ACN Symposium 2021

Circus Through the Digital Lens
SYMPOSIUM 2021

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Monday, September 27, 2021

Information Sessions on Funding & Resources

11:00am - 12:50pm

Presented by En Piste

Come meet and learn more about how your ideas and projects can be supported by the ArtsNL and Canadian Heritage. Take also a moment to connect with En Piste, the national circus arts alliance who will share
inspiring projects for the circus community.

Creating New Stages

1:00pm - 1:50pm

Featuring: Holly Treddnick, Annie Dugan, Karine Lavoie, Vanessa Furlong

Moderated by Ruth Wikler

With the return to normalcy in sight, artists reflect on what this past year taught them and what lessons they will apply to their craft moving forward. From embracing the art of the pivot to harnessing new technologies and ways to radically collaborate, the way performers connect with audiences, and one another, has been altered in many ways. Our panelists reveal what will emerge in this next stage.

LUNCH

2:00pm - 3:00pm

(Battery Cafe or Bannerman Brewery)

MICC Canadian Working Group Meeting **Presenters Only**

3:00pm - 3:50pm

Hosted by Anahareo Doelle & Nick Beach

The MICC Canadian Working Group provides a safe space for presenters to talk about presenting planning for contemporary circus. This is done through building routing groups for tours and helping presenters overcome challenges that enable more contemporary circus touring across Canada.

Digital Literacy for Arts Organizations

4:00pm - 4:50pm

Hosted by Ian Campbell

Even as more and more activities return to in-person, building digital literacy will remain vital for performing arts organizations in terms of both process and products! Wonderbolt Productions Digital Literacy Consultant Ian Campbell looks at why this will be so vital and how artists and organizations of all ages and stages can grow their digital literacy to better collaborate with each other and serve their audiences.

(All times are in NDT)

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Morning Yoga with Guin

10:00am - 11:00am

Social Circus Round Table

11:00am - 12:00pm

Presented by Halifax Circus

Participants take part in a roundtable discussion about what social circus work they are doing right now, and how (or if) digital tools are helping to facilitate that.

FEATURING

Anahareo Doelle

Anahareo Doelle

Anahareo is the co-producer/co-founder of the St. John’s International CircusFest. She is a graduate of the National Circus School of Montreal where she specialized in aerial hoop and silks. For the past eighteen years she has performed in various shows, including places such as Canada, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Japan and Germany. She performed and lived in Berlin for seven years before she returned to her hometown St. John’s in 2011 with her husband and family. Anahareo is a certified Acrobatic Arts, Yoga, and Pilates instructor and operates her own aerial school “iFly Aerial Arts’’ at Wonderbolt’s downtown studio, The S.P.A.C.E. She teaches classes for students aged-5-67 and loves sharing her passion with others. Anahareo is the Aerial director for budding new aerialists of the iFLY Performance Troupe. She is very excited to be planning the third St. John’s International Circus Fest and is thrilled to be bringing more circus to the East Coast.

Annie Dugan

Annie is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Alberta’s award-winning Firefly Theatre & Circus, a company dedicated to merging the spectacle of circus arts with an accessible theatrical narrative. She is the Executive Producer of the Alberta Circus Arts Festival, which had its virtual debut June of 2021.

Annie is passionate about the development of Contemporary Canadian Circus. As a panelist, she has been speaking out on the growth of the national circus sector at conferences across the country for 10 years. She is a member of En Piste’s pan-Canadian Circus network, aiming to develop conditions that foster the advancement of circus arts. Annie has received the Mayor’s Award for Innovative Artistic Direction, a Canada 150 Award, and was featured as a Global TV’s Woman of Vision.

Christine Bouchard

Christine Bouchard

Christine Bouchard has sustained a career in the cultural sector since the beginning of her professional life. She has been executive director of the Circus Arts National Network, En Piste, since 2015, where she works actively at developing this sector. Previously, she has worked in various organizations such as the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal and the City of Longueuil. She has also acted as a consultant at DAA Strategies. This experience has allowed her to carry out diverse mandates in strategic planning, studies, project design, cultural policy development, etc. She sits on various boards of directors and representative groups. Committed to cultural development, she dedicates herself to the advancement of arts and culture in order to ensure that they reach their full development.

Christine Bouchard a une carrière soutenue dans le milieu culturel depuis le commencement de sa vie professionnelle. Elle est directrice générale du regroupement national des arts du cirque, En Piste, depuis 2015, où elle travaille activement au déploiement national de ce secteur. Auparavant, elle a œuvré dans divers organismes tels que Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec, l’École de danse contemporaine de Montréal et la Ville de Longueuil. Elle a également été consultante chez DAA stratégies. Cette expérience lui a permis de réaliser des mandats diversifiés en planification stratégique, réalisation d’études, conception de projets, élaboration de politiques culturelles, etc. Elle siège au sein de divers conseils d’administration et de groupes de représentation. Ayant à cœur le développement culturel, elle se consacre à l’avancement des arts et de la culture afin d’en permettre le plein rayonnement.

Holly Treddenick

Holly Treddenick

Holly is an artist, osteopath (DOMP), entrepreneur, and mother of two. Holly is Artistic Director for Femmes du Feu Creations (established in 2003), a not-for-profit arts organization, and co-owner of The Bank Art House in Welland, Ontario. Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Holly moved to Toronto in 1995 to study at The Professional Training Program School of Toronto Dance Theatre. For the past 20 years Holly has worked primarily in the circus sector as fire and aerial performer, creator, educator and producer.
Holly has toured and presented work across Canada and the USA. Holly is an advocate for community development through arts engagement, and believes that art can inspire, education and catalyze transformation.
Holly relocated from Toronto to Welland with her family on July 1st, 2019 to develop a new arts and culture center that will serve the local and international circus arts community.

Ian Campbell

Ian Campbell is a multidisciplinary creator, educator, and administrator based in St. John’s, NL. From 2015-2018 he served as Artistic Director of the Shakespeare by the Sea Festival, where he directed productions of Comedy of Errors, Richard III, Timon of Athens, and the one-man show Shylock. Shakespearean acting highlights include playing Bottom in Midsummer Night’s Dream (Funeral Pyre Theatre) and Posthumous Leonatus in Cymbeline (Bear & Co). Ian’s theatre for young audience adaptations of Richard III and Henry V are published as part of the Playing with Plays series, a collection of classics adapted to be performed by or for youth.

In 2020, Ian played a central role in re-imagining the St. John’s International CircusFest as a digital gathering. Drawing on his background as a theatre creator and educator, he seeks to make learning about and applying digital tools in a performing arts context personal and accessible. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from York University, a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Western Ontario, and has trained at Shakespeare & Company in Lennox, MA.

Karine Lavoie

Karine Lavoie has more than 20 years of experience in social circus both as a trainer in different countries around the world, as a training advisor at Cirque du Soleil, as a speaker and today as Executive Director of Cirque Hors Piste. She has accumulated solid expertise in psychosocial intervention, having worked for more than 10 years with people experiencing homelessness or living in great poverty. In addition to her experience in the field of psychosocial intervention, Karine has worked as a circus artist in various events and festivals. After having traveled to many countries in the world, she is now fully dedicated to the development of social circus in Montreal and in Canada with the solid conviction that the circus is a vector of social transformation in communities.

Mike Hirschbach

Mike Hirschbach

Mike Hirschbach has been a circus artist for 35 years. He performed from 2001-2003 with the Cirque du Soleil’s touring show “Dralion.” From 2003 – 2005 he was a Master Trainer with the Cirque’s social outreach program, Cirque du Monde. As such, he trained the trainers in the existing Cirque du Monde programs, upgrading their circus, social and teaching skills in Orlando, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, South Africa and Burkina Faso. Since 2005 his full time work has been directing the Halifax Circus school and the outreach programs of Circus Circle, working with youth in difficulty; incarcerated youth, youth with addictions, with mobility or mental health issues, and those from a background of abuse.

Before performing with the Cirque du Soleil, he toured his solo theatrical-circus shows for many years. These performances were seen across Canada, the continental U.S., Europe, Asia, India, the Yukon and Alaska in venues such as the Calgary Olympic Games, the Canada Summer Games, the International Mime Festival in Montreal, the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, the Singapore River Festival and the International Clown Festival in Mumbai and Goa, India.

Nadia Drouin

Before becoming co-director of Théâtre Pluriel, Nadia Drouin was artistic assistant at Théâtre ESPACE GO and later, coordinator of professional services at TOHU.

For several years, her role was to support research and creation in the contemporary circus field giving her the opportunity to feel the pulse of that new emerging art form and to accompany companies like Cirque Alfonse, Flip Fabrique and 7 Fingers on their journey to become famous. She was head of programming, Circus Arts for several years. Her commitment to presenting contemporary circus throughout the year in the only circular venue dedicated to that discipline in North America and during the MONTREAL COMPLETEMENT CiRQUE Festival has made her one of the leaders in developing a circus network. She is now working with En Piste, national circus arts alliance, as the project manager of Destination cirque.

Avant de devenir codirectrice de Théâtre Pluriel, Nadia Drouin a été adjointe artistique au Théâtre ESPACE GO et, plus tard, coordonnatrice des services aux professionnels à la TOHU.
Durant plusieurs années, son rôle a été de soutenir la recherche et la création dans le domaine du cirque contemporain lui donnant ainsi l’opportunité de sentir le pouls de cette nouvelle forme d’art émergente et d’accompagner des compagnies comme le Cirque Alfonse, Flip Fabrique et 7 Fingers dans leur parcours pour devenir célèbres. Elle a été chef de programmation des arts du cirque durant les huit dernières années. Son engagement à présenter le cirque contemporain tout au long de l’année dans la seule salle circulaire consacrée à cette discipline en Amérique du Nord et lors du Festival MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE en a fait l’un des leaders du développement d’un réseau de cirque. Elle travaille maintenant chez En piste, regroupement national des arts du cirque comme chargée de projet du programme Destination cirque.

Nicholas Beach

Nicholas Beach is the General Manager of the Jeanne and Peter Lougheed Performing Arts Centre. He is responsible for programming the arts centre’s multi-disciplinary season of 35+ artists in 5 different series each year. The Lougheed Centre presents Canadian and international artists including theatre, dance, circus, and a large variety of music genres. In his 20 year career in the arts, he has worked in several theatres across Canada. Nick is also a board member for the Arts Touring Alliance of Alberta and coleader of the Canadian working group for contemporary circus with MICC.

The Jeanne and Peter Lougheed Performing Arts Centre opened in 2014 and is located on the University of Alberta, Augustana Campus in Camrose, Alberta on the western side of Canada, just south of Edmonton. The Lougheed Centre is home to a 584 seat state-of-the-art proscenium fly house and a 120 seat cabaret venue.

Ruth Wikler

Ruth Juliet Wikler is Deputy Director of Programming for Circus for TOHU, North America’s premier circus presenting organization. Appointed in June 2019, Ruth directs the MICC (International Contemporary Circus Market); develops circus programming for the Montréal Compl¬ètement Cirque Festival as well as TOHU’s annual mainstage season; supervises TOHU’s training and residency program for circus artists; and oversees TOHU’s museum collection of circus history art and objects. Ruth came to TOHU after curating seven seasons of contemporary international theatre and performance for Boom Arts in Portland, Oregon, which she also founded. She previously served as Associate Director of Programs for the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (The Graduate Center CUNY); in fundraising and administrative capacities for other NYC arts organizations such as Arts International and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra; and as director and producer for the NYC troupe Cirque Boom, which she founded.

Vanessa Furlong

Vanessa Furlong

Vanessa Furlong (she/her) is a professional circus and physical theatre artist specializing in acrobatic stilts, trapeze, and clown. She identifies as a Mad artist (of the Mad Pride movement), and is based in Kjipuktuk/Halifax.
A graduate of Bishop’s University (Theatre and Music), Vanessa has toured with multiple performance groups nationally and internationally upon graduating and for the past 2 decades.

Vanessa co founded the award winning circus duo LEGacy Circus in 2016 alongside professional circus artist Erin Ball. Together they explore new ways to share their passion for representation and access focused performances using Circus Arts as their medium.