Registration for the ICASC Fall Institute - Exploring Arts for Social Change: Communities in Action is full! If you are interested in attending please put your name on the waiting list and note that ICASC hopes to offer this program again in the spring semester.

Registration for the ICASC Fall Institute - Exploring Arts for Social Change: Communities in Action is now open!

Registration for non-credit students here.

Registration for credit students, please see the Faculty of Education homepage.

ICASC is pleased to advise that credit arrangements for the upcoming Fall Institute/Special Topics Course have been confirmed. Offered in collaboration with SFU Faculties of Education and Continuing Studies, for credit and non-credit learners, this unique course will take place over 12 weeks in three-hour, once-weekly evening sessions starting on September 8th, 2010. Updated course details and credit information here.

ICASC is pleased to announce its first Fall Institute, Exploring Arts for Social Change. This is the first university-based course of its kind to be offered in Canada.
We encourage the participation of students, artists and anyone interested in exploring community-engaged arts as potent elements in diverse agendas such as:
• health promotion and training
• work with youth and elders, with new Canadians and with marginalized populations
• social justice, human rights and environmental work
• inter-generational and inter-cultural work
• conflict resolution

“So What is Art for Social Change?”, a new half-hour video about the many ways that community-engaged arts are evolving around the world, will be available in March. An entertaining compendium of diverse examples from Canada and abroad, the video also includes comments from senior writers and practitioners in the field.
This video is a companion piece to Despertar, available for download or viewing on this website.

See attachment for full size image.

• African Initiative February 2010.pdf

Judith Marcuse recently returned from The Hague, where she spoke and taught in the Peace Palace at an international conference on the arts and conflict resolution, later travelling to Senegal and Mali to meet with artists and others who are using the arts in community development and other educational and social change agendas.
She returns to Africa in March to speak at the Arts and Humanity Conference in Durban, South Africa.

ICASC would like to thank everyone who attended the recent presentations and dialogues with Arlene Goldbard and Liz Lerman, two world leaders in the field of art in community/community cultural development. We were delighted to host Arlene and Liz. Their knowledge, clarity and humour, as well as their generosity, created memorable moments of shared stories and perspectives, new learning, and creative insight for us all.

Ottawa, September 16, 2009 – The Canada Council for the Arts announced today that Vancouver-based artistic director, producer and choreographer Judith Marcuse has been awarded the 2009 Jacqueline Lemieux Prize.

We are pleased to announce that two of the world’s leading figures in the world of art for social change/art in community will be coming to Vancouver in October. ICASC is pleased to announce the following two free public events:

Canadian choreographer Judith Marcuse toured her latest large scale multi-media live theatre/dance creation, EARTH=home, to youth audiences across Canada in March and April 2009. Thirty-six performances were presented to an audience of over 10,000 youth and adults in West Vancouver, Nanaimo, Surrey, Vernon, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Vancouver. 

The staff and directors of Judith Marcuse Projects (JMP) are pleased to announce that the most recent production in Judith Marcuse’s trilogy of dance-theatre works for young people, EARTH=home, will soon be on the road for a five-week, nine-city Canadian tour, 5 March-25 April 2009.

• JMP--EARTH tour media media release 2 March 2009.pdf

Judith Marcuse taught a day-long workshop in January, 2009, for the students of Simon Fraser University’s innovative Semester in Dialogue program. The current term’s program is called Designing the Future. Also in January, Judith was part of a dialogue with students in the SFU certificate program in Sustainable Community Development. The topic: Making Change Happen.

We are pleased to report that ICASC’s recent three days of Creative Conversations activities were, indeed, very creative events!

• Datastan Storyland Goldbard presentation11-3-08.pdf

Judith Marcuse Projects is pleased to announce the national tour of their multi-media live theatre/dance creation, EARTH=home, to youth and family audiences across Canada in March/April 2009. Part of a series of works designed to address issues concerning today’s young people, EARTH=home encourages youth 12 to 17 years old to think about environmental and social issues, and to participate in their communities in work for positive change.

The International Centre of Art for Social Change website (ICASC.ca) has launched!

This website has been created so that ICASC can communicate upcoming news and events, programs and services, as well as provide a forum (via the ICASC Blog) for dialogue.

As a registered user you will have the ability to contribute to the ICASC blog, so why not click the Blog Sign in button and create an account now so your voice can be heard!

We also invite you to sign up for the ICASC newsletter by clicking on Newsletter sign-up where we will add your email to our mailing list so you can receive occasional updates about the site and what is happening in Art for Social Change. (When you create a blog sign in you are automatically added to the newsletter. You can opt out again by clicking Newsletter sign-up and unselecting the newsletter)

We value and appreciate your comments, feedback and suggestions. Please direct all inquiries to info@icasc.ca. Full contact details can be found on the Contact Us page.

Judith Marcuse, Celeste Snowber and Lynn Fels from ICASC hosted a dialogue about the Centre at the PTW gathering in New York as part of research about how best to fulfill the needs of practitioners in the field of art for social change as well as to develop our Centre’s networks. For more information about PTW: www.performingtheworld.org

Judith Marcuse attended the Social Venture Institute gathering at Hollyhock, September 11-14th. ICASC was one of three case studies – designed to help non-profits “become sustainable”.

In the summer of 2006, some 300 activist artists from around the world performed, exhibited, taught workshops and connected with about 20,000 visitors during EWUF – (EARTH: the World Urban Festival) in Vancouver. EWUF was the official festival of the United Nations’ World Urban Forum and was produced by JMP.