Virginie Magnat

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Virginie Magnat, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor: Performance and Theatre Studies - Joint Appointment in Creative and Critical Studies

Office: ARTS 127
Tel: 250-807-8441
Email: virginie.magnat@ubc.ca

Research and Teaching Interests:
Performance Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Experimental Ethnography, Indigenous Epistemologies and Methodologies, Ritual Performance, Embodied Research, Physically-Based Performance Training, World Performance Traditions, Experimental and Intercultural Theatre, Devising.

Education:
Ph.D. in Drama and Theatre, University of California, San Diego/Irvine Joint Program, 2003
D.E.A. (pre-doctoral degree), English Department, Sorbonne/Paris III, France, 1993
Masters in English and Theatre Studies, Sorbonne/Paris III, France, 1990
Foundation Year Program, University of King’s College, Halifax, Canada, 1985
International Baccalaureate, Lester B. Pearson United World College, B.C., Canada, 1984

Interdisciplinarity:
Prior to joining the University of British Columbia Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, I held a Postdoctoral Faculty Fellowship in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz . I have since continued to work at the intersection of performance studies, cultural anthropology, experimental ethnography, and Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies.

Cross-Cultural Perspective:
I believe that it is the responsibility of university theatre programs to familiarize students with the rich cultural legacy of world performance traditions and foster a shared sense of humanity as well as a genuine respect for diversity. My personal dedication to working cross-culturally is rooted in a foundational life experience: at the age of 15, I was fortunate to receive a two-year full scholarship to study at the Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific, a non-profit institution promoting international understanding through education. My early passion for theatre was deeply informed by this intensely fulfilling time in a “global village” hosting two hundred students from over seventy countries in the coastal forest of Vancouver Island. It was then that I became aware of the infinite potentialities that arise when people with different cultural legacies live and work together. I have since envisioned performance as a powerful site of encounter, exchange, and collaboration.

Performance Training:
I am originally from France and pursued theatre training in Paris, Lyon, and Saint-Etienne for fifteen years prior to conducting doctoral and postdoctoral research in the United States. While I have trained with a wide range of international performers, master-teachers, directors, and choreographers, I am deeply indebted to the creative research and teaching of Zygmunt Molik and Rena Mirecka, two founding members of Jerzy Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre. A work session led by Zygmunt Molik in Brzezinka, Poland, in which I participated, was documented in the film Dyrygent, featured on the companion DVD of Zygmunt Molik's Voice and Body Work (Routledge 2010). Online excerpts of this film are posted on: http://www.grotowski.net/mediateka/wideo

Teaching Philosophy:
As a performance practitioner and scholar with a commitment to cross-cultural research, I have been developing undergraduate and graduate curriculum combining three aspects which I believe to be key to training students to act and think creatively as individuals, members of their community, and global citizens. These three aspects are: 1) the interconnection of artistic practice and theory 2) the interdisciplinary and intercultural dimensions of cultural processes 3) the interrelation of creativity, personal growth, and collaborative learning

In this challenging new era of economic turmoil, technological dominance, and corporate homogenization, live performance can inspire us to cherish cultural diversity, encourage us to engage in participatory democracy, and enhance the quality of our everyday life.

In my teaching, I foreground the development of “théâtre de recherche” and interculturalism, the influence of non-Western performance traditions on contemporary acting training, and the emergence of hybrid forms such as physical theatre, dance contact improvisation, butoh, dance theatre, devising, and site specific performance, thereby inviting students to explore theatre across conventional disciplinary and cultural boundaries.

At UBCO, I have designed and taught lecture courses in performance studies, world performance traditions, and cultural theory, as well as studio courses which combine physically-based performance training, voice-body integration, improvisation, juggling, and traditional singing.

To watch Dream Migrations, the one-hour performance piece created collaboratively by students enrolled in my 2011 THTR 280/480 class, please click on the link below the poster in the right-hand side margin. I co-directed this piece with guest artist Ker Wells, and it premiered at the Art Gallery and was performed twice on campus. Students chose to donate the proceeds of these three public performances to SaveJapan UBCO, raising close to $900 (http://www.ubc.ca/okanagan/creativeandcritical/__shared/assets/May_2011_Scoop_newsletter24757.pdf ). For more information about Ker Wells (co-founder of Primus Theatre) please visit: http://web.ubc.ca/okanagan/creative/events/performance.html

For a discussion of devising from a pedagogical perspective, please click on my article “Devising Utopia, or Asking for the Moon,” published in the American journal Theatre Topics (special issue on devising) in the right-hand side margin. For more information about the Interdisciplinary Performance Program, please visit: http://www.ubc.ca/okanagan/creative/options/theatre.html and go to the end of this webpage for links to experimental, intercultural, and traditional performances practices, professional theatre associations, and related resources.

Current Research:
I am the Principal Investigator of the SSHRC-funded international research project Meetings with Remarkable Women/Tu es la fille de quelqu'un (SSHRC Standard Research Grant and SSHRC Research/Creation in Fine Arts Grant).

Meetings with Remarkable Women on the Grotowski Institute website: http://rokgrotowskiego.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=37

SSHRC funds Meetings with Remarkable Women on UBC Okanagan Research Exchange Newsletter: http://www.ubc.ca/okanagan/provost-research/__shared/assets/RXN_May_2009_V311616.htm

For more information, please also see my 2009 "Research Week Profile" on UBCO TV (http://ubco.tv/ )

This project, which I developed in partnership with the Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw, Poland, investigates the creative research of women from different cultures and generations who share a direct connection to Jerzy Grotowski’s cross-cultural performance research. My interdisciplinary methodological approach entails conducting embodied research and multi-sited fieldwork from 2008 to 2012. I discuss this approach in “Conducting Embodied Research at the Intersection of Performance Studies, Experimental Ethnography, and Indigenous Methodologies,” in Anthropologica, the journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society (forthcoming 2011).

In 2009, international theatre scholars and practitioners launched an unprecedented re-evaluation of the Polish theatre innovator's enduring legacy for the “Year of Grotowski,” as designated by UNESCO, and I was invited to discuss my research project at “Year of Grotowski” conferences held in Paris, Krakow, New York, and Canterbury. The conference programs are available online since “Year of Grotowski” events have been widely publicized through institutional websites as well as in the media. For more information, please visit the following links:

"Year of Grotowski" in Paris: http://www.festival-automne.com/en/programme.php?programme_id=317
http://sofeth.over-blog.com/article-36059819.html
"Year of Grotowski" in New York: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/mestc/events/s09/grotowski-diaspora.html
http://www.polishculture-nyc.org/index.cfm?itemCategory=36367&siteid=217&priorId=0&CFID=8501452&CFTOKEN=99782870

"Year of Grotowski" in Krakow: http://www.pwst.krakow.pl/?strona=9&lp=37

"Year of Grotowski" in Canterbury: http://www.kent.ac.uk/arts/research/Grotowski/BritGrotConferenceMARCH.pdf

In the summer of 2009, I invited two IGS MFA Performance students and two INTP BFA students to accompany me to Poland and participate in the month-long Laboratory of Creative Research I organized and funded. This Laboratory included five workshops led by women master-performers and master-teachers from different cultures, a festival of live performance, documentary film presentations, and discussion panels featuring guest artists. Another IGS MFA student took part in a workshop I organized in Montreal for a "Year of Grotowski" event which I curated and which was funded by the Polish Embassy in Ottawa.

MFA students Nicole Cormaci, Lara Haworth and Catherine Stubington co-authored with me a conference paper presented at the 2009 American Society for Theatre Research. A longer version of this paper which I developed in collaboration with these three graduate students as well as BFA students Natalia Hautala and Tracy Valcarcel is forthcoming in the peer-reviewed journal Polish Theatre Perspectives. I have published articles about my research in American, Canadian, Polish, French, Italian, and Cuban journals and anthologies. For example, my article “La fille de quelqu’un: twórcze poszukiwania kobiet w diasporze Grotowskiego" is featured in Performer on Grotowski.net: http://www.grotowski.net/performer/performer-1/la-fille-de-quelqu-un-tworcze-poszukiwania-kobiet-w-diasporze-grotowskiego.

See PDF for detailed information about my performance training and creative work, scholarly publications, conference presentations, grants and awards, and professional affiliations.

Links to experimental, intercultural, and traditional performance practices,
professional theatre associations, and related resources:

Konstantin Stanislavski http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Stanislavski

Vsevolod Meyerhold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyerhold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUUgaQqgBS0&feature=related

Jerzy Grotowski
http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_grotowski_jerzy
http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/web/arts_culture/theater/grotowski/link.shtml

Grotowski’s Theatre Laboratory Training
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7IG6c8D73c&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VCyGPm1VJM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI-p3KmpfDM&feature=related

Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre: “The Constant Prince”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c97uQ6VSau0&feature=related

Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre: “Akropolis”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjg3xwn1gLU&feature=related

Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre: “Apocalypsis cum Figuris”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BZynobrYzM&feature=related

The British Grotowski Project http://www.britishgrotowski.co.uk/

Eugenio Barba http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenio_Barba;
http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/fopa/theatre/texts/barba.htm

Odin Teatret, Holstebro, Denmark. http://www.odinteatret.dk/