THE FEMINIST UNCONFERENCE
March 11, 2022
1:00 – 4:30 pm ET
Facilitated by Natasha “Courage” Bacchus and Sedina Fiati
A free digital gathering via Zoom – everyone is welcome to attend!
Please note, registration will close at 12 pm ET the day of the event.
This event will have ASL/English interpretation and computer-generated captions available.
Connect and collaborate with your community at our third annual Feminist Unconference. This year’s Unconference titled “This is How We Do It” aims to generate ideas, accountability and action as tools for the feminist revolution. Theatre practitioners are invited to listen, lead and dive deep at this hierarchy-smashing, participant-driven unconference.
Details on the unconference format from Wikipedia:
“An unconference is a participant-driven meeting. The term ‘unconference’ has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid hierarchical aspects of a conventional conference, such as sponsored presentations and top-down organization….Typically at an unconference, the agenda is created by the attendees at the beginning of the meeting. Anyone who wants to initiate a discussion on a topic can claim a time and a space.”
Special thanks to the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres for their support of our Feminist Unconference.
About the Facilitators
Natasha “Courage” Bacchus is a former three-time Deaf Olympian Sprinter. She began working as an actress in 2019 and since then she has performed in The Black Drum, The Two Natashas, 21 Black Futures, and season four of The Coroner on CBC/Netflix. She has participated as an art collaborator with numerous theater and film productions in Canada. She has held multiple positions including an interdisciplinary visual artist, art accessibility consultant, and activist for IBPOC Deaf art community in terms of expanding IBPOC Deaf artists representation.
Sedina Fiati is a Toronto based performer, producer, director, creator and activist for stage and screen. Proudly Black and queer, Sedina is deeply invested in artistic work that explores the intersection between art and activism, either in form or structure or ideally both. Sedina holds a BFA in Music Theatre from the University of Windsor and has been active as a theatre artist for over 15 years. Favourite and recent artistic projects: Children’s Peace Camp (Children’s Peace Theatre, director), Every Day She Rose (Nightwood Theatre, co-director), Switch: The Village (collective member, QTBIPOC street performance, Buddies in Bad Times 2018 & 2019), Feminist Fuck It Festival (multidisciplinary festival, co-creator and co-producer). Upcoming projects: Switching Queen(s) (devised street performance), Last Dance (a web series). Sedina is also a facilitator and panelist in the areas of equity, diversity and inclusion.
Recent work: Nightwood Theatre’s Feminist Unconference (facilitator), Toronto Fringe (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Audit Co-Facilitator), Stratford Symposium 2019 (panelist), Reel World Film Festival 2019 (panel moderator), Making Space for Conflict with the AFC (facilitator), CTV’s Your Morning (panelist), Woke 2.0 Social Justice Workshop series (creator and facilitator).
With a movement break guided by
Denise Fujiwara‘s work as a dance artist has developed over 40 years of intensive practice, performance and study. Her mentors for her work in contemplative dance include Japanese butoh master Natsu Nakajima and John Tarrant Roshi of the Pacific Zen Institute. This practice involves improvisation and Butoh in ways that artfully assist participants to experience deeply embodied movement through the cultivation of curiosity, the imagination, awareness and presence. She has performed, led workshops and master classes across Canada and abroad. She is a recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Muriel Sherrin Award for international achievement in dance.