Witness

Heather is an interdisciplinary performing artist-scholar, queer settler and parent based in Toronto, Treaty 13 Dish with One Spoon territory. Her work has explored the interface between archive, land, body, and performance. Since 2005 she has been collaborating with Diane Roberts, with whom she co-founded backforward collective with Danielle Smith in 2007 as an incubator of Arrivals-related pedagogies and new works. She was an Associate Artist at urban ink productions, Vancouver from 2008 to 2014; and has co-facilitated Arrivals training with Diane across Canada. Her interdisciplinary performance work ribcage: this wide passage, directed by Diane Roberts, was the first work seeded through the Arrivals process through to production, performed in French as thorax : une cage en éclats. The show has been performed at Montréal Arts Interculturels; AKI Studio Theatre, Toronto; Tremors Festival and Firehall Arts Centre, Vancouver. Also seeded in the Arrivals process, Heather’s one-to-one performance Aujourdhuy/ This Day 1738 was performed at Rhubarb Festival, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto. Heather has taught community-engaged research and community-engaged practice at University of Toronto and York University. Her PhD in Gender Studies from Utrecht University, The Netherlands, was catalyzed by the Arrivals process and in part centres performance practice as historical research methodology.