The Cascade Vol. 24 No. 9

MARCH 16 TO MARCH 23, 2016

VOLUME 24 ISSUE 9

Hoping for something hopeful to happen since 1993

SUS ELECTION RESULTS 路 PG. 5 New fees for 2016-17 debated 路 PG. 3, 4, 9 Bureaucracy at UFV 路 PG. 9

WWW.UFVCASCADE.CA

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

CONTENTS

News

Opinion

Culture & Events

New international fee detailed

Strangled by red tape

Melanie Jones, professor and filmmaker

Thrusting and dancing through Twelfth Night

First-year administration charge opposed by student union, explained by director

Frustrated with bureaucracy — a look at the difficulty in getting things done at UFV

Visual arts instructor releases feature length film, talks film studies

Viewpoints and physical comedy combine in mainstage UFV show

6

9

10

18

CONTRIBUTORS

STAFF Editor-in-Chief Michael Scoular michael@ufvcascade.ca

Opinion Editor Alex Rake alex@ufvcascade.ca

Illustrator Sultan Jum sultan@ufvcascade.ca

Managing Editor (interim) Glen Ess glen@ufvcascade.ca

Culture & Events Editor Glen Ess glen@ufvcascade.ca

Webmaster (interim) Michael Scoular michael@ufvcascade.ca

Arts in Review Editor Martin Castro martin@ufvcascade.ca

Multimedia Editor Mitch Huttema mitch@ufvcascade.ca

Production Manager Brittany Cardinal brittany@ufvcascade.ca

Staff Writer Sonja Klotz sonjak@ufvcascade.ca

Production Assistant Danielle Collins danielle@ufvcascade.ca

Advertising Rep Kayla Schuurmans kayla@ufvcascade.ca

Business Manager Jennifer Trithardt-Tufts jennifer@ufvcascade.ca Copy Editor Kat Marusiak kat@ufvcascade.ca News Editor Vanessa Broadbent vanessa@ufvcascade.ca

Arts in Review

Megan Lambert Joel Robertson-Taylor Terrill Smith Harvin Bhathal

WWW.UFVCASCADE.CA @UFVCASCADE FACEBOOK.COM/UFVCASCADE INSTAGRAM.COM/THE.CASCADE

Ayanda Gatsha Jasmine-Hope Silva Erick Ramirez-Velez

Volume 24 · Issue 9 Room S2111 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 Cover Design: Sultan Jum

The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It originated under its current name in 1993, and achieved autonomy from the university and the Student Union Society in 2002. This means that The Cascade is a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published in an entirely student-run setting. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds, and is overseen by the Cascade Journalism Society Board, a body run by a student majority. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a print circulation of 1,500 and is distributed at Abbotsford, Chilliwack (CEP), Clearbrook, and Mission UFV campuses and throughout the surrounding communities.

The Cascade is open to written, photo, and design work from all students; these can come in the form of a pitch to an editor, or an assignment from an editor. Writers meetings are held each Monday at 2:00 p.m. in The Cascade’s office on the Abbotsford campus.

2

In order to be published in the newspaper, all work must first be approved by The Cascade’s editor-in-chief, copy editor, and corresponding section editor. The Cascade reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, homophobic or libellous content. Letters to the editor, while held to the same standard, are unedited, and should be under 400 words. As The Cascade is an autonomous student publication, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, The Cascade’s staff and collective, or associated members.

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

EDITORIAL

NEWS BRIEFS New grading policy approved

EDITORIAL

The university without an identity No one knows how to make UFV a place where students gather together. Will that ever change?

MICHAEL SCOULAR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

A consistent, university-wide grading policy was approved by Senate at its March meeting. Where grading percentage-to-letter-grade standards now vary between some disciplines, beginning in the next fall semester, that will no longer be the case. The new scale now defines an A+ as a minimum of 90 per cent, and a C-, the minimum letter grade required, in many cases, to have a completed course count as a prerequisite, as 60 per cent. Research conducted to inform the policy revision shows UFV will now have similar standards to other institutions, including the University of Victoria and the University of Toronto.

Tutoring services cut from UBC Writing Centre UBC students will no longer be able to receive help with their essay writing from the Writing Centre on campus, starting September 2016. UBC administration has not yet confirmed the reasoning behind their decision, however, tutors have suggested that it could be a result of financial problems. “There is no replacement for this service,” said Allison O’Neil, a UBC grad who worked as a tutor at the Centre. “It’s important to a lot of students.” Students are circulating an online petition, advocating that the centre stay open. So far, the petition has over 700 signatures.

—The Ubyssey Provincial government donates $75,000 to UFV co-op program The provincial government is donating $75,000 to UFV’s co-op program.

UFV is one of 16 universities receiving a combined total of $1.3 million.

The donation came as a part of the B.C. government’s B.C. Co-op Week, which runs March 14 to 18.

Correction In the March 2 issue, the article “Your guide to the SUS election” stated that “No plan has yet been disclosed regarding the management of SUS services beyond the food services in the SUB.” It also incorrectly listed that one of these was the IT desk on the third floor of the SUB. Following the resignation of services director of Shane Potter, management of the campus connector, U-Pass, and health and dental plan were added to the duties of the SUS’s executive director, Meghan McDonald.

“There is, thank God, no such thing as an ‘Illinois student.’ We are so various that not even the most misty-eyed alumni could confuse us. We are not typical — of each other, or of anything else. This University is too big, and we are too many, for it to be possible that a product could be turned out here … And that is not a weakness but a strength.”

— Roger Ebert Explaining the reasons for the new “Experiential Learning and Wellness fee” last week, Jody Gordon, the vice-president overseeing student services at UFV, said this isn’t merely a fee, it’s a contribution toward taking a good, hard look at how to help the “whole student.” The Cascade covered the new fee in last week’s issue, and there’s an opinion article that takes a different angle on the fee a few pages away in this week’s issue, and the Board of Governors, diplomatically trying to summarize and justify and appeal to everyone, offered an explanation to all in a myUFV bulletin many first saw today (for me, Tuesday) — if your internet connection was working. (The bulletin ends with a promise for a new plan to increase student support funding — how that will fit into a just-drafted budget that added two new fees to an already constrained budget remains to be seen.) So there’s a pretty good amount of information out there if you want to start understanding why there will be yet another line (or lines) on your registration payment slip next fall.

But the “whole student” — I found that term interesting. Administrators tend to use phrases that mean a great deal if you’re reading the same research and attending the same meetings they do, but for those of us not keeping up-to-date with university management trends, it can often end up as jargon that means next to nothing — which is problematic if the university (or a newspaper reporting at a university) wants to be understood.

In this case, the term refers to what is also called “holistic development,” or education that develops a student’s sense of who they are, not only what they picked up from a course. Moral education, emotional education, the link between thinking, feeling, and action. Some courses cover this in part, but it’s not at the surface of a major or minor in the same way as the disciplines we become students of. And Gordon was saying this fee, this fee that isn’t as bad as it could’ve been, according to the university, is going toward that, that’s what will grow because of this fee. No one, of course, could say that sounds like a bad area to grow.

But I’m not sure about this idea. Kathleen M. Quinlan, the head of educational development at the University of Oxford, has written on this subject, and what she says applies to more at UFV than just a single fee.

“In advocating a broader view of the educational process, [this idea] also challenges — either explicitly or implicitly — the purposes of education, typically protesting against economic and managerial discourses,” she writes. “Such discourses reduce students to consumers or to packaged products with a set of specifications (‘graduate attributes’).”

Now, the problem is that many students come to UFV to get a degree to get a better job — the position requires it, employers look at qualifications, part of the university’s mandate is to serve the Fraser Valley, and it does so in a large way by connecting with local businesses and offering a selection of professional and trades programs. Higher education, as we know from the provincial government’s priorities, is a commodity, another section on its budget, a place where people look to find a product. Is, then, the idea of a whole student incompatible with what UFV offers — is it an ideal that we can only claim a piece of?

“We hear regularly from employers how advantageous [experiential learning] is in the competition for post-graduate employment,” writes Barry Delaney, the chair of the Board of Governors. While experiential learning, recreational education, and additional support for the Career Centre and Peer Resource and Leadership Centre could all end up having a positive effect at UFV, the way the university’s highest body of decisionmaking has chosen to speak about the change isn’t based on the core concepts of holistic development.

Illustration: Sultan Jum

One last quote from Quinlan: “To grow students holistically, [leaders] need to attend to and align the culture of the institution, the curriculum, the co-curriculum and the sense of campus community.”

What, a newspaper needs to ask, is going on here? And UFV’s “here” is not easily summarized, and UFV’s “sense of community” is just as vague — is this a large community (the whole of the Valley, the thousands of students), or a tiny one (the numbers of students who have time for recreation, who will repeatedly use the services funded by the new fee)?

These student services are trying to grow the community of UFV, to create a greater sense of belonging for students — the hope that they can be taken care of here. But the misaligned communities of UFV aren’t going to be righted by a fee and a few staff.

In the past, particularly during its era as a publication run out of the Student Union Society, the pages of The Cascade were filled with screeds about lack of activity on campus. “Get involved!” they cried, desperate for people to “connect with us,” providing no compelling reasons for a student over-loaded with other commitments to re-write their schedule.

Decades later, the basic approaches of this institution to connect with students, to build a community, have not changed: mail, posters, public announcements, decisions made based on a focus group or a conversation that involved, in actual numbers, a handful of students or less (a recently added app, with no major announcement and very low download numbers, basically combines these approaches — very similar to the recently discontinued SUS app). Like The Cascade in the past, wishing for a solid, definable group of students to come together en masse is not going to happen. Right now, there isn’t even a single student informed and aware enough to have put their name forward for representative positions on the Board of Governors or Senate for next year.

While no one’s expecting the new fee to completely transform UFV, this move is part of a larger trend — one that is understood and clear internally, but, at its worst, looks like throwing money at a problem that UFV is not equipped to solve — if there’s an idea here beyond staff hires and service campaigns, it has not been stated. Does it make this university look more professional, come closer to completing its range of services, and align with the provincial mandate? Yes, of course. But it’s hard to see how it will change the way students, at least the ones that will never make it onto a top 40 alumni list, routinely go to and from its campuses.

3

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

NEWS New fee for first-year international students added for 2016-17 Lack of student consultation and trend of continued increases criticized MICHAEL SCOULAR THE CASCADE

In addition to a 3.2 per cent tuition raise, first-year international students will pay a new fee of $700 per semester beginning with the next academic year.

The “International Administration Fee,” passed during the in camera (private) session of the December Board of Governors meeting, was briefly detailed during last week’s budget forum, but the Student Union Society (SUS) has criticized the announcement — students weren’t consulted, nor are they being properly informed about the new fee, they say.

“UFV administration said only that the fee helps cover the costs of recruiting students and providing them support and orientation services as they transition to life at UFV and in Canada,” wrote SUS vice-president external Sukhi Brar in a statement opposing the new fee. “These services already exist for international students, and no plans were presented on how the additional $1,400 paid by these students would enhance their transition and education.”

David McGuire, the executive director of UFV International, says the new fee was created so that first-year students would be paying for first-year services.

“When we recently examined the costs associated with our international office, we found that many of our expenses were tied to the pre-arrival and first-year phase of the student life cycle,” McGuire writes in an email. “These costs, like others in our area, are going up. Rather than spread these costs across all students, we opted to move it to the first-year stage.”

McGuire adds that, factoring in the current exchange rate, the fee increase does not look as drastic as it might at first appear.

“Certainly, exchange rates aren’t helping [the university],” McGuire says. “On the other hand, the weak Canadian dollar is great for those paying with funds from their home country ... in four of our five major markets, the 2016 tuition is lower than our 2014 tuition.” McGuire refers to China, India, Japan, and Saudi Arabia (with South Korea as the exception).

Unlike domestic tuition, international students’ tuition is

neither subsidized by the provincial government, nor capped by a tuition limit policy. At the federal and provincial levels of government, increases in international student populations are a priority — UFV’s own Strategic Enrollment and Management (SEM) Plan summarizes these goals, and projects a rise to over 1000 international students by September 2017.

But despite these reasons, Brar says the key missing element here is communication with students. While the new fee will apply to students currently being recruited, the tuition raise affects students already living in the Fraser Valley.

“Whenever there’s something that’s going to be affecting students, normally the institution does either let [SUS] know or ask for our feedback,” Brar says. “In this case it didn’t happen that way.”

Brar says she has yet to receive a response to her statement as of press time, though one is promised to be coming soon.

So far, the university has updated its tuition table online, and the new fee will be listed along with other costs in offer letters to potential new students.

“We’re extremely grateful for what those international students bring financially, but socially and culturally as well,” said president Mark Evered at the budget forum held in Abbotsford. Vice-provost Peter Geller added that beyond the end of the SEM plan in 2019, UFV will be at full capacity for international students — any more and infrastructural changes — and more costs — will be necessary.

Brar says this increase comes as part of a broader trend of continued increases. While this year’s additions were made with the aims of keeping education for students beyond the first year relatively low, the historical data suggests another increase will come in a year’s time.

“This is a worrying decision by UFV, and could start a trend of this university instituting further mechanisms to charge students for the privilege of accessing resources and support that previously were included in tuition and ancillary fees,” Brar says.

For a full-time semester of 15 credits, an international student will now pay an average of $537 per credit. Domestic students currently pay $150.35 per credit.

Photo: UFV Flickr

Senate changes bylaw to balance administrative and academic leadership MEGAN LAMBERT MICHAEL SCOULAR CONTRIBUTOR

An equal-representation rule of thumb about faculty representation on the UFV Senate is now set into the governing bylaws as a written regulation. (The Senate, a governing body of mostly-elected representatives of the university, oversees academic policy-making.)

UFV president Mark Evered, as Senate chair, has worked together with Gerry Palmer, an associate professor in the school of business, as vice-chair since the transition of the institution from a university-college to a university, dating back to Palmer’s acceptance for the position in September 2009.

Palmer says that when there is an eventual change of leadership (Evered is retiring at the end of next year) that the bylaw change

4

ensuring a faculty member as vice-chair will ensure that the until-now unwritten arrangement will be maintained.

“We’ve always had that understanding, it’s part of our culture,” Palmer says. “But it wasn’t part of our rules. So with the recognition that there will be a new president in a couple of years, it was a good time to put some of these assumptions we’ve had and set them into the rules,” he says.

The bylaw change now means that the vice-chair must be a faculty member.

“When I first arrived [at UFV], in creating a Senate, I expressed my own concern that a Senate, by its very nature, in the Canadian post-secondary tradition, is meant to be a largely faculty-driven academic body,” said Evered at the February meeting of Senate, where the change was first presented. “We were constrained by the University Act, which applied a formula that didn’t create that faculty leadership within Senate.”

The University Act allows for two faculty members per faculty — at UFV, there are a total of seven faculty divisions: 14

members out of a total of 31.

Having a member of the academic community act alongside the president as chair in the position of vice-chair means that if any academic concerns that pertain to Senate arise, the vicechair is able to make sure they get put on the agenda. The vicechair also serves as chair of the SGC and as a member on the academic planning and priorities committee (APPC), meaning that the vice-chair position is a link between the academic community and administration.

“Administrators have different criteria sometimes than faculty,” Palmer says. “There [are] always going to be some areas of policy where there’s going to be different views.”

As it currently stands, Palmer says this difference is almost equally represented, which makes for a fair site of discussion.

“Senate is that one place where you have that balance between administration and faculty,” he says. “And so if there’s going to be an issue, that’s where it should go.”

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

NEWS SUS elections see high number of violations, even higher voter turnout VANESSA BROADBENT THE CASCADE

After a three week nomination period, a three week campaign, and a four-day-long voting period, the Student Union Society (SUS) elections have finally come to an end.

SUS announced the results at their monthly board meeting on Monday.

“This was an extraordinarily contentious election that has had many ups and downs and interesting things take place,” says Gurv Brar, the chief electoral officer for the election.

This election saw 1350 students participate by voting, the highest amount to date, compared to 473 in 2015, 315 in 2014, and 388 in 2013.

“That’s certainly the highest we have on record and a great increase from previous years, which really speaks to the level of engagement that we have here on campus,” says outgoing SUS president Thomas Davies. “Having multiple candidates contest positions, that’s always going to drive interest,” he says.

As part of his electoral report at the meeting, Brar presented several recommendations to improve the election process in upcoming years. These suggestions included requiring candidates to delete their campaign pages from social media, as well as accepting nomination packages after the deadline if no one else is running.

“You should be able to submit a late nomination package for yourself to run for those positions because we need people to be participating more and more,” Brar said. “We don’t want to create barriers for participation, especially with such a technical thing.”

At this time, Davies is unsure if the future SUS board will be acting on Brar’s recommendations.

“I think it’s excellent that he’s put forward these recommendations,” he says. “There’s always things we can do to improve the process. I think he’s given us some good

recommendations and the incoming team will have to put some work into this over the summer in finding the best way to incorporate that into our policies.”

Brar’s motives behind his recommendations, specifically regarding social media, were a result of the high amount of policy violations in this election. “[The election was] contentious, as all the candidates were very passionate, but at the same time, I don’t think that they did enough to make sure that they stayed in the rules,” he says.

Brar found that rules regarding social media, which restrict any promotion once the voting period begins, were the most common violations.

“Social media really is one of the most difficult things,” Brar says. “When you [have] 11 candidates and they all [have] Facebook … watching all that is extremely difficult, which is one of the reasons that I made the recommendation that during the voting period all that should shut down.”

While the amount of violations was high this election, Davies notes that this changes year to year.

“Every election is a little bit different; there’s always a different story, different narrative, interesting twists and turns,” he says.

“This election is no different.”

Multiple violations led to the disqualification of one presidential candidate, Manmeet Sekhon.

In an attempt to “draw your attention to the ongoing Student Union Election 2016,” Sekhon sent an email to various members of the UFV community, which included an email conversation, as well as phone conversations, between him and Brar regarding his disqualification. Sekhon was disqualified as a result of campaigning during voting period, as well as attempting to collaborate with another candidate.

In his email, Sekhon argues that Brar’s decisions were “biased and going against the set rules and responsibilities of his position.”

“Rules are rules,” Brar says. “This is supposed to create an equal

playing field for everyone to compete. That’s one of the reasons that [the rules] are so strict.”

Sekhon’s email also included phone conversations, in one, Brar told him that his opponent, Sukhi Brar, had won the election.

While Brar was not intending for the information to go public, he clarifies that releasing the information is not against SUS policies.

“There is nothing in the election rules or policies that say I have to release the information at a certain time,” he says. “It’s tradition that it’s given out at that board meeting, but even that’s not always followed. There’s no set rules for where that has to be done.”

Although SUS has not yet acted on Brar’s recommendations for the election policies, Davies says that they are planning to hire someone outside of UFV as the electoral officer for the next election.

“It’s something that we’ve been looking at for awhile,” he says.

“A professional just has more experience and more ability and time to dedicate to this and more knowledge to bring.”

Brar agrees with the decision, especially because of the amount of work that is expected from the position.

“I think it’s the best thing to do,” he says. “It’s something I agreed to and it turned out to be a lot more work than I expected ... a lot more of a headache than I expected.”

The change will also come with a raise in pay. A draft of SUS’s budget for 2016-17 allocates $6000 for elections, compared to $2000 in the 2015-16 budget.

Davies notes that the entire amount won’t be going to the CEO, but other election costs as well.

“It isn’t necessarily a $6000 contract,” he explains. “[But] it’ll be more than the $2000 that was paid [this year] … the $6000 will allow for that amount and other expenses.”

The successful candidates will begin their term at the start of May.

Election Results President Sukhi Brar Manmeet Sekhon None of the Above No Opinion

618 380 117 235

VP Internal 45.8% 28.1% 8.7% 17.4%

Ashmeet Kaur Saran Cameron Findlay Stephen None of the Above No Opinion

Total: 1350

Faculty of Health representative: Rooiana Alizada Yes No No Opinion

599 97 548

48.2% 7.8% 44.1%

VP External

500 415 82 272

Total: 1269

Sahil Chawla Arash Tamber None of the Above No Opinion

470 202 108 470

37.6% 16.2% 8.6% 37.6%

Total: 1250

539 416 95 225

42.3% 32.6% 7.5% 17.6%

Total: 1275

Faculty of Professional Studies rep: Tanya Vanpraseuth Yes No No Opinion

Total: 1244

Faculty of Science representative

Thanh Ma Panku Sharma None of the Above No Opinion

39.4% 32.7% 6.5% 21.4%

618 108 498

50.5% 8.8% 40.7%

Total: 1224

College of Arts representative: Sunny Kim Yes No No Opinion

679 121 424

55.5% 9.9% 34.6%

Total: 1224

5

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

STUDY BREAK Crossword

1 2

Music and Mayhem

3

4

Last week’s answers

5

6

Across

Across

2. Shorthand for the founding band of the Shoegaze genre

7. HORSERADISH

6. This band reeks of teen spirit

8. LICORICE

7. Ruined by Phil Collins

7

10. You should call her, maybe. (two words)

10. MUSTARD

8

11. CINNAMON

12 .Used to pluck stringed instruments

Down

13. Former Disney starlet 9

Down 10

11

1. KETCHUP 2. BASIL

1. Elton John and Billy Joel love playing this instrument

3. GARLIC

3. The Starman, Ziggy Stardust

4. VANILLA

4. Played by Animal from the Muppets

5. DILL

12

5. His life is dope, and he does dope shit.

6. LAVENDER

7. Typically the lead instrument in a rock band

9. ROSEMARY

8. B.C. Festival, sadly cancelled for 2016.

10. MINT

9. The Queen Bee 11. Short, repeated phrase on guitar or bass 13

Horoscopes

EclipseCrossword.com

Star Signs by Kevin Kelepso

Aries — Mar 21 to Apr 19 Don’t get stressed, get some rest.

It’s for the best! Are my rhymes putting your patience to the test?

Leo — Jul 23 to Aug 22 Movies are fun. Just don’t go and see Grimsby. Just don’t. You won’t like it.

Sagittarius — Nov 22 to Dec 21 Remember to use hairspray. It’ll keep the wind from ruining your hair do.

Virgo —Aug 23 to Sep 22 Things are going to get tough, but much like Robert Downey Jr.’s career you’ll come back in a big way.

Capricorn — Dec 22 to Jan 19 Don’t kick the baby.

Gemini — May 21 to Jun 20 Stay away from shellfish. They lie.

Libra — Sep 23 to Oct 22 Dude, things are looking up for you.

Maybe go help a Libra out a little, they’ve got it rough.

Aquarius — Jan 20 to Feb 18 Meeting a lot of new people in one go is never easy, remember to relax, and repeat their names in conversation with them often. Or just take a picture of them and tag them in it.

Cancer —Jun 21 to Jul 22 Remember that paper you have due next week? Get it done early, something fun could happen on the weekend, and you won’t want to miss it.

Scorpio — Oct 23 to Nov 21 Invest in Les Paul stock, buy a guitar, and start rocking out. Get signed, release an album, tour, release a second, worse album, and slowly fade into obscurity.

Pisces — Feb 19 to Mar 20

6

BY ANTHONY BIONDI

SPACED

Taurus — Apr 20 to May 20 You’ll run into some tall, dark, and handsome. Unfortunately they’ve yet to discover deodorant. Remember to pack some nose-plugs.

Are nose-plugs a thing?

CENSORED

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

OPINION Curtailed commentary on current conditions

S

Less TV, better time Erik Ramirez-Velez

Bus blues Kat Marusiak

Illustrations: Danielle Collins

One thing that never fails to amuse me when people walk into my apartment and ask where my TV is, to which I respond rather smugly that I don’t own a TV. Truthfully, it’s not that I hate the purpose that TV serves, but rather I hate the addictive nature of TV. When I first moved out of my parents’ place three years ago, I thought the first thing I was going to buy was a big TV, but that moment never came. I was too busy with work, school, and buying other things like food, clothes, and other necessities. So much so that I got to a point where I went a whole year without a television and I realized that I was more productive with my days. I started working out, taking up old or new hobbies like drawing and writing, and being more intentional with my friendships. Whenever someone would come to visit, instead of sitting quietly while we watched a rerun of a show, we would actually talk. I’m not saying I don’t miss having a TV, but I’d be lying if I said my life wasn’t better without it.

I’m becoming less and less impressed with the UFV-Clearbrook bus line (Number 3). In fact, as I write this, it just passed in the opposite direction a minute after it was supposed to reach ***this stop, making it around nine minutes late. I can accept a couple minutes early or late; hell, I can often handle 10 minutes late. However, leaving a stop eight to nine minutes early is kind of bullshit. I recently had to run in the rain to catch it as it arrived nine minutes early. I’ve waited in A building by the doors when it was pouring rain to see it arrive early — and drive right past without stopping as I walked out.

Students have pretty tight schedules, and it’s rather annoying to have to get to the stop 15 minutes early just in case, especially when weather’s bad. I wonder how many students have waited, and waited, before realizing it wasn’t coming.

I just got off in-between two stops, as the driver drove past mine without stopping. I never had problems like this last semester. Next, I’ll get in touch with BC Transit and ask what the hell’s up.

Remembered for what?

Joel Robertson-Taylor Illustration: Sultan Jum

Elections result in election results Alex Rake

What do you want your Wikipedia page to say when you’re dead? Do you want to be the best at something — a virtuoso? The genius inventor, the dynamic entrepreneur, the guitar god? Or is there something more important than that, perhaps being remembered for what you were for and how you influenced the world in a positive way. Being remembered because you had time for people and because you gave yourself away before you took from anyone else. You were good, but you also profoundly moved people.

Last Thursday my absolute favourite keyboardist and one of my favorite musicians of all time shot himself in the head. Keith Emerson, perhaps the most talented keyboard player in rock history, was suffering from degenerative nerve issues in his right hand. Although he was also clearly afflicted by depression, the loss of the use of some of his fingers led him to believe that his life wasn’t worth more than his ability. Keith’s Wikipedia page will read that he was one of the best, but it’ll also read that being the best was what his life was about.

SUS elections are over, thank God, and the results reflect a turning point in UFV’s student culture.

This year, 1350 students voted according to SUS — a record turnout, and more than double last year’s!

We complain about this place being a commuter campus, about lacking student engagement and a high volume of extracurricular activity, but I hope the engagement that students demonstrated carries over to other years and other projects. It really ought to, considering how boring the idea of student governance is, typically.

I think what helped this time around was the narrative of the elections. They were prefaced by drama surrounding SUS, from the sudden vacancy of positions to the confusion around the Equality Resources Centre. Then, during the campaign itself, there were stories of near disqualifications, not to mention the actual, recent disqualification of SUS president candidate Manmeet Sekhon. Stories make things interesting; without them, everything is a series of disconnected, banal events. This year, as far as my experience is concerned, is the first time the stories have been interesting to me as a student, the first time they felt human.

We are building history now. Keep the stories coming.

Moving forward with feminism AYANDA GATSHA

CONTRIBUTOR

My argument is straightforward. For our communities and world to be better every faction needs their ideals to find a common ground. The resistance towards compromise is every civilization’s downfall.

Fragments of feminist ideals are known to have been explored as far back as ancient Greece by Plato in the Republic, though there are many debates stemming from interpreting what he may imply.

However, at face value, the philosopher critiques his democratic government for its failure to advocate for true equality. Since then, feminist ideals have been reconsidered, evolved, and implemented in various communities, resulting in the last century in movements such as second- and third-wave feminism. With all these waves and other movements, there has been success with breaking down some barriers in some privileged areas. There are more women being treated equal now

in comparison to earlier times.

When we talk about gender, it is important to realize what kind of a construct that is. The label “male” or “female” is solely based on one’s physical features. It is undoubtedly clear that there are differences in the world among people. Our language systems are constructs that have developed to ease a civilian’s navigation in this world. The problem is when we think too much about these labels. To say “a man must be X and do actions Y because he is a man” is an oversimplifying example. A person simply has physical features that may place him in a specific category, but as we know, people are unpredictable and capable of doing whatever they please.

Martha Rampton’s “Four Waves of Feminism” article considers some divisions and contradictions in feminist movements, using both historical and contemporary examples. Each wave readopts and revises what it means to be a feminist. And today’s society seems to be always at war with what is right instead of being happy with what has been achieved this far.

To move forward, it is important to critically assess what

we, as individuals, do and are responsible for. This way, one may wholeheartedly decide whether a common ground is the best route. A common ground cannot be reached if all parties continue to choose to stay mutually exclusive and find different group labels to differentiate themselves. I do not imply that the abolishment of social constructs that may divide people based on their physical features such as their skin or genitals is the answer; I only recommend reconsidering the constructs’ purposes and preaching that one’s actions and character are not limited to the category they fall under.

Our world is not perfect, but there are parts of the world where the gender wage gap does not exist, and many can be found supporting government foreign policies that advocate for less developed countries. The best move for the global community is to discuss things with everyone and figure out a way to help everyone, rather than speak to only those we know will be on our side. It is diplomatic dialogue that is the route to a universal ideal that favours everyone, and that is true equality.

7

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

You’re a person, not a number.

We love that!

Join us today and get $200!* Open a free unlimited Young Adult Chequing account and receive $200*, plus be entered into a draw to win your cellphone payments for a year.**

To redeem this offer, sign up on getyourshare.ca/prospera and use the promo code “student”

*Limited time offer expires April 30, 2016. Some conditions apply. Visit getyourshare.ca/prospera for full details. **Contest rules and regulations apply. $1,200 maximum prize value. Visit www.prospera.ca or one of our branches for full details.

8

www.ufvcascade.ca

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

OPINION Cut the red tape Bureaucracy at UFV needs a makeover SONJA KLOTZ

THE CASCADE

Have you ever felt that as a student, when you want to accomplish one simple task you get the runaround to various departments and a few hours or even days later you finally complete that one task?

I do recognize the value of structural order and organization to keep the multifunctions of the institution operating smoothly and efficiently. But I personally find that UFV’s current departmental and administrative structures are more often than not hindering the learning process rather than creating a more productive and efficient system to get business done. No matter how large and sophisticated the institution may be, this “red tape,” which most people experience at some point in their lives, exists primarily to maintain authority and influence within the community. This often happens through two processes: exclusion and inclusion.

The exclusion is often displayed by people’s authority within UFV. Students cannot directly access certain records without getting permission from the necessary executives overseeing that type of information. For example, students cannot proceed to host student-run events without the overseeing directors’ approval. This is also true for events held at the Student Union Building, depending on the nature of the events.

For the record, I do believe that it is absolutely necessary with regards to data that contains students’ personal information. No one wants their data to be left open to any individuals wanting to take applied identity theft studies. With that exception in mind, however, I take issue when executive decisions regarding problems in student funding, student services, and departmental cutbacks are being made without properly notifying the community campus groups whom it may have directly and negatively affected. I believe that a student who is seeking

information on a specific decision should be provided the right to access such data.

While walking around campus, I hear various rumours and theories as to why UFV decides to make major institutional changes. Nevertheless, more often than not there is no concrete information provided without being expected to complete the classic UFV comprehensive bureaucratic procedure. Why make it a headache for a regular student to access information that will affect their learning? Wouldn’t having such barriers instigate more hindrances to creating a positive and professional learning environment? Often times, people who try to question the institution get bogged down with bureaucratic procedures and eventually end up giving up due to the sheer exhaustion of trying to navigate through the proper channels. All this just to be somewhat included at the roundtable discussions and / or to be provided a vague, non-helpful response.

At times I have found this to be true, as a student who is simply trying to become familiar with the policies and decisions that are made for my learning. Although our Student Union Society does negotiate with UFV on student matters, the information can be easily misrepresented due to the many different bureaucratic channels even SUS executives and officers have to problem-solve their way through.

Throughout my years here, I have learned that the only way to feel somewhat included in the institutional think-tank and policy-development initiatives is to apply as a student to be considered for a position in the various UFV committees. This could be through either the well-established UFV Board of Governors or the UFV Senate. Although it is exciting to be part of these executive decision processes, the bureaucratic processes isn’t affected — it is still cumbersome and exclusionary. That said, I am aware that UFV provides access to recent executive decisions made at both the Senate and Board of Governors’ monthly meetings. This is definitely an excellent start, but how can these groups expect students to understand complex

Illustration: Brittany Cardinal

decisions based on meeting minutes?

Getting access to meeting minutes, budget allocations, and other sorts of data that may contribute to cutbacks in student services is a critical part to building a trusting and successful learning community. I know, it is easier said than done. I do value the endless hours of work and advocacy UFV as an organization has done for the the community as a whole. But it doesn’t change the central issue here: who’s in, and who’s out — and not enough students are in.

New student fee misses the point MARTIN CASTRO THE CASCADE

A new student fee, the Student Experiential Learning and Wellness fee, will soon be implemented by the university. The fee will require that students pay an additional $2.79 per credit. This means that a student enrolled in a 30-credit year would be expected to pay an additional $83.70. The fee is a work-around the provincial tuition-limit policy, which limits the annual bump in tuition costs to no more than two per cent, (since the amount any one student would pay would be determined on a flat-rate by-credit basis). The money is intended to go towards the funding of several new positions at the university, such as positions at the Career Centre, coordinators in portfolio development (as well as one in recreation), and wellness programs.

One of the many problems stemming from this fee is its ambiguity in detailing what positions, exactly, will be created using the newly-required student money. The 2016-17 budget points to the “development and support of experiential and cocurricular learning opportunities, health and wellbeing services and programming, and expanded peer mentoring and peer tutoring opportunities.”

For a fee that will, according to the budget, generate $540,000 in revenue, its projected

applications seem disconcertingly vague.

Firstly, we’re told some of this money (but not how much) will be allocated to “experiential and co-curricular learning opportunities.” That **sounds awesome. But what does that mean? I couldn’t tell you, precisely because of its vagueness.

These opportunities might in part refer to aiding students in building a comprehensive portfolio, a body of work they can, having graduated, present to a potential employer in hopes of getting a job.

This seems like a good idea, but should the building of a portfolio be covered by student funds? On that note, should student money fund health and well-being services, whatever those are?

The fact that this fee was green-lit is slightly baffling when we take into account that just last year the Writing Center was closed down, with lack of sufficient student engagement being cited as the reason for its closure.

On top of that, it’s worrisome that UFV students weren’t involved in the process of deciding what their money is going to fund this time around.

Portfolio creation is awesome. Experiential learning is awesome. What’s also awesome is focusing on the aspects of student services that already exist on campus, not on cutting funding to those aspects until they’re barely recognizable, then throwing a fancy name on them and charging $83.70 a year.

9

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

www.ufvcascade.ca

CULTURE & EVENTS

Filming in the Fraser Valley Visual arts professor Melanie Jones discusses directing her debut feature film MITCH HUTTEMA THE CASCADE

Melanie Jones is a professor in the visual arts department. She recently released her first feature length film, called FSM: Female Seeking Male, which was shown at the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival earlier this month. Jones has been at UFV for several years as a sessional instructor — come the Fall 2016 semester she will be teaching the VA160 film production course at UFV along with other visual arts courses.

You’re a professor and a director, how do you make those two things work together?

The interesting thing, at least for me about the two, is that I see them as very linked. For me, directing is like teaching.

When I go into a classroom, my goal is to figure out who these students are, what they’re about, how they want to express themselves, and then pull on that thread and try to bring the best out. Through the projects that I do, through the assignments, I’m trying to teach skills in the particular course order. But ultimately, they’re not going to care about plaster or metal unless they care about what they’re making, so we have to tap that first.

Directing is very similar. You have this diverse group of people: a makeup artist, the production designer, you have actors, you have a cinematographer, and they all have a particular interest in being there.

And if you’re able to pull the thread of that out and make them excited to be there on your set and giving their best, then you’re going to get a better product in the end.

W here did you f ind the funding for this project?

FSM was funded through the IndieCan 10K challenge, and by funded, that’s a tricky term because I won the challenge, which came with sponsors, but we were not given any cash. Even though it’s the “10K challenge” it’s not that we’re like handed 10,000 dollars — we were handed sponsorship and mentorship. One of the sponsors was Indiegogo, so they mentored us in how to crowdfund our 10K and then they took half of the fees they normally take off. Normally they’d take five per cent, and they only took three. So for us, we raised $11,000 and then once they take their fees off, it was about $10,800 for us.

W hy did you tell this story?

I told this story because I am passionate about presenting a point of view that I have on the world that I don’t often see. I love films and I love all kinds of films, all kinds of genres, but I don’t often see female

10

characters that are complex to the degree that she is in that she’s not perfect, she isn’t always consistent, she doesn’t fit the mould even in her body type.

In any given movie, you might have one of those things for a female character, but you never have all of them in one character and I think that’s what makes her and my film unique in terms of that perspective that I’m talking about. And the men in FSM, I wanted them to be complicated, f lawed men, because those are the people that I know and everybody’s like that, regardless of your gender.

W hich do you see yourself spending more time on in the future, f ilmmaking or teaching, or will they always coexist?

I think that because filmmaking is such a long, drawn-out process, teaching is a really nice, symbiotic career to have because I teach for several months of the year and then I’m free to film. It’s actually not difficult to be in pre-production and doing the meetings and casting and stuff while I’m teaching. Then I have that time off to be filming and fully in it.

But there may come a time in the future when the filmmaking is providing for me enough that I don’t need a secondary source of income — that may be quite a long time coming but I also enjoy teaching so I can’t see myself leaving that unless I needed it because I don’t have enough time to spend on my films. My ultimate goal is to be

creative all the time.

W here do you f ind your cast and crew from? Would you consider working with your students?

Initially, when I first left film school, my cast and crew was all my friends from film school. It’s almost always like that when you’re leaving any program, your peers are your first network. They’re the first people you know that know how to do anything, and then you start to build outward from there. Maybe you work on a set and then you meet people. Maybe you don’t have enough actors within your initial core group of people, so you do casting and then they might introduce you to someone, so your network is constantly expanding.

Over 10 years or so making films now, my network is very large but I still go to Craigslist or to friends and say, “Anybody know somebody who can do PA work or can be an art department assistant?” because people aren’t available sometimes, so you’re forced to push out of your network.

I really love casting, I love auditioning actors. I always say I collect actors, because I think they all have something unique to bring, so it’s like I have a palette and when I know I have a character, I can pick the colour that’s going to fit that character for whatever reason. It’s unfair maybe, but you do type-cast a little bit.

Right now it seems you’re the most active

professor at UF V in the f ilm industry. Do you foresee developing a f ilm curriculum?

Would you be interested in that?

I definitely see the potential for expanding our current offerings. The challenge is always equipment. It’s the number one challenge in any film program any where, is how do you keep your equipment relevant, your software, because it’s extremely expensive and most of the time arts budgets are dwindling. How do you keep buying new cameras every year or every other year when there’s no money to do so.

Some schools off load that onto the students and they make the tuition really high, that’s how they can balance that.

That’s one of the biggest challenges in our way.

I will say this: in the courses that I have taught where we do video, I just try to really democratize the technology part, so we shoot videos on our phones and we don’t need to edit them. You can still learn a ton about making a film without having all the gadgets, but the problem is that you can’t go out into the industry knowing nothing about the gear.

I’m teaching intro video in the fall and my goal with that course is for students to make two films in that semester — and to embrace our limitations rather than push against them. Let’s just embrace what we’ve got. The plans are there to offer some of it within the limitations that we have, which I think is fine. We’re small, we could get bigger, but we can just give the smallness a little hug.

Does our distance from locations with regular f ilm shoots affect how viable f ilm is at UF V ?

There’s a big concept of the film industry in Vancouver, but it’s a provincial industry: there’s films shooting all the time, every where. There’s been series, like Once Upon a Time shoots in Steveston all the time and there was a series shooting in Chilliwack for several years.

There’s stuff happening every where so if you want to get into it it’s not necessary to move to Vancouver; you can be in Nelson, BC and still get involved in some way. There’s a lot of obstacles, but there’s lots and lots of paths to get through them and around them too. I think that if you want to be a filmmaker, you find a way to make films even if you’re in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, the middle of nowhere where there’s no power, you figure it out because you want to so badly.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

CULTURE & EVENTS

Photos: Drawnonward Films

11

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

www.ufvcascade.ca

CULTURE & EVENTS

UPCOMING EVENTS MAR 17 MAR 18

National Indigenous Rights Education Day

Fraser Valley Music Awards to kick-start promotion of underseen local scene

6:00-8:00 p.m. @ CEP room 1457

Army of Sass: Life is a Cabarat 9:30 p.m. @ 1919 Sumas Way

MALK, Midnight Lions, Doja, and Villain Villain

8:30-12:00 p.m. @ Brother’s Bowling 33500

MAR 19

Student Fundraiser for the Cyrus Centre

10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. @ Superstore 2855 Gladwin Road

Photo: Mitch Huttema

MAR 21

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination: Perspectives on the Residential School Era 10:00 a.m - 12:00 p.m. @ B121

“River of Salmon Peoples” book launch 3:00-5:00 p.m. @CEP

MAR 3-20 MAR 24

12

Twelfth Night

7:30 p.m., matinee Sunday at 2:00 p.m. @ Chilliwack North campus

2016 KPESA Jungle Boat Cruise

Buses leave Abbotsford at 6:00 p.m. @ Vancouver

JOEL ROBERTSON-TAYLOR CONTRIBUTOR

Trying to make it as an up-and-coming musician isn’t easy. That’s part of the reasoning behind the Fraser Valley Music Awards (FVMAs), set to debut in July.

Centred around exposure and support for local musicians, the FVMAs are planned as a one-night event where the music industry — and especially the community — can come together to recognize the quality and craftsmanship of locally created music.

The idea is to acknowledge, respect, and embrace the art that has been inspired and grown from within our own pocket of the world. It is

“

The art in our communities is paramount to the way we interact and go about our lives.

an event for creators of music as much as it is for consumers of it — to celebrate musicians and to bring their craft to the public.

“Like regional Junos, or regional Grammys, or regional Western Canadian Music Awards, but for the Fraser Valley,” says James Kasper, the Fraser Valley Music Awards coordinator (also the founder of the Vancouver Island Music Awards).

In the Fraser Valley, the response to local music is not often as vibrant as its supporters wish would be the case. As there is all over the world, there’s often a disconnect between the musicians and their community.

“There’s this mindset that if you’re promoting your own work that you’re not a true artist, that you’re not being pure to the art,” Kasper explains.

This is a devastating reality for many young artists.

“The problem or the challenge with [this] is that if you don’t have someone promoting you or representing you and your goal is to have your music known, somebody has to be doing it,” Kasper says.

There’s also been an emphasis on benefits for the winners and some nominees. These include sponsored time in recording studies and performance spots in music festivals. And leading up to the awards there will be acoustic and full band showcases at various local venues.

Also included in the mix is the annual CIVL “Battle of the Bands,” which has seen bands go on to the Peak Performance Project and other competitions. The main event is set for July, which means there is plenty of time to start attending some of the local shows.

There will also be a compilation album released, including tracks by nominees, headlined by the Abbotsford-originating You Say Party.

“Not all great music comes from Los Angeles, Nashville, or New York — everybody knows this,” Kaspar says. “What is less often acknowledged is how near the artists actually do live. The art in our communities is paramount to the way we interact and go about our lives.

“Music and art is such a big part of how we, in our everyday lives, get through and reward ourselves,” says Kasper, pointing out that such a significant part of our culture should be acknowledged in a significant way. “We all work hard in our own way and without music and art it would be I think a little tougher to get through every day — It’s something worth celebrating.

Right now, bands are being encouraged to submit their music.

“For the last several months we’ve been basically building a foundation of partnering with local business and building the foundation in terms of what’s the criteria for eligibility,” Kasper explains. “The next stage is of course getting the music.”

The deadline for submissions is March 31.

Many people in general see gaps or weaknesses with the local arts community, but Kasper sees that as an opportunity for improvement.

“A lot of local bands aren’t satisfied with their careers or where they think it can go,” Kaspar says. “We can help them so that there’s a higher ceiling on their career.”

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

CULTURE & EVENTS

Writer-in-residence Jen Sookfong Lee hosts special reading HARVIN BHATHAL CONTRIBUTOR/PHOTO

Last week, Jen Sookfong Lee, UFV’s writer in residence, sat down with two of British Columbia’s finest up-and-coming writers, Jordan Abel and Chelsea Rooney for “Challenges and Transgressions: Writing Across Margins, Pushing Intimate and Cultural Boundaries,” a special reading and panel discussion. During the event, the authors read from their respective works, giving insight into how they look at their writing to the people in attendance.

Abel read from his collection, Injun, a long poem about racism and the representation of indigenous people, and Rooney read from her novel, Pedal, a journey across Canada showing how we are shaped by the events experienced over the course of our lifetimes.

Both of the pieces pushed boundaries in different ways; Injun discusses the issues facing the indigenous people of Canada head on, and Pedal confronts the difficult topics of pedophilia and rape. The challenge of writing about topics such as these is that they must be discussed with sensitivity, while still being straightforward and honest. When asked about how to deal with political correctness, Rooney and Lee both said that there has to be a fine balance between truth, kindness, and empathy. If not, the writing can be taken the wrong way.

Everyone has a person they admire — someone who

pushed social and political boundaries. Abel and Rooney were asked if there was a particular person (or group of people) that really spoke to them, and for Abel, the first person who came to mind was the controversial Kenneth Goldsmith.

A unique author, Goldsmith published a novel, Day, that was essentially a retyped version of the New York Times, and sells transcribed traffic reports as poetry. However, by far his most controversial act was his public reading of Michael Brown’s autopsy report, which many criticized as insensitive and casually racist.

A huge fan of hip-hop, Rooney cited four people in her answer: Kanye West and Kim Kardashian for their attitudes of not caring what the media or anyone thinks of them, and Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar, who are both pursuing, artistically, the difficult task of bringing wider attention to how racism works today.

Lee also gave her take on the question, answering with Rihanna, a woman of colour who doesn’t care about the opinions of society, despite the popular idea that women have to be purer, smarter, and better to be recognized in a world dominated by men.

In their own way, Abel and Rooney do as good a job pushing boundaries with their novels as the influences they mentioned above. Abel’s long poem is composed of text found in western novels between 1940 and 1950, the heyday of the genre, which glorifies colonialism in North America. Abel’s work creates a visually striking response to

the novels in order to help repair the image of the “Indian.”

Rooney’s novel partially reflects her own childhood living with a father who was, to be blunt, a dirtbag. The protagonist goes on a cross-country trip across Canada on a bicycle (hence the title) where along the way, she meets a nonoffending pedophile. This encounter allows Rooney to give insight into the mind of a person who does no harm to others, yet cannot help what he was born with.

As a whole, the reading came across as a success, with many people attending and listening to three intelligent minds from the literature community talk about their works and how to write about issues prominent in our society today.

Abel and Rooney did an excellent job of shedding light on the issues that Injun and Pedal tackle respectively, and Lee played the role of moderator, while also adding her own opinions throughout.

Reasons to love lavender Just the smell will help you reach transcendence JASMINE-HOPE SILVA CONTRIBUTOR

Ahead is a 30-hour workweek, crowding out those blogging activities of yours that are supposed to be building a “speculative portfolio.” Then, because a couple of midterms don’t suffice, it’s a 10-page report (admittedly, this sounds pretty short) that’s due tomorrow, and y’all know there’s that one group member who’s flaking on group meetings.

Let’s not think about your social life, currently buffering. If you’re not depressed, you’re the smartypants who is organizing everything: on top of your game, calling all the shots.

So how can we be this person who is living life large? My tip for the week is to load up on essential oils. Lavender, the beautiful, wild herb of the earth, speaks volumes for spring. We may not be in France, but the Fraser Valley produces a grand amount of lavender that can be copiously used.

Bottles of lavender essential oil are available at most health and wellness centres, but a simple way of making your own involves melting your choice of oil (including olive, coconut, etc.) with a collection of dried or fresh lavender, and keeping it in a crock-pot for several hours. You can then proceed to strain it into some classy, hipster mason jars. I’m assuming most students don’t have a crock-pot on hand, so make a date to visit

Grandma — she’ll probably be ecstatic to lend you this handy tool in exchange for a couple of hugs and love. She might even throw in a few cookies, right? How therapeutic is that!

The best medicine for a case of late-semester near-defeat is restoration. Essential oils like lavender promote relaxation and calm the mind; lavender often promotes a balance of thoughts and emotions. Making more time for loved ones is also a happy distraction. I feel like undergrads can get caught up in the amount of work that needs to get done. When so much time is spent focusing on the bigger picture, we lose sight of the beauty found in every individual day.

University’s focus on constantly producing work takes joy away from your passions and gets you so caught up in the business of to-do lists that you forget what the original purpose of it all was.

A philosopher and renowned transcendentalist of the 19th century, Ralph Waldo Emerson, advised us to “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” So adopt the nature of peace, and reach higher grounds in your studies and career advancements by first learning how to enjoy the process. Dab your wrists and temples with some lavender essential oil, and let the tensions of the day go. Remember the beautiful things in life, and take breaks from the chaos to reflect on what is good. Last but not least, breathe. You’re in the prime of your life — you’ve got this.

Illustration: Danielle Collins

13

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

www.ufvcascade.ca

CULTURE & EVENTS President’s Lecture series examines the process of making peace

Picture: UFV Flickr

SONJA KLOTZ THE CASCADE

Peace enforcement, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding are just some of the terms we use in the West when faced with the political and social tragedies of the globe.

Writer and lecturer George Lopez has been incredibly influential in developing peace studies programs for over three decades. This year’s presidential lecture series brought him to the Abbotsford campus’ Student Union Building (SUB) to discuss this topic in light of recent events. (UFV has its own peace and conflict program, which is waiting for provincial government approval.)

As per UFV tradition, Shirley Hardman, the senior advisor on indigenous affairs, opened up the space with a proper Sto:lo welcome, sharing with us some of the peace traditions of the Sto:lo people. This was incredibly powerful given.

Lopez began his lecture by outlining some startling statistics about current peace initiatives and violent outbreaks that have occurred throughout the past few decades.

Due to a large amount of media coverage of the grotesque beheadings and violence in the Middle East, we often assume that the majority of deaths worldwide are attributable to those events, however according to Lopez, that is not necessarily the case. For example in 2014, 437,000 people died worldwide due to “criminal violent confrontations.” We make assumptions based on the media’s reporting, but this is not necessarily accurate, since 60 per cent of those deaths were from homicides in Mexico, Honduras, and Salvador.

What I personally understood while listening to the lecture was that our peace initiatives and programs in the West are often heavily influenced by what the media communicates. The

14

campaigns to stop violence in certain parts of the world are often fostered by the images and narratives portrayed by the various media outlets, including television, radio, social media, and paperbased media.

“We live in an era of a different kind of peace. It’s an era I would refer to as a kind of ‘peace-hyphen,’” Lopez said following a look at some statistical analysis of various peace and conflict outcomes.

“I think there are three kinds of peace: the first is peace enforcement, a second is peacekeeping, and a third peacebuilding.”

The first one focuses primarily on states that take military action when other avenues towards peace have failed or become unsustainable.

“It’s not the most effective and favoured way of doing peace, but it is a way to show our international relations colleagues are correct when they say you don’t get peace unless the big powers want it,” Lopez said. In other words, war’s indefinite unless the power-states are forced to take economic, political, and / or military action.

Secondly, peacekeeping often occurs where a ceasefire or peace agreement is made. This type of peace is often advocated by international agencies such as the United Nations and partnering organizations. “[You] try to separate parties, create peace-zones so that the politics and social dynamics of peacebuilding can take hold. You buy time. You create safe-zones,” Lopez said.

Lastly, Dr. Lopez refers to peacebuilding as the most challenging, and yet effective method of creating peace in a society where military, political, and social violence remains prevalent. Lopez underlined the critical values of strategic and long-term planning from various social-political discourses, reiterating throughout his lecture the value that peace & conflict studies bring to such discourses.

“The new peacebuilding aims at conflict transformation, not just simple mediation,” he said. “[It] is more gender aware,

participatory, and empowering than any of the high-level diplomatic predecessors.” To further his point, for example, the more education women have, the more sustainable the overall peace process is.

Lopez argued that part of the peacebuilding process is to create “the alliance of insiders and outsiders” to re-establish the communities of war-torn societies. Services such as Doctors Without Borders, Engineers Without Borders, and other various organizations strategically re-create the vital functions of the society. This is one form of the long, strategic peacebuilding process. Without access to proper health services, education and infrastructure a society cannot sustain itself even with political peace agreements.

This process begins with engaging in creative dialogues with local people. To do this, the peacebuilder must be committed to the community, as it can take time, trust, and an overall understanding of global and national politics, social issues, and economic concerns that are relevant to the conflict itself.

“If you’re going to be a strategic [peacebuilder],” Lopez concluded, “you need to … as we would say, ‘Feel it on your skin’ and understand the power that would come from communities when you elicit from them their competing visions of peace and help them form it”.

For many advocates of peace development, creating peace goes beyond agreements on paper between two parties. It is about creating transformative justice initiatives, standing in solidarity with communities in need of help, and creating a worldwide structural awareness. Although Lopez recognized that there is a time and place for both peace enforcement and peacekeeping initiatives, he mainly argued that the sustainability of keeping the peace is structured through the strategic peacebuilding processes.

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

CULTURE & EVENTS

Arts expo shows students study opportunities SONJA KLOTZ THE CASCADE/PHOTOS

Last Wednesday saw UFV’s college of arts hold its sixth annual arts expo — for the first time in the Great Hall of the new Student Union Building. The event was coordinated and hosted by the college of arts with representatives from 15 departments along with a handful of student service programs and departments such as UFV International, the Advising Centre, and the arts peer mentor program.

The room was filled with snazzylooking interactive displays, uniquely conveying the cultural symbols of each respective discipline’s programs. Faculty and staff members took the time to discuss the options students can have within their areas of interest — and also provided some much-needed study candy.

In previous years, the expo has been coordinated and hosted by the arts advice centre. However, due to the centralization of both the science and arts centres, the responsibility of planning and running the event has shifted to the dean’s office.

“The purpose of the event is to provide students [with] information about all the different options that exist in the arts,” said Alisa Webb, associate dean of students in the college of arts. “All of the departments come out to talk about

their various programs, [and] they set up interactive displays so they can speak with students.”

In the past five years, the event has proved to be successful, with approximately 300 to 350 students visiting the expo.

“This is a new venue this year, a slightly reconfigured plan,” Webb said.

“So we will see how that goes and tweak as needed.”

While some departments are represented at the new student orientations, the expo has become the college of arts’ promotional focus.

“This is our main arts event where we publicize everything we do and provide [a] one-stop shop for students to communicate with all of the departments,” Webb said.

The majority of students who participate in this event are ones who are already on campus but may have not decided on a specific major or program of study yet. And some students typically walk through the expo, considering whether to switch into an arts program.

Using the arts expo as a way to attract new students is being discussed.

“We are talking about … the possibility of inviting high school students in to come and see what’s being offered,” Webb said. “But with the shift this year [in location and organizer] we decided to go with what we’ve been doing in the past.”

the

CASCADE is hiring!

Positions available include: •Editor In Chief (for 2016-17) •Managing Editor (for 2016-17) •Culture & Events Editor

For more information on individual postings, and to apply: email Glen at glen@ufvcascade.ca 15

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

www.ufvcascade.ca

ARTS IN REVIEW TV REVIEW

Shuffle JAMES KASPER FRASER VALLEY MUSIC AWARDS COORDINATOR

Remember your hometown?

Or maybe you still live there.

Do you ever think of it when listening to music? I do — here are some songs that remind me of my time growing up Ucluelet.

XTC "Poor Skeleton Steps Out" You don’t hear about a lot of bands hailing from Swindon, England. In addition to being one of my favourite XTC tunes, I chose this one because my nickname in high school was “Bones.” Check out these lyrics: “Poor skeleton steps out, liberated from sex organs, and brown, black, white skin … For good skeletons are we, and we're dying to be free, all flesh be gone. I will scream or sulk and pout, until my poor skeleton steps out. Better watch out, here comes bony boy.”

Little Wild "Steep" This song makes the list because the title is a perfect description of the treacherous roads to and from my hometown — crazy winding roads on steep cliffs.

And this is a dynamic rock song with a raw, soulful vocal performance. Plus, Little Wild is a Fraser Valley artist, which is a nice segue into my suggestion that you submit to the Fraser Valley Music Awards by the March 31 deadline!

Platinum Blonde "Doesn't Really Matter" This track gets the nod because this is the music I was listening to as a young teenager in Ukee. This is the opening track of the Standing in the Dark album, which begins with a woman’s voice mechanically uttering the words “Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin” before launching into the opening guitar riff of "Doesn’t Really Matter." The woman’s voice belonged to none other than Mark’s mother.

16

CHARTS 01

Basia Bulat Good Advice

02

Elton John Wonderful Crazy Night

03

Jordan Klassen Javelin

04

Library Voices Lovish

05

Foreign Diplomats Princess Flash

06

Dodgers Orphans, Fools, And Thieves (Single)

07

Cheap High Picture Disk

08

Still Waters

09

Breakbot

Alex Rake & The Leaves Music By The Water

10

Fear of Men Fall Forever

11

Allie X Old Habits Die Hard (Single)

12

Striker Stand in the Fire

13

Wazonek Simple Life

14

School of Seven Bells SVIIB

15

Joywave Swish

16

b'lieve Im goin' down

17

Deerhunter Fading Frontier

18

Wintersleep The Great Detachment

19

Heartwatch Heartwatch

Kurt Vile

The pleasant predictability of Fuller House TERRILL SMITH CONTRIBUTOR

Many of the ‘90s classics currently being reimagined and rebooted, from The X-Files to Twin Peaks, fit within the parameters of our current “Golden Age of Television.” That is, during their initial run, they were critically acclaimed, having featured outstanding visual aesthetics and thoughtful, complex storytelling.

It is perhaps surprising then that a spin-off series for Full House, a show notorious for its critical scorn, was greenlit by Netf lix in 2015. With original showrunners Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett set to produce the spin-off under their Miller-Boyett Productions label, the same production company that brought us such treasures as Step by Step and Family Matters, I had to ask myself: “Did I do that?”

The truth is that yes, I did, and so did all of you.

The millennial obsession with nostalgia has dragged many cultural artifacts out of their graves, which brings us to Fuller House. Like the original series, the show is set in the same house in San Francisco and features the same ensemble cast, save the Olsen twins. Along with the familiar setting and faces is a recognizable laugh track and catchphrases we’ve heard a million times. Whatever happened to predictability? Well, apparently nothing.

After all, Fuller House uses the exact same blueprint as its predecessor. However, this time around, D.J. Tanner is the widow, enlisting the help of her childhood friend Kimmy Gibbler and sister Stephanie in raising her three sons. What’s remarkable is that the remake of Fuller House doesn’t change the way it delivers the story. The show largely eschews modern day sensibilities for a reprisal of its squeaky-clean image. Indeed, this corn-fed image

straight out of The Brady Bunch, was a staple of the family-oriented sitcoms that anchored ABC’s TGIF lineup. Speaking to the lineup’s puritanical nature, its name was changed from “Thank God It’s Friday” to “Thank Goodness It’s Friday” — a modification actually initiated by the Full House cast in 1989.

That it’s 2016 and still puritanical speaks to the faithfulness of Fuller House to its antecedent.

This isn’t to say that Fuller House isn’t funny.

It is, but strictly in the corniest of ways. There is nothing ironic or subversive about the show — the cheesy jokes are still there, the characters are goof y as ever, and premises almost never come with realism attached. In this sense, it adheres to the hackneyed and saccharine spirit of the original series, and unapologetically so. To this end, the Full House hallmark is employed throughout the spinoff — a scene in which conf licts are resolved with a heartwarming chat and group hug scored to soaring elevator music. But is the show good ?

Perhaps a better question would be: Does it matter? Discussing whether Fuller House is good or bad is mostly pointless, since the show is all about nostalgia. It’s not new or edgy because it doesn’t have to be. With the show’s seemingly endless supply of meta, self-referencing jokes, it feels as though Fuller House was made solely for viewers in our late 20s and early 30s who got excited for TGIF. To be sure, Fuller House wasn’t made for critics, who have generally panned the series by comparing it to its contemporary counterparts. But likening the show to other Netf lix comedies like Love and Master of None completely misses the point. This is because Fuller House exists within an echo chamber of goodhearted vibes and wholesome feelings — but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

ARTS IN REVIEW TV REVIEW

In Mr. Robot, a hacker meets a world of chaos ERICK RAMIREZ-VELEZ CONTRIBUTOR

Mr. Robot takes us through the eyes of Elliot (Rami Malek), a computer programmer for “All Safe Security” by day and vigilante hacker by night. Elliot, cursed with chronic social anxiety, systematically breaks down social structures by hacking into the lives of people around him, only to find that most of us are lying to society.

Writer Sam Esmail clearly set out to send a message with Mr. Robot — one of revolution. Although preachy at times, our hero Elliot frequently likes to criticize society, regularly comparing the life of the average consumer to that of a coma patient, stating that although the bed is comf y it does not mean that we’re awake. Drawing inspiration from the turnof-the-millennium zeitgeist (as seen in Fight Club) Mr. Robot still manages to make an impression with its anti-establishment undertones and intriguing narrator.

Shortly after being recruited by an elite hacker group, Elliot is thrust into the corporate underworld (which more closely resembles a cult) — this is when the party really begins. Mr. Robot was marketed rather horribly. On the surface it may seem like a straightforward plot with a preachy message about

greed and corruption, but in reality the show builds believable characters in an even more believable (yet extraordinary) situation. Every episode has twists and turns; every time I thought I had the plot figured out, it threw me another curve ball.

It’s because of these ingenious twists that I immediately wanted to watch the show for a second time just to catch anything I may have missed. Mr. Robot keeps you on your toes for all 10 episodes because the show’s writers respect the audience. I never felt like I was being spoonfed the plot, and the writers go out of their way to make the hacking aspect realistic. Most of the tech dialogue goes way over my head, which made it much easier to believe.

The writers never resort to awkward exposition, they want us to pay attention and try and keep up.

Although some of the jargon may go over some viewers’ heads, I’d still recommend the show to anyone looking for a smart plot with f leshed-out characters. My only complaint about the show is its mid-season lull. But the climax of the show’s first season makes the wait all the more worthwhile. I haven’t felt this engaged by a show since the first season of House Of Cards. Mr. Robot is fast-paced, relentless, and unapologetic about its jabs at society.

It may not be perfect, but it comes real close.

ALBUM REVIEW

Lyricism and cinematics meet in 3001 MARTIN CASTRO THE CASCADE

Like any genre, rap is full of subgenres and stylistic conventions. But the weird thing about rap is that it’s got so many divisions. The only thing Danny Brown, Killer Mike, and Drake have in common is the fact that they’re rappers. Nothing about the music any one of them makes bleeds over to the other two. Not the lyrical content, style of delivery, or choice of instrumentals. But amidst all this stylistic division, most rappers can be pretty confidently pegged as oweing the majority of their success and identity predominantly to one of two categories: skill or charisma.Although the two aren’t mutually exclusive, they’re good tools in defining the appeal of rappers. Lupe Fiasco is lyrically skilled; he’ll rap circles around most of his contemporaries. Migos aren’t so skilled, generally not much gets said, and what does isn’t all that insightful or technically demanding: verses are broken up into a series of triplets, everyone raps about money and drugs, epithets are rhymed with epithets. But they have a lot of charisma — they’re cartoonish, entertaining.

Flatbush Zombies, made up of rapper and producer Erick “Arc” Elliott, and rappers Juice and Meech, are an interesting mix. Each member has a very distinct delivery and tone of voice, but most importantly, on 3001 the trio boast the fact that they have both skill and charisma.

Album opener “The Odyssey” gives the record an oddly cinematic start, partly thanks to an instrumental that incorporates strings reminiscent of James Bond themes, and

works as an introduction to all three rappers’ individual styles.

“Bounce,” the only single off 3001, is pretty straightforward in terms of content, but the guitar sample it utilizes comes off as an unconventional choice of instrumental, although it works quite well. Most of the tracks on 3001 don’t lean on hooks too heavily, instead playing up the contrast in delivery between the three rappers. “R.I.P.C.D.” boasts one of the more catchy hooks on the record, which gives it a more accessible aesthetic.

One of the more intriguing tracks on the record is “Fly Away,” wherein Meech, normally the most outspoken and energetic of the trio (“the loud one”), trades his usual delivery in for a more melodic verse, sung over a melancholy piano rather than rapped. It’s surprisingly engaging.

Instrumentally, 3001 is one of the more innovative hip-hop albums in a while. The melodic component of “Ascension” comes from bells being rung in succession to create a pattern, but half way through, the track melts away and solidifies as an instrumental interlude composed of piano and tribal percussion.

The interlude between halves of the project is another break away from conventional hip-hop aesthetics. Watery production ebbs forward as Juice and Erick urge listeners in surprisingly appealing sung verses to take a moment and smoke some more pot, because, you know, it’s a given that we’ve been smoking up to this point.

“Trade-Off ”, probably the best track on 3001, is a great example of how much Flatbush Zombies have shifted in their aesthetic makeup since releasing their last mixtape, BetterOf f Dead, in 2013. They’re not taking themselves too

seriously. There’s a playfulness to everything that makes the track bounce relentlessly. Meech also delivers his best verse on the record, which is highlighted by his increasingly intense rendition of the chorus at the end of the track.

As a debut release, 3001 should be a lesson to other artists, particularly rappers: release as many mixtapes as you want, refine your craft, and carve a niche out for yourself, then release a debut record, further expanding on the base you’ve built. Because if anything is clear, it’s that on 3001, Erick, Meech, and Juice aren’t trying to prove anything to anyone — they’re having fun.

17

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

www.ufvcascade.ca

ARTS IN REVIEW THEATRE REVIEW

Twelfth Night gives a classic script a hilarious twist MEGAN LAMBERT CONTRIBUTOR

UFV’s Twelfth Night is a hip-thrusting, gutbusting good time — but if you go, maybe leave your younger siblings at home.

The actors sport eccentric costumes in the style of the Burning Man music festival in the Nevada desert (think: 1960s hippie chic meets EDM rave neon meets whatever you can find in the bottom of a clown’s tickle trunk) and have wild dance parties, all while shouting out the original Shakespeare text at one another. The usual three-sided Chilliwack North campus “thrust” theatre has become a four-sided bowl with seats looking down onto the set — the stage, painted in a cracked drought-like texture, and four person-sized letters that eventually spell out “LOVE.” Although you can feel certainty and conviction from leads Viola, Orsino, and Olivia (played by Jessica Milliken, Eli Funk, and Ashlyn Tegg), it was the rest of the cast who really dished out the laughs. Malvolio, played by Russell Blower, made the audience giggle by tip-toeing in a tutu that looked like a frilly lampshade. Sir Andrew and Sir Toby Belch (played by Luke Stevens and Danny Campbell) were a crafty team with fastpaced back-and-forth dialogue and lots of sexual comedy — lots of kissing, some butt-slaps, and a whole lot of hip action.

They sing, they party, they kiss, and they

thrust — but all the while I was unable to absorb the plot from the text.

The physical acting was great. This production of Twelfth Night was all about viewpoints, a theatre technique that relies on natural impulse and improvised movement. But while the actors played the mimicking, hiding, and walking games onstage, their characters lost their voices.

The beautiful (and sometimes raunchy) text that Shakespeare had intended to be spoken boldly in dialogue was downplayed while the audience’s focus was on the bright costumes and the actors’ focus was on the abstract physical movement.

There were moments where, even though the actors were not frozen in stale positions on stage like more traditional performances, the scene dragged along because the voice acting just didn’t feel complete.

There were a few stand-out lines that made the audience laugh, just because of how the actors were positioned at that particular point, but most of the story was unclear. If I didn’t already know the plot of Twelfth Night, I would have very little idea of what was going on — and Shakespeare’s hard enough to follow for the average theatre-goer as it is!

That said, the show was great. Although I think the present Fraser Valley theatre culture could really benefit from some PG-13 plus performances, much of the sexuality seemed gratuitous and borderline crass rather than a way to explore an important facet of the human

condition or to enhance the already-sexual jokes in the script. There were serious moments, where actors made meaningful eye contact with the audience, and the resolution of the play is very sweet and sentimental.

Disregarding the script, the actors brought an energy to the piece that was — like the annual

Burning Man music festival — youthful, playful, and bright. If you’re familiar with Shakespeare, this show is a must-see and will almost certainly bring out a lively discussion between your friends on the ride home. If you’re new to Elizabethan language, you might want to check out the plot on Wikipedia before going into this production.

TV REVIEW

Frank Underwood for president In fourth season, House of Cards reaches the top — but is there anything there?

MITCH HUTTEMA THE CASCADE

When a director like David Fincher sets his hand to a project, there is a certain inevitability as to what the tone will be: bleak, dark, dour, and calculated.

House of Cards premiered its fourth season this month and though Fincher hasn’t directed an episode since the first season, his work provided a visual template for the series, and he can still be found listed in the show’s opening credits as an executive producer.

In its early seasons, House of Cards was a show that offered intrigue and ambition as a break from the dry politics of a mid-term presidency, but now the show serves as a down-to-earth break from the antics of real life political turmoil. With the American presidential election’s pervasive media coverage and the fog of the recent Canadian federal election still hanging thick in the air, it is hard to understand how any demographic would still want to spend an entire weekend (or any amount of time) mainlining the latest season of yet more political drama. Nevertheless, House of Cards still remains a polarizing show; some

18

start it only to lose interest after a few episodes, while others attach stickers to their cars and don ball caps and t-shirts proclaiming their undying support for the fictitious president Frank Underwood.

Television viewers of this millennia repeatedly fall for power-hungry men and women; Walter White, Peggy Olson and Don Draper, Frank and Claire Underwood, and most of the Game of Thrones cast have all lured in the masses.

Maybe disillusionment with a lack of control or ambition that viewers may feel in their own lives is satiated by the vanity and success of the characters in their favourite shows.

House of Cards employs a rather simple method in order to maintain the appearance of suspense: Frank concocts some megalomaniacal plot in a bid to quench his thirst for power, someone challenges it, and Frank is forced to deal with the threat while regrouping and restarting the cycle.

Meanwhile, his wife Claire (Robin Wright, who also directs four episodes this season) waltzes around in a power-cut designer dress as she casually and calmly does her part in putting out Frank’s fires. Also essential to the formula is chief-of-staff Doug (Michael Kelly), charging around like a hound barking up any and every

tree Frank tells him to.

Throughout the entire series, especially in the latest season, there is an unwavering certainty that whatever the Underwoods do, however insurmountable the scandal that rises up before them, they’ll manage to overcome it. This kills the tension in the show, but there’s also the potential for a final climax where all the twisted deeds the Underwoods have partaken in tumble into the light, resulting in an epic undoing.

This season is full of tired dialogue leading to a general disconnect from the already static characters of the show. Frank, dreams achieved as president, now does nothing much aside from attend press conferences and argue with his wife. Frank and Claire share a special bond though; among the whole administration and all of America, they’re the only ones who can make sense of their (fairly obvious) power plays.

CNN and PBS must have been offered an interesting deal by the show’s producers that FOX and MSNBC missed out on, as they are the only two TV providers in the imaginary Democratled world of Frank Underwood. Despite this, there is a touch of reality to the show, as it is impossible to watch the inner machinations of the political structure without realizing that you

are part of the crowd cheering it all on.

Though House of Cards is fictional, it still exists in the realm of the plausible. There are times in the season when it seems that the writers of the show anticipated issues that permeate the presidential election and wrote in their own commentary. Perhaps the most clear example comes in the form of a quote from Ibrahim Halabi (Amr El-Bayoumi), the executive director of the Association for American-Muslim Relations.

“Deplorable as this situation is we cannot blame Islam as a whole or the millions of Muslims who yearn for peace, who contribute to our society who have the same dreams as all Americans do. ICO (read ISIS) does not represent Islam. The moment bigotry becomes patriotism, then America is no longer America.”

House of Cards is by no means essential viewing for becoming an informed political participant, but it does highlight the danger of not being an informed part of the political process. Sure, shows like House of Cards serve to entertain our musings on power and totalitarian control, but they shouldn’t overshadow the fact that if we stand idly by, actual politicians fueled solely by vanity, and not a sense of civic responsibility, are the all too real consequence.

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

ARTS IN REVIEW THEATRE REVIEW

Acclaimed play 4000 Miles arrives in the Fraser Valley, absent a spark of life MICHAEL SCOULAR THE CASCADE

“It has a lot to do with what they sound like when they say the words.

As opposed to what they look like or what they act like. There’s just something about the rhythm of the language being there or not.”

— Amy Herzog If you’re looking for a new form of theatre, something that will leave you with a sense of mystery, surprised, a little bit left behind, the work of Amy Herzog is not where you’ll find it. Herzog is a traditionalist, an American playwright whose characters are essentially the same as the ones you’ve encountered in drama before, but with language, tendencies, and problems that can be pinpointed to contemporary life — grandmothers whose husbands edited texts on Marx and Cuban politics weren’t exactly around when Chekhov, Ibsen, or Miller were new. This isn’t the stuff of remakes — but the ideas behind Herzog’s plays, the reasons we are watching these characters going about their lives, their motivations, remain the same. We meet them as we might meet a person on the street: doing a job, visiting with family, connecting with a friend, and then we are taken deeper and deeper into their lives. Their lives, where past and present meet, where the knowledge of their friends and family is compared with their inner secrets until, near the end, that past, that secret, comes out, and either reconciles or ruins them.

For a theatre company hoping for mass appeal, a playwright like Herzog is a perfect fit: new, but not so new as to ever risk alienating an audience. In this case, 4000 Miles was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in drama and one of the most-produced plays in the U.S. and Canada shortly after it was written. It’s a generational divide play: a grandmother living alone in her Greenwich Village apartment visited by her grandson, looking to shake off his parents and responsibilities but out of money, but it’s one that laughs at darkness, that keeps to a comfortable narrative arc, one where everyone is fundamentally trying to be nice to one another. If you go to the theatre, whether out of class requirement or on your own time (and this isn’t exclusive to the Fraser Valley), it’s easy to see how a play that places a 91-year-old character at the centre of the drama could become a success — that’s the audience.

Herzog’s work isn’t cheap though, it genuinely tries to engage with the messy way people connect and conflict with one another.

There aren’t any screaming arguments in her work — people avoid each other, they run away, they construct clever not-quite-lies, they dance around small-talk subjects, like technological change or what someone’s taking in college or when they last saw someone. On the surface, her plays might seem low-key, but because her work is informed by the present (4000 Miles draws out both the callousness and respect given to senior family members that would shift had this play been written in any other decade beside this one), there is an immediate connection between audience and work: like the Great American Plays that live forever in repertory, her work is committed to engaging with the world people live in, rather than the world of other works of theatre.

The Arts Club’s production of this play, touring through the Fraser Valley (with one date in Mission), doesn’t have the same kind of immediacy that I’m talking about though. Reviews have without exception focused on Nicola Cavendish’s performance as Vera, the grandmother, praising her vivid characterization, saying she makes the play a must-see all on her own. But the problem is Herzog’s script isn’t a single perspective set-up — perhaps it would have worked as a one-woman show, but that just isn’t what this play is. Herzog, closer in age to the younger characters in the play (the grandson, Leo, all hippie hair and cycling shorts; his girlfriend,

Picture: David Cooper

Bec, who he’s avoiding; and Amanda, a woman he hooks up with), tries to get under their skin as well: the generational indifference to advice and history is something Herzog shows from both sides.

But there isn’t that sense of real, alive experience: Nathan Barrett, playing Leo, acts with an uncomfortably showy series of hand-gestures and halting, over-rehearsed line delivery. At first, it seems he’s doing the slightly condescending thing people do when they assume the person they’re talking to has lost some of their hearing — and some of that is written into the script.

But it continues for the whole play. It’s agonizing to watch, especially when Ella Simon, as Bec, shows up, acting in a similar key — it feels like they’re trying to translate a New York Play for an audience at the back row of an auditorium, rather than be themselves in front of a relatively small audience (the Surrey Arts Centre, where I saw it, and the Clarke Theatre, where it plays in Mission, are not extremely large venues).

Agnes Tong, as Amanda, appears for one scene, as does Lily, Leo’s sister (through a recording — the actor is uncredited), via Skype conversation. Though it may, in a sense, be easier to only have one appearance in a play, for an actor to spend all their energy in 10 minutes rather than pace it over two hours, there Herzog’s

writing is actually embraced for what it should be: people talking, in the moment. Herzog writes pauses and strange transitions into her work because she’s imitating natural speech. When an actor doesn’t get that, it sounds even more off than the artificiality of a two-page monologue — and in the case of Barrett, his two-pager is the best part of his performance.

Set in the orange glow of a east-facing New York apartment filled with books and lamps, director Roy Surette plays it safe — the most unconventional stage direction in the play, a scene set in silhouette, rather than “stage dark,” isn’t observed; winking physical comedy for Cavendish to do is added; and as a character exits the apartment outdoors, instead of watching out the actual physical window that’s part of the set, Barrett runs to look out ... over the audience. Comparing the professional performances here to the amateur performances at UFV theatre, it’s arguable the latter would have done a superior job — certainly when it comes to the main 20-something roles. Since 4000 Miles, Herzog has written plays that make this one look like the early, secondever published work it is — but based on this, it might be worth waiting for a trip to New York to see her work done justice.

19

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016

www.ufvcascade.ca

Import Goods

TAKE PART IN THE CASCADE JOURNALISM SOCIETY’S EGM! Thursday, March 31 at 1:00 p.m.

(Changed! Previously March 17) Room S3103 (the top floor of the SUB)

Come by the Candy Shack And receive 2 for 1 ice cream cones!

Diabetic Candy Natural Ingredients Wide Variety

(Only valid with coupon for a single scoop size)

Come try Candy you can't get anywhere else!

There's something for everyone, so come on down.

Location: Mission B.C. 33039 1st Ave