Polar Bears and Performance: Perspectives from the Arts and Humanities

7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Fort Calgary750 9 Ave SE, Calgary, AB T2G 5E1

Presented with support from the Calgary Institute for the Humanities and the Arctic Institute of North America.  Apex predator, premier zoo attraction, and sentinel species for climate change: the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) inspires admiration, fear, fascination, exploitation, and activism.

As the Calgary Zoo prepares new habitat for up to four polar bears in 2023, join an interdisciplinary panel offering current creative and scholarly research on an Arctic icon. Three presentations by University of Calgary Arts faculty members examine polar bears through the lens of performance.

Dr. Craig Ginn will launch his new music video, “Ever-wandering One,” informed by Indigenous understandings of animal-human relationality and his own observations and experiences with Nanuk. Dr. George Colpitts unearths a 1942 documentary from the archives showing Quebec’s famous/infamous zoo polar bears. Dr. Penny Farfan explores polar bears in historic postcards and popular entertainment in the age of modernism.

Spend an evening re-imagining the polar bear in music, motion film, and historic photography.  A reception will follow the presentations.

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