English-language Artists in Quebec: a century of innovation and reinvention

This workshop will introduce participants to the rich history of Quebec’s Anglophone artistic community – from theatre to dance to music and painting. Guy Rodgers, director of the English Language Arts Network presents this broad spectrum in an interactive format drawing on special guests, visual archives and a multitude of art works for additional exploration.

This session is co-presented by the English Language Arts Network and the McCord Museum
Date: Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Time: 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Location: McCord Museum, Théâtre Bombardier, 690 Sherbrooke Street West
Price: $49.00
Current McGill students and McGill alumni will receive a 20% discount off the session fee. Current McGill staff will receive a 50% discount off the session fee.

Objectives

The workshop will weave together characters and stories from different disciplines and eras to create a musical and social history of Quebec. Anglo-Quebec produced internationally renowned artists from Mack Sennett, Norma Shearer, Oscar Peterson William Shatner, Christopher Plummer, Mordecai Richler, and Leonard Cohen during its Golden Era then went almost silent and invisible for a generation. A new generation of artist such as Arcade Fire and writers like Yann Martel are reviving English-language culture in Quebec and telling stories about a community that has reinvented itself as a bilingual and multicultural minority. The audience will discover the social and historical context of artists they already know and love, and be introduced to contemporary artists who are documenting modern Quebec in all its diversity and richness.
Topics Covered

In 2010, ELAN commissioned seven writers to tell the neglected story of English-language arts in Quebec. Each writer was a specialist in a discipline: music, literature, dance, theatre, visual arts and film. The result was an unprecedented wealth of material that covers the period from the roots of professional art through to Golden Years of the 1940s and 50s to the Exodus of the 70s and 80s followed by a major revival in the 21st century. The stories were published by Guernica Editions in 2011 as Minority Report: Alternative History of English-Language Arts in Quebec.

Facilitator
Guy Rodgers is a writer and the Executive Director of ELAN (English-Language Arts Network) . He has been an eye-witness to the dramatic social and cultural changes of the past 30 years, encountering legends of the past such as Mordecai Richler and Oscar Peterson, as well as many of the artists who have been drawn to Quebec in the past 25 years.