Pandemic Pedagogy Pop-Up

This event will feature brief presentations on lessons learned from a year on online teaching. Our panelists will each briefly outline one innovative practice they implemented this year that they plan on carrying forward into their future face-to-face teaching. Each panelist will then chair their own breakout room for 3 rounds of conversation with a rotating group of attendees, providing all attendees with the opportunity to choose which practices they want to discuss further. Our Pop-Up will conclude with time to reflect as a group on themes emerging from our discussions.

Catherine Quirk is a lecturer in Theatre History at Concordia University. She completed her PhD at McGill University in 2020, where her research focused on the intersections between the nineteenth-century theatre and the novel. Her current research focuses on nineteenth-century performance practices and their incorporation into narrative, particularly the actress memoir and the novel, and on the use of social media platforms in (pre-COVID) performance. She has published essays in Cahiers Victoriens et Édouardiens, Theatre Notebook, Victorians, Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, and other venues.

Melissa Bartrem is a passionate dancer with performance credits that include stage, film, and television. Melissa is currently pursuing a Doctoral degree in Dance Education at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. Her research interests include culturally relevant dance pedagogy and somatic techniques in post-secondary performance programs. Melissa is currently on faculty at Centennial College in Toronto, where she teaches Movement Studies, Dance, and Interdisciplinary Arts. Melissa also collaborates with various international arts organizations in England, South Africa, and China in addition to presenting her in-practice research at the 54th World Congress in Dance Research in Athens, Greece.

Shelley Liebembuk is an assistant professor in Theatre at the University of the Fraser Valley (BC). Her scholarship focuses on acting pedagogy, the body in performance, and multilingual collective creation. She completed the Canadian Consortium on Performance and Politics in the Americas’ s postdoctoral fellowship at York University; and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies. She is a graduate of the Atlantic Theatre Company acting conservatory (NYC). She also works as a dramaturg, and has previously taught at Mount Allison University, and the University of Toronto.

Sarah Robbins is a PhD Candidate (ABD) at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies. She has an interest in acting training practices, and employs intersectional feminist theory both as research methodology and teaching pedagogy, with a focus on equity and inclusivity in spaces of performance training. Through the 2020-21 academic year, she taught at Mount Allison University through synchronous online delivery. She currently serves on CATR's Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression committee, and was recently elected the new Graduate Student Representative for CATR's Board of Directors. Her work has been published in alt.theatre magazine, and HowlRound Theatre Commons. saraherobbins.com

Dr. Ashley Williamson is an historian specializing in Canadian performance and theatre history, autoethnographic research, and theatre as pedagogy. She is a co-investigator for the interdisciplinary research project, Theatre Science, which uses drama and theatre techniques to explore topics in library science with the goal to remove barriers of performance so that everyone (not just trained actors) can benefit from the experience and pedagogy of live theatre. Her latest project is hosting a podcast in collaboration with Theatre Museum Canada and Playwrights Canada Press on a podcast about 21st century Canadian playwrights. Ashley teaches arts pedagogy at the Faculty of Education for Niagara University and last term she taught Canadian theatre history at the Department of English and Drama at the University of Toronto, Mississauga (UTM). She has presented her research at conferences and in invited lectures across Canada. She is also an experienced theatre director, designer, and deviser. Ashley has driven through nine Canadian provinces in the name of her research and sent over 400 postcards while she did it.