Storytelling Our Lives

Storytelling Our Lives Preshow Lecture

Listen to the "Storytelling Our Lives" preshow lecture by clicking on the link above.

Storytelling Our Lives Dramatic Reading

Listen to the radio drama of the "Storytelling Our Lives" dramatic reading by clicking on the link above.

This digital exhibition is a companion to not only the preshow lecture and dramatic reading, but also the physical exhibition available in UVic’s Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room (available for viewing from April 2024-April 2025), and another project completed as part of the Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award (JCURA), which is available for viewing here.

What follows is a case study of how staging archived theatrical materials calls into question the ephemeral ontology of theatre and its sociopolitical efficacy. I argue that the dramaturgical processes of “Storytelling Our Lives” function similarly to archival research, accessioning and curating lived experiences as primary sources for preservation in cultural memory via performance. Future research on this topic might focus on how archivists might learn to consider theatre as an unlikely archives of typically marginalized or knowledge, and how the theatre practitioner might deploy methods of archival accessioning to create theatre.