Mini Film Festival / Mini festival de film
2026-04-01 14:30 - 21:00 (America/Toronto) | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Make your way to ImprovLab on April 1st, for a film festival curated by MA students in French and Francophone Studies at the University of Guelph! The students will present a selection of fiction and documentary films, spanning shorts and feature-length options, all of which are in French with English subtitles.
This free event will feature two screenings (afternoon and evening). The afternoon screening will run from 2:30 PM to 5 PM, with the evening screening running from 6:30 PM to 9 PM.
The afternoon program will feature the following documentary films:

From here, elsewhere (Chadi Bennani, 2023)
Your call is important to us (Romy Boutin St-Pierre and Joe Nadeau, 2023)
There’s a star (Julien Cadieux, 2023)

The evening program will highlight works of cinematic fiction:

Rosie (Gail Maurice, 2018)
You’re sleeping, Nicole (Stéphane Lafleur, 2014)

Reserve your free spot on EventBrite!

Cacophonie | choreographies of choice with Ms. Georgia Simms
2026-04-10 10:00 - 12:00
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
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.
