Hello and welcome! My name is Jamie King (a name that will be familiar to any of you who watched Summer Heights High) and I am a 4th year BA student majoring in Theatre. This is actually one of my final classes before I finish up my time here at UBC and I’m excited that after several terms of literary country hopping, my last days at this school will be focus on the ideas surrounding the storytelling traditions of the country I was born in. I consider it a great privilege to study and discuss these topics on the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of the Musqueam Nation.
I have worked in theatre for most of my life and was raised by a community of story tellers/creators/producers; thus the subject of this class is one that can be reflected through the threads of my life. Integration of new media into theatre is something that I don’t think has been fully realized yet and I am very excited to be involved in a class where the dialogue enforces an aspect of social media integration.
The focus of ENGL 470A seems to be fairly ambitious as it both tries to look at Canadian literature through a post-colonial lens, but beyond that it will actually discuss the literature itself; not only how or if the stories are important but how they are told and how that effects our country and identity. I’m excited to break apart the Canadian literary canon and discuss the inclusion and exclusion of our national narrative. I think that it’s pretty valuable that this class will have a heavy reliance on new media as not only has this been a major focus of mine during my degree but it is also a way, moving forward, of creating a more accessible learning environment. Digitalization as a form of creating greater accessibility was something I came across a few years ago, while reading a book called Outwitting History; a story that focused on the experiences of a group of twenty year olds that, in order to protect Yiddish stories, collected roughly a million books and saved hundreds of years of story and language through digitalizing old texts. Which, if you haven’t read it, is a great read (and I’m not normally a non-fiction reader). I think that in order to create a viable future for our country we need to create a greater dialogue between forms of media.
The Edward Curtis Project by Marie Clements, photo by Jamie Griffiths
I think that inclusion of technology in story telling is something that is becoming increasingly more prevalent and valuable (an example of which I have shown above). This is a photo from The Edward Curtis Project by Marie Clements, which was (amongst other things) a modern theatrical exploration of Curtis’s documentation of The North American Indian. I’m excited to bring my personal knowledge of and experience with indigenous Canadian performance culture to this class, and to learn more about the voice of the Canadian Narrative; how it’s constructed and heard. It’s also pretty thrilling that we will be looking at two texts by Tom King as my family religiously listened to the Dead Dog Cafe Comedy Hour when I was growing up and I have never read any of his work (until now).
Works Cited:
Clements, Marie and Rita Leistner. The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern Picture Story. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2010. Print.
Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian. Northwestern University, 2003. Web. 11 May 2015.
Enright, Michael. “Dead Dog Cafe Comedy Hour.” Rewind with Michael Enright. CBC, 28 March 2013. Web. 11 May 2015.
“Episode 1.1” Summer Heights High. Writ. Chris Lilley. Dir. Stuart McDonald. HBO, 2009. DVD.
Lansky, Aaron. Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2004. Print.
“Musqueam Traditional Territory.” Musqueam: A Living Culture. Musqueam Indian Band, 2011. Web. 11 May 2015.
Paterson, Erika. ENGL 470A: Canadian Studies. University of British Columbia, 2015. Web. 11 May 2015.
Hi Jamie,
Wow, your hyperlinking is so thorough! Thanks for your insightful intro post. I thought your ideas about the accessibility of digitalization were fascinating. It is particularly fitting that you have an extensive background in theatre, as it is one of the most integrated and accessible art forms in our culture. I am currently in a course that traces how theatre has developed alongside technology, and it is fascinating to see how playwrights have adapted their work to an increasingly digital world. You also mentioned that you listened to Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour, and I’m curious as to if you have noticed any divides between radio and stage plays and how the two approach the inclusion of technology. Finally, you used the phrase “Canadian Narrative” both in your blog’s subtitle and later in the entry, and I was wondering how you are defining that. I hope this wasn’t too muddled, and thanks again for your introduction!
Cheers,
Hava
Hava,
I love that you find theatre “integrated and accessible”! That honestly made laugh, because it’s often the two biggest complaints I hear about theatre; although, these comments are usually made by people that haven’t really done their theatrical research. I agree with you and think that theatre is both integrated and accessible, but beyond that it can be exceptionally regionally specific. Where so much of the performance and storytelling that we encounter on a day to day basis is created globally – and doesn’t necessarily reflect the ideas/values/etc of our region – theatre is (more often than not) written by a local writer, and then made physical by local performers, designers, directors, managers, technicians, etc. It can represent a regional story much more effectively than TV or film that has to cater to a more global market.
I’m all about these regionally specific shows; a great example of a recent production being Indian Arm by Rumble Theatre, and The Out Vigil which is coming next year to the Firehall is another Canadian story (set in Newfoundland, but the writer and cast all reside in Vancouver).
As for your question about the divide between radio and television, I do think that there is a divide between radio and stage in the inclusion of technology. Radio seems to be adding technology as an afterthought, ie. here’s a website you can visit about the program with further links, or a hashtag to tweet or whatever; where theatre is trying to include technology into the workings of the performance, eg – projections, interactive performance (where texting is part of the pre-performance or the show itself – You Are Very Star by the Electric Company Theatre incorporated some elements of this and I’ve also seen it in a couple shows in the PuSh festival over the years).
As for the term Canadian narrative – I think it’s often a term used in a way to express a sense of Canadian history, but I differ from this interpretation. To me (and certainly how I’ve posed it here), Canadian narrative is about the expression of our Canadian identity, through all forms of storytelling/performance/public relation. This identity can shift region to region and person to person, but all of these shifting ideas surrounding national identity are part of what creates the Canadian narrative as well. Does that make sense? I certainly consider it a more abstract term than how the huffington post defines it. 🙂
Can’t wait to really dig into the material!
Best,
-J
🙂
Hi Jamie!
I love the format of your blog by the way. Is that your own photograph at the top? Looks beautiful!
I really liked your section on the links between technology and story-telling. There is a lot of discussion in media and such about technology being the classrooms, both the pros and the cons of it. Do you have experience with using technology in classrooms for the purpose of exploring literature and stories? If so, have you found these experiences beneficial? What do you think are the best forms of technology to use in a classroom setting to discover literature? Thank you for sharing your experiences.
I explored your link to Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian and found it fascinating. I enjoyed how part of his exploration was done through photographs as visual aids are always helpful. Do you know of any other research like this that has been done?
Thanks for your blog post,
Alyssa Ready
Alyssa,
It’s not my photo, a it’s a publicity photo from the production of the Contest of the Winds at the Caravan Farm Theatre this past winter (I’ve worked for their company in the past). The show itself was a First Nations origins story written by a Okanagan writer and it felt like an appropriate link to some of the themes we will be looking at through the course. (Specifically, the duality of the photo’s environment – it contains both modern elements and harnesses nature itself to create a visual symbiosis)
Honestly, where I do have a lot of knowledge about technological use in theatre I’ve spent most of my post-secondary years in English or Theatre classes where technology is usually woefully absent. However, I do think that technology in education setting often makes classroom settings much more accessible ~ so in theory I am a fan, but I can’t speak from experience. Modern literature certainly has a much more open conversation with technology – some authors websites adding to the world in which their book resides (Jasper Fforde comes to mind as someone who used to do this well).
As for your final point about Curtis’ photos – I would check out Tom King’s book on our syllabus, The Truth About Stories (I don’t have it in front of me but I will reply with page numbers when I get home): he talks a lot about Curtis’ documentation and the issues surrounding the idea of the “imaginary Indian.” I would recommend checking out Marie Clement’s publication of the Edward Curtis Project – she presented the script (and the original presentation of the show) alongside Rita Leistner’s photo exhibit that touches on similar ideas of presentation surrounding Native Identity that Tom King mentions in his book. Here’s the link for the amazon page: http://www.amazon.ca/The-Edward-Curtis-Project-Picture/dp/0889226423 – but you can also just google search ‘edward curtis project rita leistner’ and should get some examples of the images that are with the script. Leistner is a photojournalist that usually focuses on wartime photography, you can check out her site and photos here (she has some from ECP on here): http://www.ritaleistner.com/
Thanks for swinging by!
-J
The Truth About Stories talks about King’s own involvement with Curtis’s photos a lot in chapter 2, but specifically pg 32-38, 41-45, 56-60. (Lots of these pages don’t specifically talk about Curtis, but they focus on King’s own experiences in photographing Native artists, their appearance and the authenticity surrounding “look[ing] Indian” (55).
🙂
-J
Hey Jamie, excited to hear the kind of expertise you’ll be bringing to this class! I think it’s a great idea to incorporate more digitization and performance to the preservation of stories. As far as I know (and I’m not that knowledgeable on the subject, to be honest), indigenous storytelling traditions are usually much bigger than just words on paper. Filming, or even performing these ancient traditions to large audiences would truly the capture the authenticity of the performance aspect of native storytelling. The costumes, the colours, the music, the dancing, etc.
I totally agree! I also think that beyond the preservation of old stories, digitization will carry the voice of new stories further than before!
-J
Hi Jamie – welcome to our course of studies, and how exciting to see your dialogue growing already! My, my – a GREAT beginning. I am very much looking forward to working together this summer. Thanks and enjoy. Erika
Ditto ditto! 🙂
-J