Category: Arts and Culture

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Arts and Culture News

Iranian students embrace tradition with Persian New Year egg painting event

Tray demonstrates colourful eggs at the Iranian Students Association egg painting event. Photo by Rojiar Ghezelbash / The Concordian

Several Iranian students gathered at Sir George Williams campus to participate.

On March 15, Iranian students at Concordia University came together to celebrate a cherished tradition from their homeland: painting and decorating eggs to celebrate the Persian New Year, also known as Nowruz. Hosted by the Iranian Student Association of Concordia University, the event offered boiled eggs, colourful markers and snacks. 

“Cultural events [like ours] offer more than just a celebration of traditions; they provide a gateway to understanding, unity and belonging,” said Ariana Karimi, the President of the Iranian Student Association. 

Coloured eggs symbolize fertility and rebirth. They are placed on the Haft sin table, a centrepiece of the Persian New Year celebration, to symbolize new beginnings for the upcoming year. Haft sin features seven items that start with the letter ‘S’ in the Persian alphabet, each symbolizing different hopes for the new year—the eggs are an exception. For example, Seeb (apple) symbolizes beauty, Sir (garlic) symbolizes medicine and good health, and Serkeh (vinegar) symbolizes age and patience. 

The word Nowruz in Farsi means “new day” and is rooted in the ancient Iranian religion, Zoroastrianism. Nowruz celebration dates back over 3,000 years to many ethnic groups in Afghanistan, Azarbaijan, Turkey and their diaspora worldwide.

Iranian Students of Concordia University paint eggs in preparation for Nowruz. Photo by Rojiar Ghezelbash / The Concordian
An Iranian student paints her egg with a marker during the egg painting event at Concordia. Photo by Rojiar Ghezelbash / The Concordian
Seven painted eggs in an egg tray for demonstration at Concordia’s Iranian students event in anticipation of Nowruz. Photo by Rojiar Ghezelbash / The Concordian
Iranian students of Concordia arrange their painted eggs in egg trays to ensure they dry perfectly. Photo by Rojiar Ghezelbash / The Concordian
This painted egg embellished with traditional Persian patterns for Nowruz/Iranian New Year symbolizes luck and prosperity. Photo by Rojiar Ghezelbash / The Concordian

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Arts and Culture

An interview with Heather O’Neill

Heather O'Neill in front of the Alphabet cafe in the Mile-End. Photo by Dalia Nardolillo/The Concordian

The celebrated novelist sat down with our Editor-in-Chief to discuss her published works and an upcoming novel. 

Montreal is ripe with celebrated authors, like Leonard Cohen, Mordecai Richler, and Heather O’Neill. On a sunny Tuesday morning in March, following a win on the Canada Reads game show, O’Neill met up with The Concordian to discuss her literary journey. 

The Concordian: Thank you again for sitting down with me. Let’s start by learning a little more about you.

Heather O’Neill: I was born here in Montreal and then my parents got a divorce. My mother took me to the American South, which is where she is originally from and I lived there with her for a while. After some years, she decided she didn’t want to be a mother anymore and sent me back to Montreal to live with my father.

TC: I’m so sorry to hear that. Through all that, when did you discover your passion for writing?

H.O.: I remember it started when I was in elementary school. I remember back when I was eight or nine, I got a journal for my birthday. I started journaling and I loved doing that. It was my favorite part of the day, getting back to my journal and describing my day. It was like the journal was the only person on my side. Afterward, in grade five, I had a teacher who was very excited about my writing. I remember she gave me this little folder and she told me to keep everything because she told me I’d be a great writer.

TC: I love that. Going into your young adult life, what was the first major inspiration for your first novel?

H.O.: Funny enough, I was in a workshop at Concordia. I wrote a short story with the characters that ended up in Lullabies for Little Criminals, Baby and Jules. I noticed that story in particular got a lot of attention and seemed to capture the attention of the readers. So I sent it to a magazine and it got published. After it got nominated for the Journey Prize, I told myself, “Okay, I have something here.”

TC: How do you feel now that your written works are now being studied in courses, like an English class that I took at Concordia?

H.O.: It’s funny because it’s just starting to hit me now, that sort of appraisal. As an artist, you don’t have a sense of the outside world. Now, turning 50 this year, I think I am slowly starting to see that impact. I have so many young women writers who have come up to me and told me that they have read my books.

TC: Which of your books do you find people come and talk to you about the most? 

H.O.: It’s hard to say, but Lullabies for Little Criminals has been around for the longest. I would say The Lonely Hearts Hotel has really struck a chord in people. 

TC: What would your advice be to young writers who are just starting out?

H.O.: I don’t know what exactly my advice would be because a novel is such a strange beast. I think people just get gripped by it and you can’t stop the writing until you finish it. It’s a lot like Narnia, you get into a novel and you don’t know how much time you’ll spend on it. When you finally finish that novel it could’ve been over a span of 10 years or even six months. The madness is real for sure.

TC: What does your writing process look like?

H.O.: I write in a very rough way, where I already have the idea of the novel in my head. It always changes as I go along. When I start the novel, I write the different scenes from different parts of the book to kind of get a feel of how it’s going to look. After that, I piece everything together into a legible book. Then I send it off to my editor and it goes back and forth four to five times.

TC: Do you currently have anything in the works?

H.O.: I have one coming out in September. This novel is my first that is not set in Montreal. It’s set in this little imaginary country and in this country, they base their entire identity on the arts. They have this incredible arts culture, but then they get occupied by another country. It’s sort of how occupying forces first destroy the artists.
Fans have been eagerly awaiting O’Neill’s next novel since her last release in 2022, When We Lost Our Heads. For updates on O’Neill’s newest creation, have a look at her Instagram account, which she shares with her daughter, @oneillreads.

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Arts and Culture

This week’s opportunities for fine arts students

Graphic by Carleen Looney

Check out these upcoming opportunities for emerging artists, including callouts, job listings, networking events and more!

Discover

Be sure not to miss Toronto-based artist Shary Boyle’s current exhibition “Vesselling” at Patel Brown gallery (372 Rue Ste-Catherine O, #410). Boyle’s idiosyncratic works combine painting and sculpture to create surreal and fantastical compositions. Each piece is full of color, texture and curiosity. The show will be on view from Feb. 29 through April 20. Learn more at the gallery’s website here.

Articule (6282 Rue St-Hubert) is now exhibiting the work of Montréal-based artist Yen-Chao Lin and Concordia alumnus Justine Skahan in a show entitled “Host.” According to the gallery’s website, their work explores  “notions of home and displacement.” The show will be on view from March 8 to April 20.

It is not too late to catch the group show “Catalog of Ruins,” currently on view at Centre des arts actuels Skol (372 Rue Ste-Catherine O, #314). This show features works from Samuel Bernier Cormier, Lauren Chipeur, Kuh Del Rosario, Xavier Orssaud and Elise Rasmussen. This group of artists draws on notions of the archive and found materials. Learn more about the show here. “Catalog of Ruins” will be on view from Jan. 18 through March 30.  

Concordia’s 4th Space will be hosting a one-day symposium entitled “Expanded Practices: Composition in the post-secondary fine arts classroom” on March 25 from 10 a.m. through 6 p.m. Learn more about this writing-focused symposium and register at their website here.

Open Calls 

The bilingual lecture series by and for art history graduate students, Hypotheses, is looking for applicants for its new team for the 2024/2025 academic year. This is a volunteer opportunity for students from Concordia, McGill, UdeM and UQÀM. Members will be responsible for organising six conferences each year as a team. Learn more and apply at this link by April 15!

Concordia’s Art Education Graduate Student Association (ARTEGS) is looking for researchers, educators and artists for their upcoming exhibition for graduate students, entitled “Bold, Italic, Underlined.” The exhibition will take place at Galerie Popop from May 13 through 20. Submit images of your work and a description of your practice to artegsconcordia@gmail.com before April 1. Learn more about the exhibition’s theme on ARTEGS’ Instagram.

Orangepeel literary magazine has put out an open call for forward-thinking prose, poetry, visual art and comics for their upcoming issue that focuses on the future. Learn more about the submission process and guidelines here.

Room magazine has put out a call for submissions for issue 47.4! Their recent post on Instagram reads, “Room 47.4 is open for unthemed submissions! Send us your dreamiest & most daring & everything in between.” Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis and will close when full, so the earlier, the better! Learn more about the submission guidelines for art and writing here. 

Concordia Photo Collective has released a call-out for their five-day exhibition at Tiers Lieu Montreal from May 12 through May 16, entitled “Despite the noise I see.” They are looking for photographic works that speak to moments of lucidity amid chaos, and urge photographers to consider keywords such as grief, liberation, contemplation, noticing, longing and connectivity. Complete your application here by April 15!

Opportunities at The Concordian

As the semester comes to an end, we are still on the lookout for artwork submissions for our final digital issues of the academic year! 

Our Artist Spotlight series provides a space for Concordia’s fine arts students to showcase their recent artwork. Send your poetry, short story, photography, digital art, film, documentation of physical works, or performance along with a brief biography (100 words) and an artist’s statement (250 words) to artsculture@theconcordian.com.


Email our Arts & Culture Editor Emma Bell for more information at artsculture@theconcordian.com.

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Arts Arts and Culture

Poetry Spotlight: Jessica Wood

Graphic by Maya Robitaille-Lopez

Prayer to Saint Anthony

my dad sent a package to me that I never received. maybe it got lost, maybe he sent it to a thief. 

I call my mom and mention it, and I don’t know what I am hoping she’ll say. she sighs his name on the phone, like it was his fault. a heavy sigh, knocks the wind out of me. 

like it was his fault.

somehow it reminds her to tell me—one lost thing leads to another, in her mind— the tree in my backyard fell yesterday. 

everyone is fine. 

my cat’s old aching bones can climb the branches once more– they fell down to the earth to meet her, they missed her enough to come kiss her hello. 

the hot tub, where I dug my wrinkling, boiled fingertips into my palms for so many evenings, and so many years, is still intact.

the gazebo, where I slept in the summers, covered in beach towels and spiders, where cigarette butts steeped like tea in jars full of rainwater, is only banged up a little bit. 

the old tree, arm choked by a rope swing tourniquet, is plunged into the earth below. grave and grave marker. branch become root. 

it was the wind that did it. a heavy sigh knocked it over, knocks the wind out of me. I sigh, my breath echoes in the phone call feedback loop, my aching lungs passed down from my mom. she sighs back. 

like it was his fault.

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Arts and Culture Culture

Iron Flame: A Concordian’s Book Review

Fight or fly? Discover the sequel of Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.

“The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.” — Xaden Riorson

Iron Flame is the second book of the adored fantasy The Empyrean series. I think it is rare when the second book of a series is as good or better as the first, which is the case for this series. 

Rebecca Yarros left us on a cliffhanger in Fourth Wing (May 2023) for months before releasing the anticipated Iron Flame (November 2023). It is a high fantasy series about a war college with magic, dragons, mystery, and adventure. If you are a fan of A Court of Thorns and Roses, Caraval, Fable, or Throne of Glass, you will also love this series.

After surviving her first year at Basgiath War College, main character Violet Sorrengail is ready to fight her way to graduation. Whether it’s the new vice commander determined to diminish Violet’s power or the consequences of learning the truth her government hid for centuries, Violet has obstacles to face—or risk her life and her lover’s. Violet uses her wits and friends to navigate these challenges, but it might not be enough.

Violet is described in the book as living with a physical disability. She gets injured much more easily than everyone else, and although it is not explicitly said in the book, Yarros said in an interview that Violet’s physical disability greatly resembles a chronic condition called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), which affects the body’s connective tissue.

The Empyrean series is a great fantasy series because it draws the reader into its world and makes them escape their reality. It has an intricate magic system and world-building while still keeping it relatively simple for readers who are not familiar with fantasy. The characters are well-rounded and driven, adding to the story’s depth. 

Finally, the series includes inner conflict experienced by Violet, small-scale conflicts with other characters, and larger-scale conflicts against a magical, powerful group. The plots and conflicts are layered ideally one after the other to keep the readers interested and engrossed in the story, which is helpful if you usually find fantasy to be long and heavy. 

Iron Flame covers critical themes such as resilience, betrayal, and ethical dilemmas. The main characters are at war against their government, fighting their lies and dark magic wielders. It also conveys the repercussions of betrayal, from a mother’s love to keep her children safe amidst the chaos to a prude friend who doesn’t question the rules. It shows great bravery and resilience to stand against someone who was supposed to protect you.

In Iron Flame, what struck me the most was the character development. Violet becomes more confident in her abilities; she is confident in her knowledge and her power. She does not shrink away from her power but embodies it and becomes one with it. The author sews multilayered characters that could not be categorized as simply evil or good—every character’s story explains their morally grey decisions. 

Usually, the second book of a series lacks movement and is relatively slow, but in Iron Flame, every chapter and every scene flows. Every word contains hidden meaning or foreshadows answers. The plot leaves us on the edge of our seats; from one moment to the next, unexpected things happen, a discovery, an unexpected attack, or a gruesome death. The complex plot with its multiple subplots keeps the story fluid and engaging. 

Since its release, the series has been compared to A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass because of its exceptional narrative and storytelling. Like in Maas’ books, the characters are so compelling and relatable that you will easily find yourself deeply invested in their fate. The love interests in both series are also very similar—mysterious, almost identical powers, and morally grey. 

Since Iron Flame is very popular and its reviews are diverse, it might be hard to decide whether it is worth it or not. It is an easy book for fantasy beginners because it doesn’t have complicated world-building or a complex magic system. It is, however, supposed to be a five-book series, so that might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

I was reluctant to finish this book because it meant parting ways with an enchanting world and characters I consider home. The Empyrean series has secured its place among my favorites. Yarros’ incredible storytelling has captivated my heart and soul.

Rating: 5/5 stars

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Arts and Culture

From dice to devices: Exploring the digital renaissance of board games

In-person or online, gaming experiences are multiple in player perspectives.

Board games have undergone a resurgence in the digital age in the past twenty years, bridging the gap between traditional experiences and virtual platforms. For example, games like Catan (1995), which got an online version in 2005, the old and popular tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons (1974), with its first digital platform came out in 2006, and even ancient chess exemplify the successful transition of classic games into immersive digital formats. 

This fusion of technology and board gaming not only preserves the essence of beloved titles but also introduces innovative elements, ushering and unlocking an era of interconnected play. The perspectives are plural. Three professionals from the gaming industry shared their perspective about the renaissance of these games and their impact in game culture.

“I play Dungeons and Dragons with my high school friends. During the pandemic, for example, most of us were living together in the same apartment, so it was a great escape from all the weirdness and great pretext to see each other,” Simon Gervais said. 

To Gervais, online board games or tabletops don’t necessarily threaten any gaming experience; they can allow people to practice when an in-person meeting is not accessible, for example. 

“Online versions truly make it more accessible for people that may not have a group of friends, or don’t have a group to play, or simply don’t want to leave their home. There’s no bad side—it’s more time management related,” Gervais said.

Stanley Gee-Silverman, who plays online chess and Catan with random people almost every day, believes that games like chess create their own desire to make time, as opposed to being a time fill. 

“It lets you play many more games than you normally could, against many different people,” he said. “It allows you to share your hobby with people around the world, who are similar to you. They are from everywhere: Brazil, Turkey, China, France, the U.S., Germany…” 

Gee-Silverman doesn’t think that these new online versions will threaten friendly gatherings. “It can make people do it more. And like most things, if that feels [playing online] like it is happening, you can evaluate your experience to keep it or not. They are two different things, two different perspectives and experiences,” Gee-Silverman said. “It’s opened, one doesn’t replace the other.” 

Faris Musallam believes that board games turning into online versions sound great. According to him, people normally want to play board games for their social aspect. If they are into the game more than the social aspect, it’s cool for them to have a way to play without finding people to play with. 

“If I don’t have real people to play with, I just don’t play them. That’s because I value the social aspect. People would only be drawn online if the social aspect wasn’t important to them, or if certain constraints prevent them from meeting physically,” says Musallam.

In essence, the shift of board games to digital platforms over the past two decades represents more than just a transition; it’s an expansion of the board gaming universe and culture, enabling a diverse range of experiences that cater to both traditionalists and those seeking the convenience and connectivity of online play.

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Arts Arts and Culture

Poetry Spotlight: Steven Gao

Orange Rain. Photo and poem by Steven Gao

Born in Jinan, China, and currently living in a small town on the west tip of the Montreal island, Steven draws inspiration from his roots and observation of the world. He writes poetry in English and sometimes in Chinese. Before starting at Concordia University, majoring in History, he graduated from CEGEP and worked full-time in marketing for two years. He participated in Twigs & Leaves (a poetry reading event, now defunct) and continues to be a regular participant in another poetry/arts event, Kafé Poe. In his free time, Steven enjoys learning history and doing scale models, as well as photography.

=UnexpecteD Flashʞɔɒd=

It was a Saturday evening

I attended a poetry event

With people

Who

Made me feel cozy

With

Fine dessert and coffee

I

then

Went back home

After

Kissing the foreheads of my beloved ones

Wine,

Unwinding.

Found my long gone love

Of

The songs

That

Give me a feeling of home

But

Also

A °F0ᴚƎigᴎ feel

While

Going through my history

Where

The revolutionary Red met

The impetuous Blue

Where

The new mƎ

Was

Born

.

.

.

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Arts and Culture Student Life

Concordia Arts students collaborate to produce a brand-new exhibit out of a recycled one

Ramona Hallemans pats down straw pulp to make book paper at Concordia’s downtown campus. Photo by Julia Israel // The Concordian.

The students of the special topics art course ARTT 399 get a hands-on learning experience about sustainability in art.

On Feb. 14, a group of 45 students brought their class to Concordia’s 4th Space to work collaboratively and display the making of their project to the public. They are making a book using materials they’ve recycled from a previous Public Art and Sustainability student exhibit at Place des Arts Aiguilleurs in Griffintown.

Straw sculptures, financed by the Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM), were erected near the Griffintown REM station in an original student exhibit produced by a cohort of students from multiple universities last summer. This transformation will culminate in a book of poetry and drawings in response to the original student exhibit, commemorating nature lost to city transformation in Griffintown.

Course Teaching Assistant Sabrina Rak said this process imbues the project with transformative power.

“This is really a metaphor, taking the actual straw from the other structure, boiling it with soda ash, and blending it to make paper pulp and making the basis of a book which is paper,” Rak explained.

Sabrina Rak and two students enjoy the messy process of their art over tarp floor lining at Concordia’s downtown campus. Photo by Julia Israel // The Concordian.

Studio Arts student Ramona Hallemans registered for this course to learn practical skills to work in the art industry once they graduate. The class works in collaborating teams on book design, communications, documentation, and grant writing. Hallemans describes this project as one with community collaboration as a central value. 

Ramona Hallemans pats down straw pulp to make book paper at Concordia’s downtown campus. Julia Israel // The Concordian.

The ARTT 399: The Artist as Multi-Hyphenate class will present the exhibit in Concordia’s Visual Arts Visuels (VAV) gallery from May 5 to 11. For updates, follow the course on Instagram at @45_passersby.

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Arts and Culture Exhibit

Step back in time: Immersive VR experience recreates rave culture at Centre PHI

Photo by Maya Ruel.

Experience the thrill, music, and underground atmosphere of 1980s illegal raves within the confines of virtual reality.

How did it feel to attend a rave with thousands of other people in the United Kingdom during the 1980s? Such a unique experience is unparalleled, but artist Darren Emerson has recreated its essence in his interactive VR experience In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats, which is currently open to the public at Centre PHI. 

In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats is both a documentary and an immersive experience. The player embarks on an adventure that brings them back to 1989, when illegal raves were regularly organized throughout the country in uncanny locations, such as abandoned warehouses.  About 40 minutes long, the VR experience is both informative and entertaining. The player is provided a headset, headphones, and a sort of backpack that vibrates to the rhythm of the soundtrack.

The playroom is located on the second floor of the museum. Adorned with blacklights, the room is divided into six sections where players can move around during their experience. Once the headset and headphones are on, though, it is impossible to tell that there are other people in the room. It is an individual adventure and the VR setup makes the player feel cut off from reality completely. 

The graphics are breathtaking. At the beginning, the player sits in the car with ravers, watching the road roll by in the darkness of the night. Then, the player hangs out with these same ravers in a bedroom with walls covered in posters of 80s bands before getting sucked into the radio and surrounded by colors, vibrations and music. After visiting the police precinct and learning about the investigations that illegal raves led to at the time, the player enters a warehouse and experiences a rave in the fashion of 1989. Throughout these different scenes are scattered testimonials from important actors of the rave scene in the 80s. 
Interested? This VR experience is featured at Centre PHI from Feb. 7 to April 28. Centre PHI is known for the diversity and uniqueness of its exhibitions and displays. It showcases art pieces from underground artists and allows the public to experiment with all types of mediums and technology. Colored: The Unknown Life of Claudette Colvin is another VR experience currently featured that will be open to the public until April 28.

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Arts and Culture Student Life

This week’s opportunities for fine arts students

Graphic by Carleen Looney

Check out these upcoming opportunities for emerging artists, including callouts, job listings, networking events and more! 

Discover

From March 7 through May 2, La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse (4296 St-Laurent Blvd.) will be hosting Ghinwa Yassine’s new exhibition, When you pour something, it carries the memory of its mold. Yassine is a Lebanese-Canadian “anti-disciplinary” artist who, according to the exhibition text, “searches for a freedom that is a right to carry oneself safely in the world, as one is, in their own truth.” Learn more about the artist and her work at her website here.

Espace Maurice (916 Ontario St.) is currently showing Hypnos, curated by gallerist and Concordia alumnus Marie Ségolène C. Brault. The show features work from Liza Jo Eilers, Caroline Douville, and Maxwell Volkman, which is on view until March 16. Read the exhibition text, by Jeanne Randolph, at this link.

Galerie B-312 (372 Ste-Catherine West St., Space 403) will be showing Danielle Cormier’s latest exhibition Ephemerides. Learn more at the gallery’s website here.

Be sure to check out Centre PHI’s current augmented reality experience entitled Colored: The Unknown Life of Claudette Colvin. From Feb. 7 through April 28, witness the under-told story of Colvin, a 15-year-old Black teenager in the southern United States in 1955. Learn more at the centre’s website here.

Concordia alumnus Valmont “Ignite” Harnois will be presented by Tangente from March 28 through 31 as part of the line-up for their event La soirée dont vous êtes les héros, which will be hosted at Édifice Wilder (1435 Bleury St.). Harnois is a Montréal-based contemporary dance artist. Visit the event’s website here to learn more and buy tickets.

Open calls

The call for the Fibres Student Association annual fibres exhibition is open! This call is open to anyone in Concordia’s Fine Arts program. The deadline to apply will be April 2. Learn more on their instagram page and apply at the link in their bio!

Café chez Téta (227 Rachel St.) is looking for local artists to submit their work to be exhibited as part of their artist-of-the-month series! If you are interested in showcasing your work at this quaint Lebanese café in the Plateau, email melodie@cafechezteta.com. 

Montréal-based arts magazine SUKO has opened their artist call-out for their third volume! Writers, photographers, stylists, designers, activists and artists are encouraged to submit their work that speaks to the theme of “frontiers” to sukomagazine@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions will be April 1. 

Concordi’ART is looking for artists to sell their work at their upcoming student-led conference scheduled for April 2024! For Concordia students, the entrance fee to sell your work is only $10, so be sure to DM Concordi’ART on their instagram account here for more information. 

It’s not too late to submit to the FASA x ASFA x ECA Community Arts Exhibit! Apply at this link by March 12!

Opportunities at The Concordian

As always, artists who want to see their work featured in the paper are encouraged to submit to The Concordian’s Arts & Culture section! 

Our artist spotlight series provides a space for Concordia’s fine arts students to showcase their recent artwork. Send your poetry, short story, photography, digital art, film, documentation of physical works, or performance along with a brief biography (100 words) and an artist’s statement (250 words) to artsculture@theconcordian.com for a chance to be featured in print! 

Email our Arts & Culture Editor Emma Bell for more information at artsculture@theconcordian.com.

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Arts and Culture

Black and white and quiet all over

Graphic by Keven Vaillancourt / The Concordian

Free theatre workshop brings mime to attendees of all experience levels.

On Tuesday, Feb. 27, Concordia hosted a “Mime as Non-Verbal Communication” workshop. Open to all regardless of affiliation with Concordia, the workshop described an exploration of body awareness, self-expression, and clown communication.

Hosted by Sue Proctor, a professional clown and mime with over 30 years of experience, it was an opportunity for those interested in learning more about the style and techniques of mime performance in a beginner-friendly setting.

“[Non-verbal communication] is such a significant part of how people communicate with each other,” Proctor said, describing the importance of the physical expression mime relies on.

“It’s very useful for people who have difficulty with language, either because they’re from another language or have difficulty with talking,” she said. “It’s a very fundamental way for humans to communicate.”

Some attendees at the workshop included Allyson Gray, a recent graduate from Concordia’s translation program who loves all things artistic, and Maya Kanitkar, a third-year biochemistry student at McGill who is playing a mime in an upcoming student production of Big Top Down. Other attendees included a theatre therapist, a post-doctoral student in dance, and both former and current acting students. 

After everyone arrived, Proctor encouraged them to go around the circle and introduce themselves. She then led the group in a few rounds of mime ball, where attendees passed around an imaginary ball to each other. When she received it, she demonstrated how the ball she was holding could change size, weight, and elasticity before passing it back to an attendee, allowing others to determine the specifics of the ball they were throwing.

She continued to lead the group through exercises exploring movement centred around specific parts of the body, such as walking around the room and instructing attendees to be guided by their heads, shoulders, feet, hips, or nose.

Proctor touched briefly on the history of mime and some of the predominant techniques of performance. While many schools teach mime purely through physical instruction, Proctor explained that she best learned to mime when first visualizing the object she was working with in great detail. 

She explained that it’s easiest to start working with actions you have already built muscle memory around, before guiding attendees to partner up and work to mime a daily activity. 

The workshop concluded with everyone sharing something new they had learned from Proctor.

“Aside from it being a great learning experience, it was a fun atmosphere,” said Gray. “It was a place to experiment and learn without being afraid of judgment,” she said. 

Kanitkar echoed similar sentiments. “I really enjoyed the whole ‘we’re trying things out together’ atmosphere,” they said. “It was a lot of fun to experiment with expressing different ideas in a new form of communication.”

Proctor’s passion for mime was evident to attendees, and her support of everyone present created an environment that encouraged exploration and wholehearted effort.

“I love making an invisible world visible, of creating something out of nothing, of creating a shared vision with people when there is nothing in the room,” said Proctor.

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Arts Arts and Culture

Poetry Spotlight: Jessica Wood

Graphic by Maya Robitaille-Lopez

Jessica Wood is a second-year student in creative writing at Concordia University. A writer her whole life, she particularly enjoys writing creative non-fiction, poetry, and autofiction.

Hopeful Romantic

it’s the arms in my heart reaching out to hug the unfamiliar shape of a new friend. 

it’s laughing so hard my “waterproof” mascara runs down my cheeks in the shape of joy.

it’s standing with a friend on a train platform, singing along to the busker playing Sweet Caroline. 

it’s a lipstick shade named Caroline! 

it’s nodding, listening, as my best friend speaks, as her thoughts cross her face. 

it’s learning that hope is a strength. poison is bitter, but so is medicine.

it’s reaching out to new people. 

it’s not reaching out to someone you thought you’d always need. 

                                                (I wish I had two hearts. 

                                                one for the good times I have had, 

                                                and one to keep in a box and only use on special occasions, 

                                                like the fancy soap I bought in Paris when I was fourteen 

                                                and only used for the first time last month. 

                                                one heart that stays safe from the wear and tear of everyday use,

                                                and one to run ragged.)

anyway, I don’t know what it is, but it’s nice. 

I’m a hopeful romantic!

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