Performing on Canada's Stage

The National Arts Centre's archival collections are a rich resource for documenting Canada’s performing arts history. The collection is full of rare objects, including costumes worn by the country’s most important actors, stage design maquettes by the top designers, and photos of world renown artists. 

Through the Performing on Canada's Stage project, research groups in the Advanced Research in Music seminar in the School of Music in the Winter 2021 semester had a unique approach to archival research. Unable to physically visit the archives to work with Archivist-Curator Robert VanderBerg due to the Covid-19  pandemic, students had to rely on already digitized artefacts and learn to catalogue them without having the possibility of holding them in their hands. Through research and meetings with Dr. Watson and Robert VanderBerg, students in the course learned to ask questions of the materials, and rely on various forms of institutional documentation, published histories, and news to piece together the contextual details surrounding their artefacts. 

The projects undertaken by students in the course considered a range of issues relatied to performance on Canada's national stage from the financial circumstances surrounding the NAC's desires to staging opera (was it doomed to fail?), to the controversy surrounding busts of  Béla Bartók and Zoltan Kodály sculpted by state-funded Hungarian artist Pál Pátzay (an artist supported by the Hungarian Communist Party), to representation of artists of color and women in popular music programming in the first seven years after opening (did programming represent Canada's growing vision of multiculturalism?), to the NAC Orchestra's role in cultural diplomacy for the country with their trip to the Middle East and Europe (how did they represent the country on an international stage?). 

This work was not easy to do remotely, but each group worked hard and persevered. Throughoug the course of the term they reflected on the continually evolving role of the National Arts Centre, exploring the role that policies and practices play in developing, preserving, and fostering Canadian culture and national identity.

Discover the world of Performing on Canada's Stage through these exhibits!

Performing on Canada's Stage