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Denise Kenney, MFA
(She, Her, Hers)Associate Professor
Creative Studies, Theatre
Office: CCS 167Phone: 250.807.9632
Email: denise.kenney@ubc.ca
Graduate student supervisor
Research Summary
Devised Theatre, Physical Theatre, Art and Social Practice, Eco-Art, Performance Art, Interventionist Performance, Experimental and Documentary Digital Film.
Courses & Teaching
Acting, Improvisation, Playwrighting, Devised Theatre, Art and Social Practice, Performance Art, Community Engagement, Spoken Word, Narrative and Documentary Film, Interdisciplinary Studio Practice, Sustainability.
Biography
Denise Kenney is a Canadian theatre performer, creator, and director and has written, directed and produced narrative and documentary film and television. She studied at the Lecoq Theatre School and has her MFA in film directing from the University of British Columbia. She was Co-Creator of The Eco Art Incubator, a research project designed to foster the production and dissemination of eco art in the Okanagan valley; and Inner Fish Performance Co., an interdisciplinary performance company that presents and tours original work. Her live performance, film, and community engagement projects are designed to reconfigure habitual experience in order to cultivate connection and belonging.
Websites
blogs.ubc.ca/denisekenneyportfolio
blogs.ubc.ca/theecoartincubator
Degrees
Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Education, Masters of Fine Arts. Studied at Ecole Jacques Lecoq (Paris).
Research Interests & Projects
Canary: A one-person show combining the poetic and imaginative possibilities of physical theatre, object theatre, and audience participation with the “Ted Talk” aesthetic. Performed with percussionist Andrew Stauffer, Canary is a celebration of the power of live performance, investigating embodiment as it relates to human evolution, to learning, to the wild, to mindfulness… and to our tribal proclivities.
Manual: Performer and deviser for Montreal artists Christopher Willes & Adam Kinner’s one-on-one performance staged covertly in a library, exploring the sensory and social life of sounds and images.
IndigenEYEZ: A collaboration with IndigenEYEZ and Tempest Theatre to explore how performance methodologies and embodied practices can decolonize relationships with ourselves, others, and the land.
The Common Fag: An experimental short film created in collaboration with Michael V. Smith, that satirized the struggles and victories of a queer man within the Canadian “landscape.” Screened at various festivals around the world.
Cyprus- Sites Embodied: A site-specific performance project on the Akamas Peninsula, Cyprus, in collaboration with the European Dance Network and Dance Gate Lefkosia.
What A Mess: A devised neoclassical remix of the Oresteia exploring how we might get out of our own way as we navigate our uncertain futures. Tempest Theatre, Penticton, BC.
Taaloo Zorouna (Arabic for “Come Visit with Us”): a series of interviews with Syrian refugees, recorded for an online resource to introduce new Syrian neighbours to the Okanagan community. A 40-minute documentary of the highlights of these interviews also screened throughout the Okanagan.
Handheld Devices- Body Politic: An intimate one-on-one performance in a portable tent using cell phones to depict the skin beneath the performers’ clothes, turning their bodies into geographic sites, excavated, exposed. Performed for Montreal’s Encuentro Festival and Vancouver’s Queer Film Festival.
Green Space: Installation/ performance art, participatory theatre and traditional theatre staging. Six performers used 64 two-by-fours in an open interactive space to tell a story of Dick and Jane, a restless urban couple in endless pursuit of greener grass. Performed at the Canoe Festival, Edmonton, Alberta, and the Kelowna Art Gallery, BC.
Social Potluck: A dialogical performance model created by MFA alumni Gabriel Newman that combines theatre, storytelling, community building, community art and community food action. It celebrates the oral tradition that takes place around the dinner table. Commission by Key City Public Theatre, and the Mandala Centre for Change, Port Townsend, Washington.
Soundcan- The Art of Public Noise: Nine public interventions were designed and performed in public spaces in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands using Soundcan technology (combining a portable amplifier attached to the performer and connected to a speaker through 5 metres of cable). The intention was to interrupt habit and challenge traditional sanctioned cultural spaces.
Chainsaw Ballet: A site-specific performance created for the Woodhaven Conservancy Eco-Art project was digitally recorded and turned into an experimental digital short. The work satirized our nostalgic relationship to logging and the mythology of our dominance over nature.
Selected Publications & Presentations
“Site-specific Performance and the Art of Not Leaving.” Choreographic Practices (Spring 2018): Performing Ecologies in a World in Crisis. Guest edited by Sondra Fraleigh and Robert Bingham. (Kenney & Holmes)
Eco-Art Incubator Cyprus: Sites Embodied/ Catalogue, Curriculum Contemplations. Lake Publishing, 2018. (Kenney & Holmes)
“The Eco Art Incubator and the Ethics of Belonging.” The Ethics of Art: Ecological Turns in the Performing Arts. Ed. Guy Cools and Pascal Gielen. Antennae, Valiz, Amsterdam: Arts in Society, Fontys School of Fine and Performing arts in collaboration with the Modul-Dance Project of the European Dance House Network, 2014.
“Ground Rules: Live Performance and Eco Art.” Canadian Theatre Review 144 (Fall 2010): 48-53.
Exhibitions
Live Performance and Community Engagement (Selected)
Writer/Producer/Performer: Canary, Living Things Festival (Kelowna); Ignite the Arts Festival (Penticton), 2024.
Dramaturge/Movement & Mask Director: Malleus Maleficarum, Tempest Theatre (Penticton), 2023.
Performer: The Half Life of Marie Curie, Tempest Theatre, 2023.
Performer/Deviser: Manual (with Montreal artists Willes & Kinner), Living Things Festival, 2023.
Writer/Director, Designer: New Moon, Key City Theatre, Port Townsend, Washington, 2022.
Producer/Director: Our Wicked Problem, Tempest Theatre; Black Box Theatre (Kelowna), 2021.
Co-Director/Devisor/Performer: What a Mess, Tempest Theatre, 2021.
Performer, Director: Walk of Terror, Caravan Farm Theatre (Armstrong), 2018, 2019.
Co-Producer: Pony Cabaret (Kelowna), 2015-2019.
Performer, Devisor: 27th Intl Ornithological Congress (Vancouver), 2018.
Co-Facilitator: Cyprus: Sites Embodied (Cyprus), 2017.
Writer/Performer: Handheld Devices: Body Politic (Montreal/Vancouver), 2016/2014.
Performer: Town Criers, Theatre Replacement (Vancouver), 2015.
Co-Producer: Turf the Turf (Kelowna), 2014.
Performer/Director: Social Potluck (Port Townsend), WA 2012.
Co-Producer: Vivarium: Scar Sites (Kelowna), 2012.
Co-Writer/Director: Green Space (Edmonton), 2012.
Director/Performer: Soundcan- Art of Public Noise Tour (Belgium, Germany, Netherlands), 2011.
Performer/Co-Creator: The House at the End of the Road (Vancouver), 2010.
Performer/Co-Creator: Inner Fish (Kelowna), 2009.
Performer/Co-Creator: Ground Rules (Kelowna), 2008.
Film and Television (Selected)
Director/Editor: The Common Fag, Short, 2018.
Writer/Director/Editor: Living Building, Documentary, 2018.
Director/Editor: Taaloo Zorouna Syrian Refugee Project, On-line Series, 2017.
Director: Bananaphone; I Like It Saucy; Dust Pan, Music Videos, 2018, 2019, 2023.
Writer/Director/Editor: Bee Line , Short, 2013.
Writer/Director/Editor: Chainsaw Ballet, Short, 2013.
Writer/Director/Editor: Eulogy, Short, 2006.
Writer/Director/Editor: Other Eyes, Documentary, 2002.
Writer/Director: The Shopping Bags (7 Episodes), Lifestyle Series, 2003-2004.
Writer/Director/Field Producer: Weird Homes (23 Episodes), Lifestyle Series, 1999-2002.
Writer/Director/Field Producer: Weird Weddings (10 Episodes), Lifestyle Series, 2002-2003.
Writer/Director/Field Producer: Weird Wheels (15 Episodes), Lifestyle Series, 2000-2002.
Selected Grants & Awards
FCCS Research Fellowship Award (PI): Canary- a one-person show (with musician) combining the poetic and imaginative possibilities of physical theatre, object theatre, and audience participation with the “Ted Talk” aesthetic, 2022.
EXETER HUMS, FCCS & IKBSAS Collaboration Fellowship: Performance Devices: Teaching (the) here and now from and beyond the pedagogy of Lecoq, 2020.
SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant: Open Works (CI). Open Works addresses a historical and current problem facing Inspired Word Cafe concerning how to negotiate competing and often incongruent forms of access within its community, 2018.
Equity & Inclusion Grant: Queer Culture Creation (CI): UBC Creative Studies faculty work with various non-profit LGBT groups to present queer cultural events significant to that community, and which promote positive health benefits for the community, 2018.
SSHRC Creation Grant: The Eco-Art Incubator (CI): Drawing on the idea of technology or business incubators, The Eco Art Incubator provides support for eco art in this valley by fostering a network of artists, collaborators, and contacts so that Okanagan conservation programs will benefit and that students , local artists and community members will participate in this growing field of fine arts and ecological activism, 2011.
Grant-In-Aid (PI): New Monaco, 2013.
Public Arts Grants (PI), City of Kelowna: Turf the Turf, 2013.
City of Kelowna Arts (CI), Culture and Heritage: Vivarium, 2012.
Hampton Research Grant (PI): The Soundcan European Project, 2011.
Awards & Distinctions
Community Engagement Award, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, 2017.
Honorable Mention Teaching Innovation, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, 2013.
Kelowna Impact Award, 2013.
Mountain Film Awards: Seven Summits Award, 2012.
BC Television Leo Award Best Director in Lifestyle Series, 2001.