Past Events

In this play, Julie Devaney recounts her experiences on stretchers following operations and lying in emergency rooms with a unique blend of poignancy, humour and politics. Her audiences are continually moved by the power and truthfulness of her depictions.

As one audience member recounts:

“The play was incredible. From the minute the music began I was transported to a hospital: I was an observer in a doctor’s office, the ER and a hospital hallway. Julie eloquently and powerfully captured the experiences of so many patients and arguably health care providers as well.”

Simply People -- Celebrating our Lives & Identities

4th Annual disability celebration in Toronto

Performers

• Singer Emma Cook + Band
• Libby Thaw (Humourist)
• Singer Christina Doyle
• Writer Julie Devaney (Performer of Narrative Non-Fiction)
• DJ Ken
• Irena Kagansky (Spoken Word/Poetry Performer)
• Limitless Dance Performance

This event was brought to you by Canada-Wide Accessibility for Post-Secondary Students (CanWAPSS) with the assistance of the University of Toronto Access Centre / Students For Barrier-free Access (UTAC/SFBA) and Microcomputer Science Centre Inc.

For more information or to get involved, contact: simplypeople@canwapss.com

A Performance Evening Exploring Desire and Disability.

With films by Loree Erickson, performances and more!Julie will be performing her piece, "Sexual Encounters, Clinical Silences"

Tickets $10 or PWYC (available at the door)

A guest lecture with writer Jiji Voronka, reading both Jiji’s piece “Therapy” and a piece from “My Leaky Body”.

Live Performances Featuring:*DJ No Capitalista*Julie Devaney*Mentally Illmatic*Loree Erickson

In this session Julie will narrate and perform her experiences in the clinical places of “The Table”, “The Theatre” and “The Recovery Room”. From her position in each of these spaces she will query conventional notions of patient and professional roles as well as the tensions of her position as both a subject and object of academic and medical research and education. Embodied as both patient and academic, Julie will explore theories of sexuality in clinical encounters in the context of chronic illness, pain and surgery. Writer Jiji Voronka will be joining Julie to read a parallel academic narrative that explores the tension between writing a “sick” body while situated in a “well” one. Knowledge Translation in Motion: A Film and Performance Series aboutTopics in Health Care is an initiative developed by doctoral andpostdoctoral fellows in the Health Care, Technology and Place programat the University of Toronto. The purpose of the series is to bringtogether researchers from the arts and sciences to provideinterdisciplinary, scholarly analyses of topics in health care astranslated through the media of theatre and film. Each sessionconsists of a presentation of a film or theatrical piece, followed bycritical analyses from a panel of scholars and a moderated opendiscussion.

A York Federation of Students Equity Committee Event.

“Look at you, you’re human again!” The Cheshire Cat Resident grins at me. http://www.psi-web.org/psi13/main.htmlAnd I know what he means. He probably meets many patients who describe the grimy, restricted feeling of being in hospital as “inhuman”. But at the same time, he betrays his general, if not entirely conscious, mental distinction between The Sick and The Healthy. In this moment I develop my new life ambition: to lecture masses of med students, to teach future clinicians. Possibly always wearing a hospital gown. I wrote these words in the midst of treatment for an autoimmune disease which found me propped up operating tables and debilitated in bed for months at a time. Out of these journals I developed performance pieces on “my leaky body” that explore the nuances of feminist theory and disability theory from my perspective as a patient facing medical authority. Through further research I developed a series of workshops which incorporate performances into an educational format for academics and professionals in the fields of medicine and disability studies. In this presentation I explore performance as leakage – where “my leaky body” is more than a metaphor for what cannot be contained or categorized in me; its visibility unsettles the stability of everybody that engages with it. My performances become central to my research as I open my body with words and text, granting my body the full weight of its potential subversive power. In addition, I explore the educational strengths of performance art outside of conventional “artistic” venues; as it reveals complex and parallel narratives in a way that speech or text alone typically does not, and perhaps cannot.

A brand-new full length version of the play directed by Myrna Lorraine Hussey for a public venue, with favourite scenes from former performances as well as a trip to Mexico! Doors open at 7 pm.

Registration for the DHRN Graduate Student Conference is FREE. Registration capacity is limited however, so we ask that you REGISTER as soon as possible. PLEASE REGISTER BY NOVEMBER 23, 2007. Email Sylvie Zebroff, DHRN Coordinator at sylvie.zebroff@ubc.ca or fax: 250.807.8001. You can also call at 250.807.8793.

Performance & Guest Lecture

A full-length version of the play “My Leaky Body”, performed in a beautiful community theatre space. The Gibson Centre has recently been converted from an industrial mill into a grand new arts centre. Check out their website:http://www.gibsoncentre.com/Tickets are available through the Gibson Centre Box Office.

Doors @ 6:30 pm/ Show @ 7 pmLombard St runs west off of Jarvis, between Richmond and Adelaide. All are welcome!This event is a free, general seating event. Call Gilda’s Club to reserve your space:416–214-9898 Julie is asking that where possible, participants make a $5—$20 donation to Gilda’s Club at the door.

Julie will be performing at the opening night of this Summer Institute for scholars, professionals and students in the field of Women’s Health. The following day she is providing a workshop inviting participants to become more consciously embodied in relationship to their own research. Julie will reveal the potential of research that acknowledges the researcher as a living, breathing subject, not simply as disembodied, disengaged academic and/or expert in the field of health.

Julie will be doing a reading/performance based on her chapter, “There Always Seems to Be Excuses: A Grad Student’s Narrative of Autoimmunity” in this newly published anthology from editors Diane Driedger and Michelle Owen—Dissonant Disabilities: Women with Chronic Illnesses Explore their Lives Whether it is fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, bipolar disorder, arthritis or many other chronic illnesses, most women are aware of at least one female friend, family member or acquaintance who has faced these illnesses. Anecdotally, women’s stories have always circulated, but now, for the first time, Diane Driedger and Michelle Owen have compiled experiences of women with chronic illnesses from all over the world shedding light on the discrimination, stigma, power struggles, misunderstanding by medical professionals and relationship challenges that women face.Dissonant Disabilities: Women with Chronic Illnesses Explore Their Lives (Toronto: WP/CSPI, 2008) can be purchased at McNally Robinson, in stores or on-line: http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/product/isbn/0889614644/bkm/true/or through Women’s Press:https://www.womenspress.ca/motion.asp?siteid=100366&lgid=1&menuid=5376&prodid=119326&cat=9869

“Perioperative Nurses: Paving the Way to Patient Safety“The 10th biennial conference will be held June 15–18, 2008, at the Doubletree International Hotel, Dixon Road, Toronto.http://conference.ornao.org/index.shtml

“My Leaky Body” has been chosen for Summer Works Theatre Festival—Ontario’s premier festival of cutting-edge, exciting, professional theatre. It is the breeding ground for the mainstage shows of the future and the hub for Toronto’s most dynamic, dedicated theatre professionals.The festival runs August 7 -17th, check it out online at:http://www.summerworks.ca/