cinéma FRANCOPHONE cinema presents: La Grande Noirceur (2018, dir. Maxime Giroux)
2026-02-11 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | 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!
