First meeting to be held Thursday, October 7, 2021, at 4:00 pm. Subsequent meetings each Thursday after.

Join us here:  https://usask-ca.zoom.us/j/95159577760?pwd=dlBZUHJBZGxoY2xzQTRJREdHZWNidz09 

 

The Department of Drama invite you join a group of students, faculty, staff, and alumni as we commit to meeting online once per week to read the TRC summary report together over the fall term.

 

We intend to meet for an hour each week, during which time we’ll take turns reading aloud from the report for 30 min and then discuss or quietly reflect on what we’ve read for the rest of the hour. It will likely take 12 weeks or more to read the report. We hope to begin on Oct 7^th, the week following Orange Shirt Day on Sept 30^th.

 

In the wake of the horrific revelations of unmarked grave sites, and with more still likely to emerge, we feel that it is necessary that we read the TRC together. We have also heard the call from many Indigenous groups, including Native Earth Performing Arts, for white/non-Indigenous/settler Canadians to read the TRC.

 

By committing to reading the TRC (Executive Summary) over a series of weeks this fall, we seek to deepen our understanding of how the residential school system perpetuated the genocide of Indigenous peoples across Canada. In this, we draw inspiration from projects such as the TRC Reading Challenge and Theatre Passe Muraille’s reading of the TRC this summer. By joining together as a community of theatre educators and students, we hope that the shared experience of reading aloud and reflecting on the knowledge shared in the report will give us a strong base of understanding to respectfully work together in the future. 

 

This is part of a cross-Canada initiative organized by theatre professors from York, McGill, Western, XU (formerly Ryerson) and U of A. Currently there are reading groups organized in U of Sask, SFU, Carleton, Guelph, Queen's, Concordia (in Edmonton), U of T Scarborough, Western, York, McGill, U of A, and XU.

 

To indicate your interest (to either read with our group or on your own), please fill out this google form. Deneh'Cho Thompson will contact participants to schedule a time.

 

We welcome you to forward this invitation and invite others to join us.