Mentors of the Faculty of Fine Arts

Brian Richmond
Professor
Department of Theatre
I grew up in a family who had worked tirelessly in hard labour positions for centuries. None had ever pursued a university education. I was on the same life-path until I discovered the theatre. This led me to work opportunities and studies around the world. I believe that the obstacles presented to ‘working-class’ students in a university context is more than simply economics but arise from their encountering the differing mores of what are, largely, middle class institutions. My hope is that my life experience may assist students seeking to transcend these boundaries through their engagement in the great art of the theatre.

 

 

 

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Danielle Geller
Assistant Professor
Department of Writing
Danielle Geller is an Assistant Professor in the Writing Department, and she is also a faculty mentor for the low-residency MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She received her MFA in creative writing at the University of Arizona. She writes personal essays and memoir, and her first book, Dog Flowers, was published by One World/Random House in 2021. Her essays have also appeared in Guernica, The New Yorker,and Brevity.  Her research interests include archives, intergenerational trauma, Indigeneity, video games, and science fiction, and she snorkels, takes pictures of birds, and weaves in her free time.


Website : https://daniellegeller.com/

 

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Steven Capaldo
Associate Professor
Department of Music
I was born and raised in a very small town over 2.5 hours’ drive east of Melbourne in southern Australia and I’m the first in my family to go to university. Growing up in this rural area, we never learned about universities, never saw them, and never went to one. It was clear to us that university wasn’t really an option. I also didn’t come from a musical family – although I later learned there was a history of music and performance far back on my mother’s side – so I never feel like I belonged to the formal and established musical community either. Putting these two together by studying music at university made me feel even more like I didn’t belong and that I was an imposter who had taken someone else’s place. It took many years for me to feel as though I had a voice, a sense of place, and something to offer from a musical and academic perspective. Being a student at university can be extraordinarily positive, enriching, and fundamentally fulfilling, and I’m excited to be able to support first generation students in finding this experience at UVic.

 

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Thembelihle (Thembie) Moyo
Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Thembie studied Journalism and Media at Amakhosi Arts Academy, and she enrolled in an evening course specializing in theatre, film, producing, and directing, graduating with a Diploma in Creative Arts in 2005, and a Diploma in Media Studies and Journalism in 2006. Thembelihile’s plays include Colour Blue (2010), Let it Out (2014), The Prophetic Place and the one-act play, Who Said I Don’t Want to Dance,The latter play was presented by Philadelphia’s Pulley and Buttonhole Theatre in their 2018/19 season. Her play, I Want to Fly, about an African girl who wants to be a pilot, is anthologized in Contemporary Plays by African Women (Methuen, 2019) and Extracts- Cambridge University Press “Cambridge Lower Secondary English Stage 9 & Pakistan English Textbook ,UK,2020:   It had its first Canadian reading online in February 2022, presented by Regina’s Globe Theatre. Prophetic Place,publication- University of Toronto Press, 2022. Currently a visiting Playwright in the department of Fine Arts and EQHR.