Audiopollination Guelph
2025-06-18 19:30 (America/Toronto) | Silence, 46 Essex Street, Guelph, Ontario, N1H 3K8, Canada
Audiopollination Guelph is wrapping up the season with this, its last event before the 3rd annual Audiopollination Marathon in August! Local legends Depression 500 will be closing out an evening of familiar faces and Audiopollination Guelph newcomers alike.
Audiopollination Guelph is devoted to being identity-affirming space for all people, so please come as you are and/or as you desire to be!
Wednesday, June 18th, 2025
Cost: $20/PWYC
Silence (46 Essex Street, Guelph, ON)
Doors Open at 7:30pm | Music Starts at 8pm
Ensemble 1: Em Wright, Claire Whitehead & Benedict Hobson
Ensemble 2: Nick Perri, Thomas Rolf & Ana Platanos
Ensemble 3: Evan Gordon, Monte Fenske & Chelsea Masse
Ensemble 4: Depression 500
Please do your part to keep Audiopollination Guelph scent-free.
We are so thankful for support to the show from the Guelph Arts Council!
Masks will be provided at the door.

SOUNDTRACK TO THE REVOLUTION Book Launch (+ Film Screening)
2025-06-24 18:30 | The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Mark the date! You are invited to The Bookshelf Cinema on June 24th for the launch of Soundtrack to the Revolution by Eric Fillion. This scintillating book tells the story of Quebec’s Jazz Libre, a radical experiment in musical activism that reveals the meaningful role that the art of spontaneity played in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s.
The book launch, which will include a discussion with writer David Lee (6:30-7:30 p.m.), will be followed by a screening of The Cat in The Bag (1964) [in French with subtitles], one of the founding films of Quebec national cinema with an original score by John Coltrane’s classic quartet.
This event is free and open to all.
Co-presented by The Bookshelf, Véhicule Press, and the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.
* Eric Fillion is director of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation and assistant professor at the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Guelph. He is the author of Distant Stage: Quebec, Brazil, and the Making of Canada’s Cultural Diplomacy. With Sean Mills and Désirée Rochat, he co-edited Statesman of the Piano: Jazz, Race, and History in the Life of Lou Hooper. He lives in Guelph, Ontario.
*Hamilton-based writer David Lee wrote his 2017 University of Guelph dissertation on Toronto improvised music. His other writings include The Battle of the Five Spot: Ornette Coleman and the New York Jazz Field, and with the late pianist Paul Bley, Stopping Time.

Lancement du Livre: SOUNDTRACK TO THE REVOLUTION BY ERIC FILLION
2025-06-26 17:00 - 19:00 | Casa del Popolo, 4873 Boul. St Laurent, Montreal, QC, Canada
Mark the date! You are invited to Casa Del Popolo on June 26th for the launch of Soundtrack to the Revolution by Eric Fillion (translated by David Homel). This scintillating book tells the story of Jazz Libre du Québec, a radical experiment in musical activism that reveals the meaningful role that the art of spontaneity played in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s.
Co-presented by Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival and Véhicule Press, the book launch will include a discussion with the writer and artist Joseph Sannicandro. This event is free and open to all.
* Eric Fillion is director of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation and assistant professor at the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Guelph. He is the author of Distant Stage: Quebec, Brazil, and the Making of Canada’s Cultural Diplomacy. With Sean Mills and Désirée Rochat, he co-edited Statesman of the Piano: Jazz, Race, and History in the Life of Lou Hooper. He lives in Guelph, Ontario.
* Joseph Sannicandro is a writer and artist based in Montreal, studying creative labor and (un)popular culture, with a particular attention to sound. He is co-founder of the music blog A Closer Listen, and producer of the Sound Propositions podcast, and currently lectures in Media Studies at SUNY Purchase.

MILE Camp Concert: Musique du Moment @ Bell House
2025-08-10 19:00 | Bell House, 167 Route 132 Ouest, Percé, QC, G0C 2L0, Canada
(Le français suit)
As part of this year’s MILE Camp, a free public concert will be held at the historic Bell House in Percé.
On Sunday, August 10th, at 7:00 PM (EDT), camp facilitator and multi-Emmy-winning improvising pianist D.D. Jackson will perform in a duo with singer Zoé Jean-Deslauriers. Currently based in New Jersey, Jackson is a celebrated improviser and composer with numerous awards and nominations on both sides of the border for his work on jazz albums and television scores.
Zoé Jean-Deslauriers is a graduate of McGill University’s Jazz Performance program. The singer and songwriter divides her time between Montreal and the Gaspésie.
Also performing will be Montreal harpist Sarah Pagé. A phenomenal solo performer renowned for her skill in going beyond the conventional tonal palette of the harp, Pagé has also worked in collaboration with musicians spanning several genres, including Lhasa De Sela, Nadah El Shazly, Esmerine, the Barr Brothers, and Land of Kush.
Click here to view the full artist bios!
As with all of our public MILE Camp concerts, this event is free and open to all!

Le dimanche 10 août, à 19h00, à l’historique Bell House (167 Route 132 Ouest à Percé), D.D. Jackson, animateur du Camp Coin-du-Banc en folie et pianiste improvisateur plusieurs fois primé aux Emmy Awards, se produira en duo avec la chanteuse Zoé Jean-Deslauriers.
Actuellement installé dans le New Jersey, D.D. Jackson est un célèbre improvisateur et compositeur qui a reçu de nombreux prix et nominations des deux côtés de la frontière pour son travail sur des albums de jazz et des musiques de télévision.
Zoé Jean-Deslauriers est diplômé du programme d’interprétation jazz de l’Université McGill. La chanteuse et auteure-compositrice partage son temps entre Montréal et la Gaspésie.
La harpiste montréalaise Sarah Pagé se produira également ce soir-là. Interprète solo phénoménale reconnue pour son habileté à aller au-delà de la palette tonale conventionnelle de la harpe, Sarah Pagé a également travaillé en collaboration avec des musiciens de plusieurs genres, dont Lhasa De Sela, Nadah El Shazly, Esmerine, les Barr Brothers et Land of Kush.
Cliquez ici pour voir les biographies complètes des artistes !
Comme tous les concerts publics du camp Coin-du-Banc en folie, cet événement est gratuit et ouvert à tous !

MILE Camp Concert: D. D. Jackson Solo Piano Improvisation
2025-08-11 20:00 | Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum, 294 route 132 est, Coin-du-Banc, Quebec, Canada
(Le français suit)
On Monday, August 11th, at 8:00 PM, audiences will have a unique opportunity to see an intimate improvised solo piano performance by D.D. Jackson at the Musée culturel de Coin-du-Banc / Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum (294 route 132 East in Coin-du-Banc).
Jackson, who has played with such jazz luminaries as Little Jimmy Scott, Laila Biali, Sammy Jackson, David Murray, Dewey Redman, Oliver Lake, James Carter, Milford Graves, Andrew Cyrille, Jack DeJohnette, Hamid Drake, Larnell Lewis, Pheeroan Aklaff, Billy Bang, William Parker, Ugonna Okegwo, James Newton, Jane Bunnett, Mino Cinelu, Mor Thiam, and Kahil el’Zabar, will have space to demonstrate the individual skills that make him a gifted and sought-after collaborator by some of the biggest names in improvised music.
As with all of our public MILE Camp concerts, this event is free and open to all!

Le lundi 11 août, à 20 h, le public aura l’occasion unique d’assister à un spectacle intime de piano solo improvisé par D.D. Jackson au Musée culturel de Coin-du-Banc / Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum (294, route 132 Est à Coin-du-Banc).
Jackson, qui a joué avec des sommités du jazz telles que Little Jimmy Scott, Laila Biali, Sammy Jackson, David Murray, Dewey Redman, Oliver Lake, James Carter, Milford Graves, Andrew Cyrille, Jack DeJohnette, Hamid Drake, Larnell Lewis, Pheeroan Aklaff, Billy Bang, William Parker, Ugonna Okegwo, James Newton, Jane Bunnett, Mino Cinelu, Mor Thiam et Kahil el’Zabar, aura l’occasion de démontrer les compétences individuelles qui font de lui un collaborateur doué et recherché par certains des plus grands noms de la musique improvisée.
Comme tous les concerts publics du camp Coin-du-Banc en folie, cet événement est gratuit et ouvert à tous !

MILE Camp Concert: D.D. Jackson + MILE Camp Participants
2025-08-15 16:00 | Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum, 294 route 132 est, Coin-du-Banc, Quebec, Canada
(Le français suit)
On Friday, August 15th, at 4:00 PM, D.D. Jackson will be joined by MILE Camp participants at the Musée culturel de Coin-du-Banc / Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum (294 route 132 East in Coin-du-Banc) for our third and final MILE Camp concert of the year! This performance—a Grand Finale group improvisation—will reflect the collaborative learning and musical exploration that MILE Camp participants have engaged in over the course of their weeklong retreat.
Come and see a renowned bandleader work with a cohesive unit of gifted improvisers who have come together in the beautiful setting of Coin-du-Banc for a week of close contact and shared experiences!
As with all of our public MILE Camp concerts, this event is free and open to all!

Le vendredi 15 août, à 16h00, D.D. Jackson sera rejoint par les participants du camp Coin-du-Banc en folie au Musée culturel de Coin-du-Banc / Corner of the Beach Cultural Museum (294 route 132 Est à Coin-du-Banc) pour notre troisième et dernier concert de l’année ! Cette performance — une grande finale d’improvisation de groupe — reflétera l’apprentissage collaboratif et l’exploration musicale auxquels se sont livrés les participants de Coin-du-Banc en folie au cours de leur retraite d’une semaine.
Venez voir un chef d’orchestre renommé travailler avec une unité cohérente d’improvisateurs doués qui se sont réunis dans le cadre magnifique de Coin-du-Banc pour une semaine de contact étroit et d’expériences partagées !
Comme tous les concerts publics du Camp Coin-du-Banc en folie, cet événement est gratuit et ouvert à tous !

cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema: Le silence de la mer (1949, dir. Jean-Pierre Melville)
2025-09-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Ontario
IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion is curating a special Francophone Cinema film series at The Bookshelf Cinema (41 Quebec Street, Guelph). These French-language films (with English subtitles) push the boundaries of cinematic convention to explore urgent, timely topics. Intended for Francophiles and cinephiles alike, the fall 2025 program brings together a brilliant constellation of politically minded artists that straddled the line between cinema and literature amid turbulent times (1940s—1960s), voicing their opposition to war, imperialism, and the spectre of fascism while also enacting and articulating their vision for a better, more just and equitable society.
The first film in the series will be Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le silence de la mer (1949). See the film synopsis and specifications below. We hope to see you there at the launch of this exciting monthly film series!

Le Silence de la mer
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Year: 1949
Country: France
Running Time: 87 minutes
Jean-Pierre Melville began his superb feature filmmaking career with this powerful adaptation of an influential underground novel written during the Nazi occupation of France. A cultured, naively idealistic German officer is billeted in the home of a middle-aged man and his grown niece; their response to his presence—their only form of resistance—is complete silence. Constructed with elegant minimalism and shot by the legendary Henri Decaë with hushed eloquence, Le silence de la mer points the way toward Melville’s later films about resistance and the occupation (Leon Morin, Priest; Army of Shadows) yet remains a singularly eerie masterwork in its own right.

cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema: Hiroshima mon amour (dir. Alain Resnais, 1959)
2025-10-15 19:00 - 21:00 | The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion is curating a special Francophone Cinema film series at The Bookshelf Cinema (41 Quebec Street, Guelph). These French-language films (with English subtitles) push the boundaries of cinematic convention to explore urgent, timely topics. Intended for Francophiles and cinephiles alike, the fall 2025 program brings together a brilliant constellation of politically minded artists that straddled the line between cinema and literature amid turbulent times (1940s—1960s), voicing their opposition to war, imperialism, and the spectre of fascism while also enacting and articulating their vision for a better, more just and equitable society.
The second film in the series will be Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima mon amour (1959). See the film synopsis and specifications below. We hope to see you there for the October edition of this exciting monthly film series!
Hiroshima mon amour
Director: Alain Resnais
Year: 1959
Country: France
Running Time: 90 minutes
A cornerstone of the French New Wave, the first feature from Alain Resnais is one of the most influential films of all time. A French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) engage in a brief, intense affair in postwar Hiroshima, their consuming mutual fascination impelling them to exorcise their own scarred memories oflove and suffering. With an innovative flashback structure and an Academy Award–nominated screenplay by novelist Marguerite Duras, Hiroshima mon amour is a moody masterwork that delicately weaves past and present, personal pain and public anguish.

Guelph Film Festival: Assembly—2025, dirs. Rashaad Newsome & Johnny Symons
2025-11-08 19:30 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
IICSI is proud to co-present Assembly, a film by Rashaad Newsome & Johnny Symons, at this year’s Guelph Film Festival!
The film, which runs for 99 minutes, will screen in ImprovLab on Saturday, November 8th, at 7:30 PM. This event is PWYW, with $15 suggested.
Assembly is a multisensory extravaganza featuring a global cast of performers, who transform New York’s historic Park Avenue Armory from a bastion of white military power into a vibrant celebration of Black and queer culture. Reimagining the military facility through video projections, AI holograms, sculptures, collages, music, dance, and African fractal patterns challenges colonial structures while honouring the complexity and resilience of Black experience, thereby turning pain into artistic power. One such moment is a memorial for murdered Black trans women that evolves into a protest march, highlighting art’s capacity for reclaiming agency and inspiring change, offering a vision of intergenerational resilience, transformation, and hope. The film transcends traditional documentary by weaving together Rashaad Newsome’s creative process, dynamic performances, and the lives of his collaborators through hybrid storytelling, visual effects, and the ongoing presence of ancestors.
Before and after the screening, audiences will be invited to experience interactive and collaborative multi-sensory experiences centring BIPOC and queer communities. For full details and to purchase tickets, please visit the listing on the Guelph Film Festival website. Don’t forget to check out other GFF events, too! The festival runs from November 7-15.

"Tracing the Life of Violence"— A talk by Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht, followed by an open discussion
2025-12-08 19:00 - 20:30 | Guelph Public Library, 100 Norfolk St., Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Be part of Guelph’s “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence” as IICSI 2025-26 Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht explores systemic violence in Katherena Vermette’s “The Break.”

As part of Guelph’s iteration of the “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence,” Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht will give a talk tracing lines of systemic violence in Katherena Vermette’s “The Break.” Copies of the book can be picked up at the Main Library’s circulation desk starting November 5, 2025. Copies are limited, and a library card is required to check these items out. Enjoy light refreshments and snacks!
The talk will be followed by an open discussion about the novel’s themes and intersections of violence, as well as agency and responsibility in the wake of assault and intergenerational trauma.
The event will be held in the Program Room on the second floor of the Library’s Main Branch (100 Norfolk St.).
Katherena Vermette: is a Métis writer from Treaty One territory, the heart of the Métis nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her first book, “North End Love Songs” (The Muses Company), won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her NFB short documentary, “this river,” won the Coup de Coeur at the Montreal First Peoples Festival and a Canadian Screen Award. Her first novel, “The Break,” is the winner of three Manitoba Book Awards and the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. It was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and CBC Canada Reads.
“The Break”: The novel opens by describing “the break,” a series of barren lots in a working-class neighbourhood in Winnipeg. In the winter, there’s hydro lines that buzz “quiet enough that you can ignore it.” The “buzz” acts as a metaphor for various forms of violence in the novel, including gender-based violence as something “you can just ignore.” It’s “just white noise,” the narrator tells readers, “and some people can ignore things like that. Some people can hear it but just get used to it.” Drawing attention to the “white noise” of gender-based violence allows us to reconsider how it plays out in our larger communities and what it means to take a stance to stop it. This activism, at once very personal and communal, is a small way we as individuals can take a stand and be a part of ending gender-based violence in all its forms.
Sharon D. Engbrecht: is a postdoctoral researcher at the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (University of Guelph). Their research delves into how narratives by women authors challenge the systems of power that perpetuate gender-based violence and discrimination. They hail from the Canadian prairies and recently completed their PhD at the University of British Columbia.
By participating in this program, you acknowledge and accept the Guelph Public Library’s Code of Conduct.
If you have any questions, please contact Library Programmer Lauren at lcontini@guelphpl.ca.
Alternative formats are available as per the Accessibility per Ontarians Act by contacting Library Communications at 519-824-6220.

cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema presents: L.A. Tea Time (2019, dir. Sophie Bedard Marcotte)
2026-01-21 19:00 - 21:00 | The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion is bringing his cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema curated film series back to The Bookshelf Cinema (41 Quebec Street, Guelph, ON).

From January through April, Dr. Fillion will present one film per month. These four films share the common theme of Quebeckers on road trips through the deserts of the southwestern United States. This theme has a personal significance for Dr. Fillion, and so he looks forward to sharing these films with the local community. Intended for cinephiles and Francophones alike, these films (in French with subtitles) depict young protagonists as they hit the road as an escape and a respite, in search of thrills and adventure, connection and purpose, meaning and closure. The first film in this second iteration of the series will be L.A. Tea Time (2019), by Sophie Bedard Marcotte.
Each screening begins at 7 PM, with regular tickets costing $14 and member or student tickets priced at $11 (both are inclusive of taxes and fees). Dr. Fillion will introduce each film ahead of its showing.

L.A. Tea Time
Director: Sophie Bedard Marcotte
Year: 2019
Country: Canada (Quebec)
Running Time: 82 minutes
A filmmaker stuck in an arid, jobless Montreal winter embarks on an improbable quest across the United States of America, taking her director of photography along for the journey. L.A. Tea Time is an unusual travelogue, at times meditative, at times haunted, recounting the adventures of Sophie and Isabelle with humour and a little touch of magic.

Cacophonie | Just Listening: Experiments with Collective Memory with Dr. Jordan Zalis
2026-02-05 10:00 - 12:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
This interactive workshop by Dr. Jordan Zalis invites you into the practice of just listening—an approach to storytelling and ethnographic engagement that centres care, attention, and the improvised encounters we create together. Through personal narratives about sports, games, and gaming, we’ll examine how play shapes our memories, identities, and communities.
The workshop unfolds in three movements: 1) a brief introduction to just listening as a practice with some simple listening exercises, 2) sharing stories about moments of play that stick with us, listening attentively to each other’s experiences, and then 3) playing together! We’re interested in the sensorial, the feelingful, and, of course, the relationships that emerge when we play, compete, watch, game, or recall—from our experiences playing pickup basketball to board game nights, from video game marathons to the World Cup.
Who should come? Everyone is welcome. We especially invite folks with strong connections to sports (basketball, hockey, soccer, etc.), games (chess, trivia, board games), or gaming (video games, e-sports, gambling). We aim to make these events as accessible as possible, and they are open to everyone regardless of age, ability, ethnicity, religion, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, political beliefs, or status. Folks with children are also welcome to bring them along and their participation will not be part of the study.
On workshop day, we all play!
Come ready to share a story, listen generously, and learn from each other.
To confirm participation and/or for more information, including about consent forms, please email Cacophonie’s curator, Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht, at sharon.engbrecht@uoguelph.ca.
If you decide to join us spontaneously, please do. Doors will be open 30 minutes before the event!

cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema presents: La Grande Noirceur (2018, dir. Maxime Giroux)
2026-02-11 19:00 - 21:00 | The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion is bringing his cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema curated film series back to The Bookshelf Cinema (41 Quebec Street, Guelph, ON).

From January through April, Dr. Fillion will present one film per month. These four films share the common theme of Quebeckers on road trips through the deserts of the southwestern United States. This theme has a personal significance for Dr. Fillion, and so he looks forward to sharing these films with the local community. Intended for cinephiles and Francophones alike, these films (in French with subtitles) depict young protagonists as they hit the road as an escape and a respite, in search of thrills and adventure, connection and purpose, meaning and closure. The second film in this iteration of the series will be La Grande Noirceur (2018), directed by Maxime Giroux.
Each screening begins at 7 PM, with regular tickets costing $14 and member or student tickets priced at $11 (both are inclusive of taxes and fees). Dr. Fillion will introduce each film ahead of its showing.
La Grande Noirceur
Director: Maxime Giroux
Year: 2018
Country: Canada (Quebec)
Running Time: 94 minutes
While a world war rages, Philippe, a draft-dodger from Quebec, takes refuge in the American West, surviving by competing in Charlie Chaplin impersonation contests. As Philippe makes his long journey home, he encounters various characters under the sway of a destructive madness borne of the chaotic times. His voyage, both violent and fascinating, is a hallucinatory initiation to the darker side of the American dream.

cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema presents: Déserts (2016, dirs. Charles-André Coderre and Yann-Manuel Hernandez)
2026-03-11 19:00 - 21:00 | The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion is bringing his cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema curated film series back to The Bookshelf Cinema (41 Quebec Street, Guelph, ON).

From January through April, Dr. Fillion will present one film per month. These four films share the common theme of Quebeckers on road trips through the deserts of the southwestern United States. This theme has a personal significance for Dr. Fillion, and so he looks forward to sharing these films with the local community. Intended for cinephiles and Francophones alike, these films (in French with subtitles) depict young protagonists as they hit the road as an escape and a respite, in search of thrills and adventure, connection and purpose, meaning and closure. The third film in this iteration of the series will be Déserts (2016), directed by Charles-André Coderre and Yann-Manuel Hernandez.
Each screening begins at 7 PM, with regular tickets costing $14 and member or student tickets priced at $11 (both are inclusive of taxes and fees). Dr. Fillion will introduce each film ahead of its showing.
Déserts
Director: Charles-André Coderre and Yann-Manuel Hernandez
Year: 2016
Country: Canada (Quebec)
Running Time: 93 minutes
A man chooses to run away from his everyday life in order to lose himself in the desert of Death Valley. While on his journey, he encounters a woman who accompanies him on his quest. As they embark deeper into the desert, heat and fever push them to extreme, psychological limits.

IBPOC Artists' Network Tour: From Words to Action 2025/2026—Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre and Coco Collective
2026-03-26 19:30 - 21:30 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Make your way to ImprovLab on March 26th for a double-bill presentation of spectacular live dance and music! Coco Collective and Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre will visit Guelph for one night only to perform at the ImprovLab.
Movement, voice, and percussion harmoniously come together for these individually and culturally expressive dance works.
“Calabash,” by Coco Collective, is a dance and live percussion journey exploring how African-diasporic communities cultivate everyday social bonds. This light-hearted narrative follows a woman’s labor of love in local food sovereignty and nurturing community connections.
In “Grandmother’s Drum,” by Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre, dance and voice fold into each other, becoming a single river of presence. Within its silence and its pulse, the past leans forward; the present opens; the body remembers what the mind forgets.
This performance is co-presented by IICSI, Guelph Dance, and the IBPOC Artists’ Network Tour, in collaboration with Wind in the Leaves Collective.
You can grab your tickets here!

cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema presents: Un 32 août sur terre (1998, dir. Denis Villeneuve)
2026-04-08 19:00 - 21:00 | The Bookshelf Cinema, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion is bringing his cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema curated film series back to The Bookshelf Cinema (41 Quebec Street, Guelph, ON).

From January through April, Dr. Fillion will present one film per month. These four films share the common theme of Quebeckers on road trips through the deserts of the southwestern United States. This theme has a personal significance for Dr. Fillion, and so he looks forward to sharing these films with the local community. Intended for cinephiles and Francophones alike, these films (in French with subtitles) depict young protagonists as they hit the road as an escape and a respite, in search of thrills and adventure, connection and purpose, meaning and closure. The final film in this iteration of the series will be Un 32 août sur terre (1998), directed by Denis Villeneuve.
Each screening begins at 7 PM, with regular tickets costing $14 and member or student tickets priced at $11 (both are inclusive of taxes and fees). Dr. Fillion will introduce each film ahead of its showing.
Un 32 août sur terre
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Year: 1998
Country: Canada (Quebec)
Running Time: 88 minutes
At 26, Simone is already rethinking her entire life after surviving a horrible car crash. She quits her job and heads off in search of her closest friend Philippe to ask him to have a child with her. Philippe is apprehensive, but finally agrees on condition that the conception occurs in the desert.

Cacophonie | choreographies of choice with Ms. Georgia Simms
2026-04-10 10:00 - 12:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
We’ll see you in ImprovLab on April 10th at 10 AM, when Ms. Georgia Simms (she/her) will lead this creative, interactive workshop that invites participants to engage in movement research framed by attention, shape, and momentum. Language, music, and the energy of the ensemble will create an atmosphere for experimentation, response, and reflection. This creative workshop is part of the Cacophonie series, curated by IICSI Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht!
We invite everyone who is interested in participating to join the creative workshops. We aim to make these events as accessible as possible, and they are open to everyone regardless of age, ability, ethnicity, religion, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, political beliefs, or status. Folks with children are also welcome to bring them along and their participation will not be part of the study.
To confirm participation and/or for more information, including about consent forms, please email sharon.engbrecht@uoguelph.ca.
If you decide to join us spontaneously, please do. Doors will be open 30 minutes before each event. There will be coffee, tea, and light snacks provided.
Ms. Georgia Simms (she/her) is a PhD student in the Critical Studies in Improvisation program at the University of Guelph. She is also an artist-mother who dances, performs, choreographs, facilitates, and organizes. Her current work investigates ‘ecstatic survival’, emotions, play, and relational repair through the blending of modern and post-modern sensibilities in solo, collective, and site-specific improvised movement composition
Dr. Sharon Engbrecht (they/them) comes from a background in theatre and visual arts, narrative theory, and critical studies in gender and sexuality. They have a knack for event planning and facilitating group events focused on storytelling and improvisation. Their research investigates questions of embodiment, identity, and relationality.

Cacophonie | Bridge to Terabithia: A Somatic Exploration of Childhood Self—A Creative Workshop with Mark LeRoy
2026-04-16 10:00 - 12:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Join us at ImprovLab for a workshop by Mark LeRoy, PhD student in Critical Studies in Improvisation, as part of Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht’s “Cacophonie” series!
For this event, prospective participants should read Bridge to Terabithia. Copies are available through the Guelph Public Library. If you are unable to find a copy, but would like to participate in the workshop, please e-mail sharon.engbrecht@uoguelph.ca. A limited number will be available through The Bookshelf at no cost to participants!
Through exploration and play guided by sensation, image, behaviour, and affect, we will explore how parts of us emerge within Terabithia, as we collectively hold space for embodied knowing and self- and group-coherence.
Terabithia becomes our imagination’s site of exploration and experimentation, where we are invited to lay down our certainties to wonder and explore the beauty of our fragile highs.
While reading Bridge to Terabithia prior to attending, you may consider:

How might ritual support your temporal encounter of reading Bridge to Terabithia?
As you immerse yourself in Jesse’s and Leslie’s world, how does your body emerge as a co-narrator?
How might we extend curiosity towards what our 10-year-old selves might be experiencing or want to share?
The name of your own magical land.

Mark LeRoy (he/him) is a PhD Student in Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph, researching how the liminal spaces of improvisation and negative capability, emerging from postmemory, might function as a rite of passage to embodied knowing. As a Registered Social Worker and Psychotherapist, Mark is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Internal Family Systems Therapist, supporting those affected by the silencing narrative of trauma.
Sharon Engbrecht (they/them) comes from a background in theatre, visual arts, narrative theory, and critical studies in gender and sexuality. They have a knack for event planning and facilitating group events focused on storytelling and improvisation. Their research invest igates questions of embodiment, identity, and relationality.

The Stratford Festival Presents "Take the 'A' Train... to Stratford," featuring Dr. Eric Fillion, Melvin Gibbs, and Garvia Bailey
2026-07-11 17:30 - 19:00 | Lazaridis Hall, Tom Patterson Theatre, 111 Lakeside Dr., Stratford, Ontario, . N5A 7K5, Canada
Join us on July 11th for this exciting Stratford Festival event! Titled “Take the ‘A’ Train… to Stratford,” this conversation will feature IICSI Director Dr. Eric Fillion, musician and writer Melvin Gibbs, and journalist, producer, and Jazzcast co-founder Garvia Bailey!
These three will discuss the period from 1956 to 1958, when the Stratford Festival’s stages branched out beyond Shakespearean programming to host concerts by such legendary jazz figures as Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson and Billie Holiday. Why did these artists venture to Stratford? What what was the cultural significance of these concerts? What broader implications did these events have for the Canadian jazz scene? Come find out!
This Meighen Forum event will take place at 5:30 PM on Saturday, July 11th, in the Lazaridis Hall at Tom Patterson Theatre. Tickets for the event are $39, and available through the Stratford Festival website! This talk is generously supported by the T.R. Meighen Family Foundation.

Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium 2026: Artists On/Off the Record: Living Archives and Embodied Memory
2026-09-10 13:00 - 2026-09-11 16:00 | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
In what ways can/do artists engage with archival materials—those held in institutional and community archives as well as those typically referred to as ephemera—to interrogate the aesthetic and political dimensions of cultural memory? How can/do they generate new, future-oriented archives through creative practice, research, and community-based work? To what extent can/do they enact and expand repertoires of embodied memory to build and sustain community?
The 2026 edition of the Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium explores archival heritage as a dynamic, open-ended process. Bringing together artists, scholars, and community practitioners, it considers how archives are constituted, activated, contested, and transformed by—and in the hands of—artists engaged in improvisatory worldmaking.
Approaching archives as both accrued and curated, inherited and self-generated, the colloquium also attends to archives as living and embodied. Through presentations, creative works, and discussion, it foregrounds diverse perspectives, community engagement, experimental practices, and innovative methodologies that illuminate the aesthetic and political dimensions of cultural memory while imagining archives as sites of future possibility.
Visit the colloquium page for more information!
