As Ocean Networks Canada’s (ONC) second artist-in-residence, Dennis Gupa is using the tools of theatre and drama to help bring about social change and build a sense of community in an attempt to grapple with the impact of climate change on the world’s island nations.
Dennis Gupa, ONC’s second artist-in-residence and University of Victoria PhD candidate. Credit: John Threlfall.
“This residency program comes at a time of crisis in ocean sustainability,” comments ONC chief scientist Kim Juniper. “Science-art collaborations such as this one bring together the insight and power of two ways of looking at the world, and will hopefully lead to new understanding and greater benefits for our ocean and our future.”
Join us on 10.30am Friday 11 June for an opportunity to meet Dennis in conversation with two other multidisciplinary artists working with ONC at the intersection of ocean art and science. “Ocean Art Ocean Science: How 3 artists are using science to express care for the ocean.”
The following article about Dennis’s work was published in the University of Victoria’s The Ring, published here with permission.
FROM SEA RITUALS TO APPLIED THEATRE AND SCIENCE
7 April 2021, written by John Threlfall
The idea of artists working with scientists is nothing new to Dennis Gupa.
A PhD candidate in the University of Victoria’s theatre department, Gupa is also the current artist-in-residence with Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), a UVic initiative. He sees the arts residency, launched by UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts and ONC two years ago, as a natural fit with his doctoral focus on Indigenous sea rituals, climate change and sustainable ecology.
Gupa’s term at ONC will wrap up in by July. He’s also finishing his doctoral work in applied theatre at UVic this season under the supervision of UVic theatre professor Kirsten Sadeghi-Yetka, whose experience in community-engaged research includes projects in Indigenous language revitalization through theatre with children in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, young people in Brazilian favelas, young women in rural areas of Cambodia and students with special needs in schools in The Netherlands.
Gupa wearing a traditional Filipino malong at a local beach in Victoria, 2021. Credit: John Threlfall
As with any applied theatre practitioner, Gupa also wants to use the tools of theatre and drama to help bring about social change and build a sense of community—and, in his case, to attempt to grapple with the gravity of global warming especially in the island nations of the world.
Applied theatre, traditional knowledge and climate crisis
Having grown up in the Philippines, Gupa has witnessed firsthand the threat of extreme weather events. With his country being a former colony—extending across 7,600 islands and known for its maritime history, marine diversity and Indigenous population—the parallels between the Philippines and Vancouver Island are clear to Gupa. He says this is probably the reason he decided to do his grad studies at UVic.
By looking at the experience and knowledge of local people—who have been experiencing these climatic events for so many years, but are not really given a lot of opportunities to tell their stories—we can learn from their knowledge and wisdom. Our poetries and songs renew our kinship with the ocean. —Dennis Gupa, applied theatre PhD candidate in UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts and current artist-in-residence at ONC
Gupa’s research focuses on traditional ways of knowing, as well as storytelling and applied theatre, and how these elements can be drawn into important discussions and dialogue in support of social justice, community participation and climate action.
A youth theatre project in 2015 co-directed by Gupa for a rural high school “glee club” in the Philippines. Credit: The Perfect Grey | ASEAN Center for Biodiversity
And he very much believes in bringing people together to share stories. Gupa says, “I create interdisciplinary work with a kinship among knowledge disciplines. One of the fascinating functions of an artist is being an interlocutor, bringing people together to share our stories.” He conducted field work in the Samar-Leyte region of the Philippines, working closely with local elders on the island community of Guiuan, where the super typhoon Yolanda in 2013—one of the deadliest on record—first made landfall.
Strengthening connections between art and science
Sharing stories is exactly what Gupa has in mind with the ONC initiative: recently repositioned as an opportunity for graduate students in UVic’s Faculty of Fine Arts, the ONC artist-in-residence program exists to strengthen connections between art and science, and ignite cross-disciplinary exchanges around the major issues facing oceans today.
This residency program comes at a time of crisis in ocean sustainability. Science-art collaborations such as this one bring together the insight and power of two ways of looking at the world, and will hopefully lead to new understanding and greater benefits for our ocean and our future.—ONC chief scientist Kim Juniper
While the pandemic is complicating Gupa’s original idea to create an immersive, ONC data-fueled performance experience involving the Filipino diaspora community—including playwright Karla Comanda, Vietnamese-Canadian actor Thai-Hoa Le, classical singer Jeremiah Carag and Philippine-based composer Darren Vega—Gupa is still hopeful about uniting these two worlds during his spring 2021 residency.
“How can we share our stories with the scientists, and what does that mean to them to listen to immigrants?” Gupa ponders. “How does our history of exile connect with the history of climate disaster? We’ve never really tapped into that or discussed it in a scientific space.”
For Gupa, the ONC residency is less a challenge and more a cumulative opportunity between his artistic and academic pursuits.
“There’s a lesson in fluidity that this water is teaching me and I’d like to bring that to the fore in my work … it’s not just a fascination, but water is so embodied in my work as an artist. It’s beautiful but it’s also dangerous. We cannot wait any longer for inclusive and deeper collaborations to make things better for all living things in this earth—both seen and unseen.”
Social justice for the seas
“When we think of the water, I think of social justice,” Gupa adds. “As an archipelagic country surrounded by water, the Philippines have been suffering from ocean disasters due to climate change: resources are depleting, coral are bleaching, fish are dying and the waters are warming so the fish don’t have food. So what do they do? They migrate, just like Filipinos—fish are the first climate refugees.”
Gupa has also been looking at how climate change has impacted Canadian Filipino diaspora communities, with whom he created and then toured a highly collaborative theatrical production in 2018 (Victoria, Vancouver, Winnipeg).
Gupa performing the mask of Imelda Marcos during his production of Murupuro/Island of Constellations in 2018. Credit: Fiona Ngai
Interdisciplinary conversations on global issues
In addition to collaborating with ONC at UVic, Gupa was a visiting graduate research fellow at UVic’s Centre for Studies in Religion and Society in 2019/20 and a recipient of a 2017 student research fellowship from the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives at UVic. He is also a Vanier Scholar.
Scientists spend hours in their labs thinking about their work, similar to what theatre and performance artists do in their rehearsal spaces. We’re all exploring and searching for meaning; this kind of interdisciplinary conversation simply lets us be better adjusted to global issues.—Gupa
Gupa also spent a decade at the University of the Philippines Los Baños where, in addition to teaching theatre, he was named the first head of the Office of Arts and Science Fusion Program.
In 2011, Gupa received a grant from the Asian Cultural Council (established by John D. Rockefeller III) for six months in as the director-in-residence with Ma-Yi Theatre Company in New York City.
His collaborative work has also won support from the British Columbia Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, World Bank Manila Office/Australian Agency for International Development, ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity and the Dharmasiswa Scholarship through the Indonesian government’s Ministry of Education, among many others.
Gupa has an MFA Directing (Theatre) degree from UBC and an MA (Theatre) from University of the Philippines.
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