Anne Smith

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Anne Smith is a theatre scholar/practitioner and educator who has a long time interest in Indigenous performance from her time working “on reserve” in child protection and community development, to directing a touring Aboriginal Theatre Company, through co-creating and co-teaching senior-level courses in Aboriginal theatre history, aesthetics, and performance at UBC, to directing plays by Aboriginal writers.

In 2013/14 she directed the multi-cultural community play project, “Chasing the Dream: the GP Century Play”, to celebrate Grande Prairie, Alberta’s, 100th Anniversary. In 2015 she participated in a cross-Canada reconciliation research tour, Train of Thought, and was the local correspondent for the Performing Turtle Island Symposium. Since 2016 she has mentored graduate students for the SelfDesign Graduate Institute, GIFTLearning, and Antioch University’s IMA Program, directed historic reenactment, and taught Canadian theatre, focusing mainly on Indigenous playwrights and woman playwrights, for Simon Fraser’s Liberal Arts Program and North Island College on Vancouver Island.

Annie has published in Canadian Theatre Review, Theatre Research In Canada, alt.theatre, SouthEastern Theatre Conference Journal. You can also discover her Train of Thought blog.

Annie headshot

Adjunct Instructor

Individualized Master of Arts

Transformative Learning Communities

[email protected]

Learning in a community allows for deep conversation, listening, and for people to support each other. It allows for difference to be appreciated and celebrated and opens space for belonging. I follow the 5 Rs of Indigenous education: Relationship, Reciprocity, Relevance, Respect, Responsibility. I understand my role as an educator/learner to be one of facilitation and leading by listening.

Indigenous artists and (re)conciliation with settler artists. Decolonizing Education and culture. Canadian Women Playwrights and Indigenous playwrights.

2021

  • Theatre Research in Canada, Vol. 42.1. “Clicking a Collaborative Path: exploring what (re)conciliation could look like in Inheritance: A Pick-the- path Experience.” In Press.
  • Theatre Research in Canada, Vol. 42.1. “Honouring our Ancestors: the Legacy of the Residential Schools”, Book
  • Reviews of Two Plays about Residential School: Ora Pro Nobis, Pray for Us by Larry Loyie and Strength of Indian Women, by Vera Manuel and St. Bernard, Donna-Michelle, ed. Indian Act: Residential School Plays. In Press.

2020

  • CTR 181: Review, “Making Hope Actionable: the Cultural Work of Weaving Reconciliation: Our Way”.

2019

  • Performing Turtle Island: Îndigenous Theatre on the World Stage. Book Chapter: “Conversation with Daniel David Moses”, University of Regina Press.

2017

  • alt.theatre blog, Online Review: ” Circadia Indigena’s “Greed/REsolve” Assaults the Senses.” www.altheatre.ca/blog, November, 2017.
  • Theatre Research in Canada, Vol. 38.2. “Indigenous Languages on Stage: A Roundtable Conversation with Five Indigenous Theatre Artists”.
  • University of Toronto Quarterly, Letters in Canada 2015, review: Daniel David Moses: Spoken and Written Explorations of his Work by Tracey Lindberg, Issue 86.3, Summer 2017.

2016

  • TRIC 37.1: book review: Medicine Shows: Indigenous Performance Culture by Yvette Nolan, publisher: Playwrights Canada Press, 2015.
  • alt.theatre12.4: book review: From the Heart of a City by Savannah Walling, Terry Hunter, John Endo Greenaway, publisher: Vancouver Moving Theatre, 2015.

2015

  • Local Correspondent posts: www.performingturtleisland.com
  • Blog: www.anismith2015.wordpress.com

2014

  • “Learning Wisdom through Collectivity: The Women Writing Women Collective” to NASPA Journal about Women in Higher Education (NASPA_NJAWHE), issue 7.1. Co-authors: Barbara A Bickel, Luanne Armstrong, Lynn M Fels, Gillian Gerhard, Alyson Hoy, Nané Jordan, Nané Jordan, Jeannie Stubbs, Valerie Triggs.
    http://journals.naspa.org/

2013

  • Book Review: !Viva! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas, in alt.theatre, 11.1.
  • Dispatch : The GP Century Play project: contradictions and collaborations are the fuel”, in alt.theatre, 10.4.

2011

  • “Wom(b)en Soundings” by Barbara Bickel and Ingrid Rose(with Mary Bennett, Nané Ariadne Jordan, Valerie Lys, Medwyn McConachy, Shirin Theophilus, Cathy Bone, Monica Brammer, Melodie Chant, Sophia Freigang, Tannis Hugill, Annie Smith, and Catherine Wilcox), www.womenandlanguage.org/category/alternative-scholarship/

2010

  • Book Review: Staging Coyote’s Dream: An Anthology of First Nations Drama in English, Vols. I & II, Theatre Research in Canada, 31.2.
  • “Atomies of Desire: directing Burning Vision in northern Alberta”, Canadian Theatre Review 144.
  • “Theatre as Cultural Agent? The Creation of Collective Memory Through Theatre Performance:  Kevin Kerr’s UNITY (1918).”  ˆLobstick Vol. 7.

2008

  • “Evoking Desire … and Irreverence: a Collection of Women Writing Women.” Shared authorship. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 2008, Volume 5, Number 1, pages 131-139. www.complexityandeducation.ca
  • “Hybridity”, Book Chapter, in The Authentic Dissertation, Ed. Don Jacobs, Four Arrows, Routledge.

2006

  • “Conversations between a mother and son”, Visions Journal.
  • “Variations on a Theme: “Polyvocal Disruptions and Re/constructions”, a Performative Inquiry.” Views from the Edge, 12, Papers from the 12th Annual Graduate Student Symposium, April 14, 2005.  Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies, UBC.
  • “Territoriality on the B Line.” NeXus newsletter, Graduate Student Council, Faculty of Education, Vol. 6, Issue 1, May, 2006.
  • Companion Guide for Studies in Motion: the Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge, co-ed., Department of Theatre, Film & Creative Writing, UBC.

2005

  • Companion Guide for The House of Atreus, co-ed., Department of Theatre, Film & Creative Writing, UBC.
  • Companion Guide for Arcadia, ed., Department of Theatre, Film & Creative Writing, UBC.
  • Companion Guide for Village of Idiots, co-ed., Department of Theatre, Film & Creative Writing, UBC.

2004

  • “Redescribing a World:  The Falstaff Project.” Theatre Symposium: A Publication of the Southeastern Theatre Conference, Vol. 12, The University of Alabama Press.  Co-written with Sarah Ferguson.
  • Companion Guide for The Cherry Orchard, co-ed., Department of Theatre, Film & Creative Writing, UBC.
  • Companion Guide for Song of this Place, co-ed., Department of Theatre, Film & Creative Writing, UBC
  • Companion Guide for K. is for Kafka, co-ed., Department of Theatre, Film & Creative Writing, UBC

2003

  • Companion Guide for Measure for Measure, co-ed., Department of Theatre, Film & Creative Writing, UBC.