Graphic for CODE on the Road Toronto

252 Bloor Street West
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto

CODE is on the road again for a one day regional conference in Toronto. On Saturday, October 19, 2024, educators and members of the CODE Management Board will come together for a day of drama and dance, of sharing ideas and expertise, and learning from each other. The day will include: three drama and dance workshops, snacks and drinks, a catered lunch, and time to network with like minded colleagues. 

Register here.


Agenda

Time

Event

8:30-9:00

Registration opens

9:15-10:00

Keynote Speaker

Keynote Speaker: Herbie Barnes

Headshot Herbie Barnes
Herbie stands in front of vertical slats of light brown wood wearing a dark blue suit, a light blue collared shirt, a patterned blue tie, a newsboy cap and a big smile.

Herbie Barnes is an accomplished playwright, performer, director and arts educator whose 30-year-career spans stages across North America. He was among the generation of young Indigenous artists in the 1990s breaking down barriers to forge professional careers in Canadian theatre.

An Anishinaabe theatre artist from Aundeck Omni Kaning First Nation on Manitoulin Island, Herbie Barnes was raised in Toronto. His theatre career began in 1989 with Debajehmujig Theatre Group, touring Ontario with the first run of Drew Hayden Taylor’s Toronto at Dreamer’s Rock. Since then he has collaborated with some of North America’s largest theatre companies and was nominated for a John Hirsch Director’s Award. His new play, Bent Boy, was workshopped at YPT and shortlisted for the Sharon Enkin Plays for Young People Award in 2020.

Herbie is associated with some of North America’s most prestigious stages – whether appearing in productions such as Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing (Mirvish – Royal Alexandra Theatre) or collaborating with the Stratford Festival on development workshops. His accomplishments include:

  • Directing: Munschtime! (YPT); Mno Bimaadiziwin (Orillia Opera House); Tales of an Urban Indian (Public Theater, New York City/Autry Theatre, LA); Music Man (Talk Is Free Theatre); Oliver! (Bluff City Theatre); Inheritance (Alley and Touchstone Theatre); The Rememberer (MTYP); Someday and Dinky (Native Earth Performing Arts). Film/TV directing credits include RepREZentin’ in Fort Chip and The Rez.
  • Countless stage roles: Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit (YPT, Carousel Players, MTYP); Wickersham Brother in Seussical The Musical (MTYP); Norval Morrisseau in Copper Thunderbird (National Arts Centre).
  • Film/TV credits: The Rez, Murdoch Mysteries, Tipi Tales, Buffalo Tracks, Guilt Free Zone and Dance Me Outside.
  • Script development and dramaturgy with YPT, Native Earth Performing Arts, Debajehmujig Theatre Group and MTYP. His play Russell’s World, which he wrote and performed in, was part of YPT’s 40th Anniversary Season. It was also honoured to be the first world premiere ever selected by the Magnetic North Theatre Festival.
  • Facilitating programs as an artist educator for elementary to university-aged students at various schools and companies, including YPT, Centennial College, Centre for Indigenous Theatre, Humber College, The Second City and MTYP. A technique he developed called “Dropping the Mask” has been used at many treatment centres in North America in work with Survivors of abuse.

10:00-10:15

Mingle & Trade Fair

10:15-11:30

11:30 - 12:30

Lunch & Trade Fair

12:30 - 1:45

1:45 - 2:00

Break & Trade Fair

2:00 - 3:15

3:15 - 4:30

Special Performance, Trade Fair Reception & Raffle

5:00 - 6:30

Social/Dinner at Hemingways, 142 Cumberland St (bonus social event, costs not covered by registration fees)

7:30

Tarragon Theatre - Goblin Macbeth (special discount price for attendees of $29)

Dynamic Workshops

You will get the opportunity to partake in three workshops that will leave you with material to bring back to your classroom. Our presenters have created workshops focusing on culturally responsive drama and dance practices, storytelling, and addressing contemporary issues through drama and dance. These presenters come with a wealth of experience that will be inspiring to learn from and work with.

Workshop A: 10:15 - 11:30
Elementary Drama and Dance

Dynamic Creation Workshop

Workshop Description: Our drama workshop uses creative techniques for original work based on structured improvisation, allowing students the freedom to explore and expand their artistic boundaries. As an ensemble, students discover physical, textual and vocal compositional skills, and are encouraged to follow their creative impulses, developing their own movement, text and song. By the conclusion of the workshop, students will be challenged to integrate all elements, shaped through Theatre Gargantua’s signature style of multidisciplinary theatre. Workshops are ideally suited for drama, dance and music students and can be adapted to cross-curricular activities and goals. Through this workshop, teachers will be equipped with new skills and techniques in creating theatre, which can be incorporated into their student's performance work.

Logo for Gargantua Theatre
Image Description: On a white background, the word "theatre" appears in lowercase in purple right-justified over dark angular capitalized font reading "GARGANTUA" centre-justified.

A leading multi-disciplinary theatre company, Theatre Gargantua celebrates 30 years of multi-award-winning theatre creation in Toronto. Beginning with an inspired concept, the company creates new work across 2-years through several exploratory workshops and presentations.  Productions explore socially relevant themes through dynamic theatricality, expertly blending innovative technology, provocative text, acrobatic-like choreography, live vocal compositions, and media into a signature style- earning Gargantua a distinct place within Canadian theatre ecology.
With over 30 Dora Mavor Moore nominations and awards, Gargantua’s artistic leadership have been honored with the Harold Award, George Luscombe Award for Mentorship, and Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for contributions to Canadian culture.  
A Toronto fixture for emerging artist training and mentorship with holistic, collaborative, creation methods the company employs performers, writers, designers, technicians, and artisans from every career level.  The company builds long-lasting relationships with artists, training them in the company methods and cultivating a culture of belonging.

Image Description: Diane stands centre in front of a concrete tunnel with a blurred light in the deep background. Diane is pictured from below the shoulders wearing a sleeveless dark shirt. Her lightly coloured reddish hair drapes over her left shoulder and she smiles brightly looking directly at the camera.

Diane Niec began her adventure with Theatre Gargantua in 1998 as a performer and co-creator, diving into the creation of productions like Raging Dreams, love not love, THE EXIT ROOM, Phantom Limb, and E-dentity. Touring with the company took her to Portland, Montreal, and even the UK, where she not only performed but also helped develop workshops for university students and led master classes. Diane holds degrees in BFA Musical Theatre, BEd, and certifications in Stott Pilates, Yoga, and Leadership Training. These endeavors have fueled her passion for movement and sharing its benefits with others. In addition, Diane has always had a love for music, successfully releasing an EP Waves, in 2019, a compilation of children’s songs that adults can enjoy as well. Now happily settled in the Blue Mountains, Diane teaches kindergarten and music at The Blue Mountain Wilde School, where she combines her love of music, movement, and the great outdoors. When she’s not busy with her students, you’ll likely find her hiking the trails or playing fetch with her dog, Ruby.

Secondary Dance

Do Dat Legacy: Connecting Canadian Hip Hop History to the Classroom

Workshop Description: This workshop will focus on Toronto Hip Hop dance through the history of Do Dat Entertainment- Toronto’s first professional Hip Hop Dance Agency. Do Dat Entertainment pioneered Toronto’s unique style of hip hop dance by infusing reggae rhythms, with hip hop dance movement and militant formations inspired by African American step dance.

Headshot of Kayode Brown
Image Description: Kayode sits on stairs to the side of a brick building with a paved pathway and trees in the background. Kayode's dark skin contrasts beautifully with a pink hoodie, adorned with a black diagonal stripe. His wrists are crossed, with a watch on the right wrist and his right elbow resting on his right knee, wearing jeans. One foot is on the step, revealing stylish sneakers. Kayode has a neatly trimmed beard and mustache and glasses which frame a bright smile. His head is titled slightly to the left.

Kayode Brown has been the visionary behind Just BGRAPHIC and has guided his team through a decade of growth and development. Raised in the Jane Finch Community, Kayode’s roots grow deep in it’s foundation; his family has been a part of the fabric, progression and evolution since the late 80’s. Father of four, son of a Minster and retired Toronto District School Board principal, Kayode comes from a foundation of education, community development and the arts. 

Headshot of Charlene Anthony-Hines
Image Description: Charlene's dark curly hair and black shirt frames her glowing brown face against a dark background. Her bright red lips are curved into a gentle smile as she looks warmly into the camera.

Charlene Hines-Francis is one of the first female hip hop dancers of Do Dat Entertainment; she was an integral member of the organization from its birth.  Mother of four, Charlene is passionate in her advocacy work creating change in areas of Anti - Black racism in the educational system. She teaches dance empowering workshops as well as black history month presentations in the public and catholic school boards in the GTA.

Secondary Drama

Choreographing consensual physical contact in drama class and productions

Workshop Description: Embodying human connections – such as familial bonds, friendships, and romances – are essential to acting. This workshop shares practices to help encourage exploration of this kind of work work, while helping students to navigate the connection and contact – both between actors and between characters – that these scenes can require. Topics include students’ individual preparation, navigating partnerships, working with text, creating touch-based choreography and alternatives to contact choreography, all with a perspective of play and discovery within mutually agreeable parameters. These practices are in alignment with current industry standards, and can prepare students for scenes of intense primal emotion with touch-based choreography, like scenes of intimacy and action. Participants will gather new knowledge about approaches to intimacy choreography in the industry, and will likely see how their existing knowledge can apply to these standards. The ideal outcome is demystifying touch-based choreography in the high school drama context, and empowering all to joyfully explore these scenes.

Headshot for Siobhan Richardson
Image Description: Siobhan sits on a white coloured chair, with her right leg crossed over and her hands resting on that leg. She wears a collared red half-zip that boldly contrasts with her black pants and white background. Siobhan's dark straight hair is tucked behind her fair skin, and she smiles looking directly at the camera with her head slightly titled to the left.

Siobhan Richardson is an award-winning Fight Director, Intimacy Director and Coordinator, actor/fighter/singer/dancer, and a teacher. She’s a pioneer voice in Intimacy whose work has taken her across Canada, into the States and throughout Europe. Her intimacy direction has been seen on some of Canada’s premiere stages (National Arts Centre, Shaw Festival, and The Stratford Festival, to name a few). She is currently the intimacy and fight director-in-residence at the Canadian Opera Company, Intimacy instructor at Toronto Metropolitan University, and can often be found as intimacy and fight director for numerous productions in Toronto.
Siobhan sees intimacy direction as a support to joyful creativity, where clear communication and artistic exploration makes space for adventurous exploration. Come to this session prepared to play and move!

Workshop B: 12:30 - 1:45pm
Elementary Drama and Dance

Ready to Play-Everyday!

Workshop Description: In this energetic and interactive workshop, Lynda Hill will share techniques and strategies for offering and sustaining a playful and collaborative classroom culture through a variety of smalls-space and big space games, guided play improvisations, and dramatic storytelling techniques that can be incorporated into daily practice and contribute to the classroom community’s creative culture.

Headshot for Lynda Hill
Image description: Lynda sits, with one hand across her knee and the other gently resting against her cheek. Her dark cowl-neck sweater, and pants with black hatched onto white, contrasts with the plain beige background. Lynda smiles invitingly.

Lynda Hill (she/her) is a theatre maker, director, and teaching artist with over 3 decades of creating and collaborating with young people and educators in her work as the artistic and executive director of Theatre Direct (2001 - 2019) as the founder and artistic director of WeeFestival of Arts and Culture for Early years (2014 to present).

Secondary Dance

The Embodiment of Text: A Devising Movement Workshop

Workshop Description: In your experience, have you ever had dance students who would rather remain silent and are afraid to speak, or drama students reluctant to move? This workshop will explore how text (both pre-existing and student created) can be used as a point of creation and look at how drama and dance can support one another. Exercises and tasks explored in this workshop will emphasize student creation and storytelling to examine the personal, develop empathy and shift power dynamics in the classroom. Teachers will explore with their bodies and voices exercises that can be used to inspire stories, generate written material and get inside of text to create movement. The ways in which these tasks can be used as an intergenerational project will also be discussed, as well as strategies for making the “personal” less scary.

Candice Spykers
Image description: Candice stands against the backdrop of a romanesque column wearing a black button up shirt, holding her hand in one hand, with her other hand on her hip. Candice smiles warmly.

Candice Spykers is a graduate of York University where she received a BFA in Dance and a BEd at the Intermediate/ Senior level. Candice also received specialized dance training on full scholarship at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York City. In 2022 Candice completed her MA in Choreography at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, England, graduating with merit and recognized as a Leverhulme Scholar. Candice has been a full time dance teacher at Rosedale Heights School of the Arts since 2006.

Secondary Drama

Character and Relationship-Driven Improvisation

Workshop Description: In this workshop, participants will explore ways to help students improvise grounded, believable, and character-driven scenes. Through exercises and experimentation participants will create scenes that center conflicts and stakes around relationships, while action and tilts will be created through objectives and tactics. The workshop facilitator will provide feedback and side coaching to help model how to provide this to students.

Headshot of Stephen Wei
Image Description: Stephen smiles brightly at the camera from the centre of the frame. His dark cropped hair and light brown skin contrast with his dark blue V-neck shirt and the background, featuring dark turquoise water. White buildings in the background are set against low mountains, their lights shining into the water.

Stephen Wei is a drama teacher at Rosedale Heights School of the Arts with 20+ years experience. He has given drama workshops on devising, improvisation, physical theatre, and theatre tech and sees himself as a jack-of-all trades. His favourite part of teaching drama is helping students find their voice and explore issues and ideas they are interested in.

Workshop C: 2:00 - 3:15
Elementary Drama & Dance

Skyscapes; Creative Movement Exploration & Creation for Elementary Students

Workshop Description: Stimulate your students’ creativity, physical awareness, confidence, and choreographic skills using creative movement structures inspired by the sky; clouds, tornados, lightning and rainbows, the Sun, Moon, comets and stars. From isolated movements that softly shimmer to traveling actions that blaze across the sky, poetic movement phrases are developed and interpreted through class collaboration (for Primary) and in small groups (Junior and Intermediate). Great for novice and experienced classroom teachers and dance/drama specialists. The template used in the workshop is inclusive and adaptable for students of all abilities. Wear comfortable clothing you can move in.

Janice Pomer headshot
Image Description: Janice playfully leans out behind a bunch of pussywillow on the left side of the photograph and against an eggshell white background. Janice wears a paisley patterned black shirt and a playful smile.

Based in Tkaranto, Ontario, Canada, Janice Pomer has been teaching, performing and creating in the fields of dance, music and physical theatre since 1976, touring and teaching across Canada providing dance experiences for learners of all ages and abilities in urban, rural, First Nation and northern communities. Janice’s unique pedagogy emphasizes how dance is a multidirectional process that engages the physical, intellectual, creative, and intuitive aspects of the mover. Author of three internationally acclaimed books on dance education: Perpetual Motion, Creative Movement Exercises for Dance & Dramatic Arts (Human Kinetics USA 2002), Dance Composition, An Interrelated Arts Approach (Human Kinetics USA 2009) and most recently Elementary Dance Education, Natured Themed Creative Movement and Collaborative Learning (Human Kinetics USA 2022). Janice’s books have been hailed as ‘inspiring’, ‘innovative’, ‘invaluable’ and ‘dynamic’ in academic journals and by dance educators and generalist teachers around the world. www.janicepomer.ca

Secondary Dance

Rethinking Dance through Disability Arts and Culture

Workshop Description: How do the practices of disabled artists invite us to reimagine our interpretation of the curriculum’s expectations of dance? How might we shift our own teaching practices to be inclusive of, and shaped by, such embodiments of difference? By immersing ourselves within the worlds of disability arts and culture, this workshop invites teachers to rethink our understandings of disability, dance, teaching, and learning.

Miggy Esteban headshot
Image Description: A side profile of Miggy, who crouches amidst bushes and white flowers that recede blurrily into the background. Miggy’s fingers gently crawl up from a long-sleeved maroon shirt, over chin and lips, and toward a small ocean of black, wavy hair. The brown skin of Miggy’s cheek is caressed by the palm of a hand, supporting closed eyes that look down in contemplation.

Jose Miguel ‘Miggy’ Esteban is a dance/movement artist and educator based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Miggy’s artistic work develops improvisational practices of navigating mad and queer routes to embody Filipinx remembering and belonging. Currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Social Justice Education, OISE/University of Toronto, Miggy’s research and teaching is oriented through disability studies, black studies, and dance/performance studies. Influenced by disability arts and culture, black radical traditions, indigenous storytelling, and queer performance, Miggy’s dissertation project engages in embodied practices of improvisation to (re)interpret curriculum as a choreographic site for inspiring pedagogies of/through dance.

Secondary Drama

Practical Playwriting: how to get your students writing

Workshop Description: In this workshop, we will explore how to get your students ready to write scripts using practical exercises. We will also explore ways to involve all students in the writing and editing process.

Headshot of Claire Broome
Image Description: Against the backdrop of a dark sky, Claire smiles at the camera wearing a light grey beanie covering long dark hair and a dark coat.

Claire Broome has been a teacher (the majority of the time as a Drama Teacher) since 2000, and with the Peel Board since 2001. Claire's plays "Same Room, Different Story" (full length and competition length) and Virtual Platform can be found on Theatrefolk. Claire has also created courses for Drama Teachers (Health and Wellness in the Drama Classroom, The Dilemma Project and Basic Lighting for Drama Teachers) on the Drama Teacher Academy Website.

Conference Fees

Conference fees include admission to workshops and food. They cover the cost of renting the space.

  • CODE Members: $99
    Please note that your CODE membership must be active at the time of the conference.
  • Non-Members: $129
  • Faculty of Education Student: $50
  • CODE Board Member: $30

If cost is a barrier to participating in the conference, please contact vicepresident@code.on.ca.

Vendors at the Trade Fair

Questions?

For any questions please email the 2024 Conference Chairs:


We're looking forward to seeing you there!

Register here.