Beatriz Pizano (she\her) is a director, actor, playwright and dramaturge and the Artistic Director of Aluna Theatre: a multi-award-winning company that creates, develops, produces and presents interdisciplinary and intercultural theatre.  

Over the last two decades, Beatriz has built Aluna into an international company recognized for its unique approach to creation, its daring political work, and its experimentation with multiple-language productions. Her bold creations, in English and Spanish, and other languages as well, are marked by a distinct theatrical language drawing from the heritages, cultures, and languages from across the Americas.  

Recent directing selected credits include: Kostroma by Polly Phokeev (Centre for Drama, Theatre, Performance Studies, UFT), Dead Korean Girl Comedy Show, by Emily Jung and Jennifer Park, The Seagull Collective), The Cunning Linguist by Monica Garrido (A TCL Collective and Aluna Theatre Production in association with Factory Theatre), Rubble by Suvendrini Lena (An Aluna Theatre & Theatre Passe Muraille co-production), Children of Fire by Anna Chatterton and Shahrzad  Arshadi (A Nightwood Theatre and Aluna co-production), The Walls by Griselda Gambaro (Soulpepper Theatre Around the World in 80 plays), The Solitudes written by Beatriz Pizano with text by the ensemble (Aluna Theatre).  She has appeared in: On the Other Side of the Sea (Aluna Theatre - 2024 Dora Nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Individual), The House of Bernarda Alba (Aluna Theatre and Modern Times production, Six Characters in Search of an Author (Soulpepper/CBC) by Pirandello, The Parliament of the Birds by Guillermo Verdecchia (Soulpepper/CBC) Author, and Dividing Lines|Líneas Divisorias by Beatriz (Aluna Theatre production). 

Beatriz is also the Artistic Director and curator for RUTAS International Festival of Performance and The CAMINOS national festival of works-in-progress, and an Assistant Professor at The Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the UFT St. George Campus. 

ABOUT CONNECTED CURRENTS:

Connected Currents features both connection activities and a series of IBPOC guest speakers who offer their perspectives on the theatre sector’s past, present, and exciting future.

Register for this event by Thursday April 9 to receive the Zoom link for the meeting. 

If you have any questions, or you have not recieved a link by the morning of the event, please contact Rising Tides Program Coordinator, Andrea Demars at andread@pact.ca.