Sessional Instructors & Lecturers

Lois Anderson

Term Lecturer: Theatre

E:

Lois Anderson has been working as an actor, deviser, director for over 20 years. A graduate of UBC with a BA (English Lit), BFA (Acting), and MFA (Directing), Lois has worked with regional and independent theatre companies. She was a co-founder of Cirque Poule, an original member of Leaky Heaven Circus, a co-creator on Neworld Theatre’s first production Devil Box Cabaret, an original creator of The Flying Blind Collective, an Artistic Associate with Runaway Moon and Leaky Heaven, as well as a leading player at Bard on The Beach for six seasons. As an actress Lois has earned seven Jessie Richardson Awards and is the recipient of the Sydney Risk Emerging Director award as well as Two Critic’s Choice Awards.

Megan Andrews

Term Lecturer: Dance

E:

Megan Andrews is a dance artist/scholar, educator and writer/editor working across theory and practice in movement, somatics/embodiment and performance. Her creative work, teaching and research explore improvisational and perceptual practices, the relationship between aesthetics and ethics, and connections between movement, voice and language. Megan received a Chalmers Arts Fellowship for 2017 to undertake an artistic research project in scoring and perceptual practices in dance. From 2017-2019 she is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Performance Studies at Simon Fraser University, where she is researching practices of ethical relationality through aesthetics and movement experience. She was part of the inaugural Emerging Thought Leaders program at Simon Fraser University in 2018 and was invited to participate in the week-long SYMBIONT Articulating Artistic Research symposium at the University of Calgary in November 2018. Megan is also cofounder, with colleague Shannon Litzenberger, of Embodied Leadership, through which they collaborate to provide movement-based leadership development to the corporate sector.

Bojan Bodruzic

Term Lecturer: Film

E: bojan_bodruzic@sfu.ca

Bojan Bodruzic was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and now resides in Vancouver, British Columbia. He holds a BFA in Film Production from Simon Fraser University and a Joint MFA in Film Production and Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.

Jessica Chambers

Term Lecturer: Theatre

E: jchamber@sfu.ca

Originally from Switzerland, Jessica Chambers started out as a freelance lighting and audio technician, working through to Equity Stage Management and then into Technical Direction, Production Management, and Producing. With now over 25 years of experience, her artistic practice is based on field work, which provides a unique teaching context. Over the years, Jessica has worked with the Arts Club Theatre, The Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Co., The National Arts Centre, Canadian Stage, Touchstone, Theatre Replacement, NewWorld, Crystal Pite, Lola Mclaughlin, Movent, Action At A Distance, and many, many more. She spent 3 years with TBA Global Events, producing and executing corporate events internationally, and 10 years as the Technical Director at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. Most recently, Jess turned her project management skills to building a house on Saltspring Island, with her partner and 2 children, where she now focuses on consulting and freelance Production Management. The recent addition of teaching has been an extremely rewarding one.

Janet Danielson

Course Supervisor: Music

E: jrd@sfu.ca

Janet Danielson is a composer whose works have been performed in England, the U.S., and Canada by ensembles ranging from the Vancouver Chinese Instrument Ensemble to the Vancouver Symphony and CBC Radio Orchestras. Her recent commissioned works include an opera, The Marvelous History of Mariken of Nimmigen, commissioned by Music in the Morning; The Occupation, a song collaboration with poet Robert Bringhurst, for baritone, marimba and viol da gamba; and In the Very Highest Place, a setting Wu Li’s poetry for chorus and the Orchid Ensemble (marimba, zheng, erhu) premiered November 2007. Her realization of Verbum Caro, a 17th-century Canadian Ursuline carol, was premiered in Rome at Christmas 2007, and a string quartet for the Royal Society of Canada Symposium on War and Peace in November 2008. She has taught courses related to music theory, analysis, music and culture, and composition at Simon Fraser University and at Regent College, and has authored a text, Basic Organization of Music. Her articles have been published in Musicworks and in the Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Composers’ League. Danielson is former Associate Artistic Director of Vancouver New Music and ChairAssociation of Canadian Women Composers, and has served on the Executive Council of the Canadian League of Composers. Current commissions include a work for string orchestra and erhu for Vancouver Pro Musica, for whom she is 2010 Composer-in-Residence, and a cello sonata for the 2010 Vancouver Music/Grail conference. She is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre.

Tanya Elchuk

Term Lecturer: Theatre

E: tanyaelchuk@gmail.com

Tanya Elchuk teaches Voice and Speech at Simon Fraser University and the Vancouver Film School. She holds an M.F.A. in Theatre and a Voice Teaching Diploma from York University, where she studied with David Smukler, and received a S.S.H.R.C. Canada Graduate Scholarship for her research on neuroscience and acting. As an artist, Tanya has written and performed original work throughout Canada and the United States.

Emmalena Fredriksson

Term Lecturer: Dance

E:

Emmalena Fredriksson is a contemporary dance artist living and working in Vancouver, Canada, as a guest on the ancestral unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples. 

Her practice is defined by choreography as a relational practice in the expanded fields of dance, often collaborating with artists of other disciplines, creating choreographic experiences and dance for social events, film, galleries and performance.  

Born in Sweden, she received her training at Balettakademien in Umeå and at SEAD in Austria. Emmalena has presented choreographic work, performed and taught internationally with Daghdha Dance Company (IE), Canaldanse (FR), Malta University (MT), Pact Zollverein (DE), and Falmouth University (UK) among others.

Based in Vancouver since 2013 her work has been presented in Dancing on the Edge, The Dance Centre's Discover Dance Series, Dance in Vancouver's Choreography Walk (curated by Justine A. Chambers), Dance Days (Victoria) and at the Audain Gallery. Commissioned by the National Film Board, she co-created Tidal Traces – a VR 360 dance film together with Nancy Lee in 2017. The film has to date had over 35 international screenings.

Emmalena holds an MFA degree from Simon Fraser University and she regularly teaches at Modus Operandi, Training Society of Vancouver, Harbour Dance Centre and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

www.emmalenafredriksson.com

Tara Gallagher Harris

Term Lecturer: Theatre

E: tgh1@sfu.ca

Tara Gallagher Harris (PhD Student in Performance Studies at York University / MA in Performance Studies from Queen Mary University of London / BFA in Theatre Performance from Simon Fraser University) is a performance maker and academic based in Vancouver and Toronto. She is a member of performance group O, o, o, o. and is currently collaborating with Radix Theatre. Her work centres on research creation, new media, and belief, with a focus on immersive performance and its effect on audience and performer identity.

Sustrisno Hartana

Term Lecturer: Music

E:

Sutrisno Hartana, master of Javanese gamelan music, and shadow puppets, performs internationally throughout Asia, Europe, and North America in both traditional and contemporary works. Mr. Hartana attended the Indonesian Dance Conservatory in Java and received his BA in 1992 from the Indonesian Institute of the Arts (ISI) in Yogyakarta. In 2004, the King of Paku Alaman garnered him the title Mas Lurah Lebda Swara making him a court musician at the Royal Palace in Java. Mr. Hartana holds his MA in Ethnomusicology from the University of British Columbia and completed a PhD at the University of Victoria in the interdisciplinary program. He also directs and teaches gamelan with Victoria’s Busy Island Gamelan

Farshid Kazemi

Term Lecturer: Film

E:

Farshid Kazemi is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University. His research interests combine an interdisciplinary and theoretical approach to Film and Media Studies/Film Theory, Iranian Studies, and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Edinburgh, with a thesis on Iranian cinema and second wave psychoanalytic film theory titled: The Interpreter of Desires: Iranian Cinema and Psychoanalysis. He has published several articles and book chapters on Iranian cinema, psychoanalytic film theory/feminist film theory in journals such as Camera Obscura. His book on the film A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night will be published by Auteur/Columbia University Press in 2020.

Lee Su-­Feh

Sessional Instructor: Theatre Performance

E: su-­‐feh_lee@sfu.ca

Lee Su-Feh is Artistic Director of battery opera. How this happened involved: Childrens’ Theatre with Janet Pillai, traditional Malay and contemporary dance with Marion D’Cruz in Malaysia, contemporary dance with Lari Leong in Paris, contact improvisation with Peter BIngham in Vancouver; and many years of Chinese martial arts with infuriatingly exacting teachers. Before coming to Vancouver in 1988, she lived in Paris, London, Indonesia and Malaysia.  She speaks 6 languages badly. In 1998, she won the Prix de Jeune Auteur of the Rencontres Choregraphiques Internationales de Seine-St. Denis for her work Gecko Eats Fly. In theatre, Su-Feh has worked as a choreographer with directors such as Marc Diamond, Donna Spencer and most recently DD Kugler and Steven Hill. She has been nominated twice for a Jessie Award. In 2012, her solo work The Whole Beast won the BOH Cameronian Award for Outstanding Choreography in Malaysia. In 2013 and 2014, she was awarded the Isadora Award and the Lola Award respectively, by the Dance Centre in Vancouver, in recognition of her contribution to the dance milieu through her work as choreographer, dancer, teacher, dramaturge and all-around shit disturber. In 1995, she co-founded battery opera with David McIntosh with whom she has been collaborating ever since she saw him lying, bleeding, in Kota Baru in 1985.

Stefan Maier

Term Lecturer: Music

E: stefan_maier@sfu.ca

Stefan Maier is an artist based in Vancouver, Canada. His compositions, installations, and performances, examine emergent and historical sound technologies. Highlighting material instability and unruliness, his work explores the flows of sonic matter through sound systems, instruments, software, and bodies, to uncover alternate modes of authorship and listening possible within specific technologically-mediated situations. Stefan works fluidly between contemporary classical music, sound art, experimental electronic music and installation. In 2017 he received a Mayor’s Art Award from the City of Vancouver and is a 2019 Macdowell Colony Fellow. He in a 2019 nominee for the Gaudeamus Prize in composition.

stefanmaier.studio

Will Meadows

Term Lecturer: Film

E:

Senior Post Production Instructor at Vancouver Film School. Lead Audio Designer for 4 years with a professional website design team. Chief Engineer for 7 years in a commercial studio. Focus on creative sound manipulation with specific attention to quality. Experience with surround formats and mastering; music and sound design.

Kathleen Mullen

Term Lecturer: Film

E:

Kathleen Mullen has contributed to the programming, planning, and execution of film and art festivals for 18+ years. She has programmed films for Toronto International Film Festival, Hot Docs, Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival, Planet in Focus, Provincetown International Film Festival, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and many other festivals internationally.

Currently she is the Festival Director of Seattle Queer Film Festival overseeing the programming and operations of the annual festival and a mentor and festival consultant for two 4th year film students at Simon Fraser University who are starting up Skoden Indigenous Film Festival. In addition, Kathleen is working with the Whistler Film Festival, Vancouver Latin American Film Festival, and most recently with the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival. She runs her own consulting company, Letter K Media, which supports filmmakers, festivals, and arts organizations with programming, arts administration, and story consulting.

Kathleen Mullen has written and directed the short films Button OUT!, you wash my skin with sunshine, Sleep Lines, and Still Life with Butterfly. Her award-winning mid-length documentary Breathtaking screened internationally and won the Audience Award at the Canadian Labour International Film Festival.

Kathleen has a Master of Arts from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada and a Master of Fine Arts in Film Production from York University in Toronto, Canada.

www.letterkmedia.com

Omari Newton

Term Lecturer: Theatre

E:

Omari Newton is a professional actor, writer, and slam poet. His original Hip Hop theatre piece, Sal Capone, has received critical acclaim and multiple productions across Canada, including a presentation at Canada's National Arts Centre in 2018. The play has been nominated for multiple Montreal English Critics Association (META) awards, including Outstanding New Text.

In addition to being a playwright, Omari has had a successful acting career on stage, screen, and radio over the past two decades. Career theatre highlights include a Best Supporting Actor nomination in the Centaur Theatre's award-winning production of Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange (2004). Most recently, Omari’s work in Speakeasy Theatre's production of Young Jean Lee's The Shipment earned him a 2017–2018 Jessie Award for Outstanding Performance, as well as a nomination for Best Direction.

Omari is currently working on a commission from Black Theatre Workshop to write Black & Blue Matters — a companion piece to Sal Capone.

Lina Rodriguez

Term Lecturer: Film

E:

Lina Rodríguez is a Colombian/Canadian filmmaker. She has written, directed and produced several short films, which have participated in multiple festivals including the Images Festival and the New York Film Festival. Lina has also created and produced film and video installations and performances that have shown in several galleries and festivals including HYSTERIA: A festival of women 2005 and Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2007. Her first feature film, Señoritas, had its world premiere at the Festival Internacional de Cine Cartagena de Indias (FICCI) and its US premiere at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Mañana a esta hora (This Time Tomorrow) is her second feature.

rayonvert.ca

Gurp Sian

Term Lecturer: Dance

E: gssian@sfu.ca

I am a Dancer, Musician, TV/Radio Host, Actor/Producer and the Executive Director of South Asian Arts Society. I’ve had the opportunity to participate in over a dozen international Bhangra competitions as a Bhangra dancer and play the Dhol drum at the JUNO Awards with Russell Peters and during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. I continue to teach Bhangra & Dhol to adults and children at my own studio and at festivals, schools and universities across BC. In September 2010, my business partner Raakhi Sinha and I taught North America’s first ever University accredited Bhangra dance class at Simon Fraser University.

My organization, South Asian Arts Society, also produces theatre and comedy dance dramas. In 2009, The Georgia Straight voted ‘Bollywood Wedding’ as the “Best Outdoor Interactive Theatre Event” of the year.

Aside from performing arts, I co-host a popular TV show called “Punjabi Vibes“, which addresses pressing issues in the South Asian community via comedy sketches. I am also a Radio Host/Producer and Punjabi Music Director at Spice Radio. Monday – Friday from 5-7pm, I co-host a live sports talk show called “Gopi & the Gora” with my co-host Eddy (aka The Big E). Tune in!

My latest endeavour is a global percussion group called Sticks n’ Skins.

Carr Sappier

Term Lecturer: Film

E:

Carr Sappier (Wolastoqew) is a two-spirited multi-genre filmmaker from Neqotkuk who just returned home from Vancouver after receiving a BFA in film at Simon Fraser University. Their passion for filmmaking stems from an aspiration to decolonize the screen, and to offer an alternative and non-binary perspective of Wolastoqew storytelling. Blending and morphing different genre styles and film mediums provides them with methods to express their two-spirited and Wolastoqew identity. While still a student in the film area at SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts, they co-founded the Skoden Indigenous Film Festival in 2019 with fellow SCA student Grace Mathisen.  

APOTAMKIN (2016) (SEA MONSTER)

WASIS (2017) (BABY)

NISUWOK COCAHOQ (2018) (TWO-SPIRITED)

MANAPE MANI (2019) (WALKING SOLDIER)

Kathy Slade

Term Lecturer: Visual Art

E: kslade@sfu.ca

Kathy Slade works across mediums and has produced textile works, prints, sculpture, film, video, performance, music projects, and publications. Slade has upcoming solo exhibitions at Kunstverein Braunschweig in Germany (2020), The Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver (2022), and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge (2022). Her recent solo exhibitions include: A Dream and a Drive (with Amber Frid-Jimenez), Monica Reyes Gallery, Vancouver, BC (2019); This is a Chord. This is Another., Surrey Art Gallery (2018); I WANT IT ALL I WANT IT NOW, Walter C. Koerner Library, Vancouver (2018); and Blue Monday, 4COSE, London, UK (2017). Slade’s work has been included in group exhibitions such as: It’s Never Too Late to Speculate; Fluc, Vienna, AU (2019); Uses of History, studio e, Seattle, WA (2019); The Ashtray Show West, Belmacz Gallery, London, UK (2018); and Beginning with the Seventies: GLUT, Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery Vancouver, BC (2018). Slade teaches in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University and is a doctoral student at the European Graduate School.

www.kathyslade.com

Yi Xin Tong

Term Lecturer: Visual Art

E:

Born in 1988 in Lushan, China, Yi Xin Tong is currently a New York-based artist, musician, and amateur fisherman. He received his BFA from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver in 2012 and MFA from New York University in 2014. Tong uses sculpture, installation, web project, video, and sound to create poetic and seemingly innocuous work to allude to the contradictions in life and to express dissent. His experience living on the outskirts of New York City led him to a long-term multimedia fishing project that challenges the iconic image of that city as the pinnacle of human civilization.

Recent solo exhibitions include NARS Foundation, Vanguard Gallery, Katzman Contemporary, group exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, MOCA Shanghai, CAFA Art Museum, Long March Space, Alyssa Davis Gallery, Chambers Fine Art, and Hanart TZ Gallery. Tong has received a Canada Council for the Arts Project Grant and Joan Mitchell Foundation Scholarsh

tongyixin.com

Rita Ueda

Term Lecturer: Music

E:

Rita Ueda is a composer, sound designer, and music teacher in Vancouver, Canada. Her recent works include forty years of snowfall will not heal an ancient forest for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Escape from the Evil Alien Surfblasters for 8 hand piano ensemble, and Still Shaking from the Latte, a piano solo for Misuzu Kitazumi-Burns, a member of the LA Piano Unit.

Her as the snowflakes return to the sky for string orchestra was awarded 2nd prize in the 2010/11 International Gustav Mahler Composition Competition, and it will be performed next season by the Vienna Radio Symphony and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra.

Rita was born in Hakodate, Japan, to a family of musicians, poets, dancers and engineers. She moved to Vancouver, Canada with her family in 1971. Rita studied composition and sound design at Simon Fraser University and the California Institute of the Arts. Her teachers include Rudolf Komoros, Rodney Sharman, Wadada Leo Smith, Morton Subotnick and Stephen L. Mosko.

Megan Walker-Straight

Term Lecturer: Dance

E: mwalkers@sfu.ca

Dancer and artist Megan Walker Straight was one of the few original cast members of The Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1980-1986. She had the opportunity to work alongside Merce himself, performing in multiple pieces, furthering her understanding of dance. She also danced with many prestigious dance companies in New York City, including Kenneth King, Douglas Dunn, and Lucinda Childs (“Merce Cunningham Trust”).