Remembering Iris Garland through Tessa Perkins Deneault’s thesis by Shanny Rann
November 2, 2023 marks the 21st anniversary of Iris Garland’s passing. Twenty years ago, on July 6, 2003, close friends and colleagues from Vancouver’s dance community came together to remember Garland and celebrate her life at Scotiabank Dance Centre. While many of us were not there on that memorable occasion, Garland’s legacy certainly lives on in the arts scene of Vancouver as she continues to touch the lives of many dance artists and dance lovers in the city. This past summer, Tessa Perkins Deneault, whose day job is the Associate Director in Marketing & Communications at the Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology at Simon Fraser University, defended her Masters in Liberal Arts thesis, Iris Garland: Modern Movement1, which is a biography of Garland who joined SFU as a charter faculty member in 1965, started the dance program and served at the university until she retired in 2000. I connected with Perkins Deneault to talk about her thesis, which she plans to develop into a book length biography. Below is a summary of our conversation and some excerpts from her thesis, which will be available online through the SFU Library in the near future.
An advocate for Iris Garland’s legacy
my mind churning about the importance of
is contributing a chapter on dance during the early years of SFU. According to Perkins Deneault, it was a unique time at SFU when arts programs were non-credit electives and students were exposed to the arts, regardless of what they were studying. Garland was there from the beginning and started the dance program at SFU.
dance writing and left me wanting to know more about the lineage of dance history in Vancouver. Prior to her thesis, Perkins Deneault had been quite familiar with Garland’s work through a life writing course she took and a book project she was working on with the SFU Retirees Association, in which she
“Dance at SFU had its beginnings in the Faculty of Education’s Physical Development Centre where Iris Garland was hired in 1965 to teach dance courses that were often theoretical and served as elective courses for student athletes and others interested in
In spite of her quiet persona, sitting down with Perkins Deneault was electrifying. In the short time that we met, she already got
Artists of Dance//Novella © Racheal Prince and Brandon Alley D a n c e C e n t r a l Fa l l 2 0 2 3
5
