UWinnipeg’s Dr. Dennis Gupa believes achievement is empty when you are not connected to the purpose of the work that you’re doing. Here at UWinnipeg, his connectivity resonates on every level of his creative process that incorporates his students, colleagues, and communities.
Former Vanier Scholar Dr. Gupa arrived at UWinnipeg in 2022, an assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at UWinnipeg.
Since his arrival, Dr. Gupa has interlaced his creative threads into the fabric of UWinnipeg. Besides his teaching, he has numerous projects on the go, which included his directorial UWinnipeg debut with the world premiere of Alunsina’s Love.
The best positive impact we can engender in the world is within our community and we can re-world it with collaboration and love.
Dr. Dennis Gupa
This play was initiated by Dr. Gupa, and written by award-winning Filipino playwright and filmmaker Christopher Gozum, and was commissioned by UWinnipeg’s Department of Theatre and Film. Gozum and Gupa are longtime artistic collaborators who specialize in intercultural theatre work.
During the production of Alunsina’s Love, Dr. Gupa enjoyed weaving non-Western performance forms with the text-based dramatic text to teach intercultural and migration theatre to his students.
“The Honours Acting and production students were fearless, the faculty members (both within our department and outside), production, and administrative staff were exceptionally supportive, and the Filipino immigrant community members were extremely generous to help build the project,” said Dr. Gupa. “I really believe that our project was exercising inclusivity, equity, and diversity both in teaching and making theatre. It connected both the university and community which demonstrated a theatre education.”
Like Alusina’s Love, Dr. Gupa continues to work on projects that connect institutions and communities together through intercultural dialogues. He is currently organizing a research workshop with Southeast Asian theatre artists to define, conceptualize, and make sense of eco-performance from the embodied relations with land and oceans of Southeast Asian theatre artists. He was interested in the ethical processes of re-imagining these eco-performance practices within the transnational context.
“I am captivated by the idea of engaging the ethics of relations and practice of fluidity in connecting cultures and various knowledges while reflecting cultural appropriations as modes of community building,” expressed Dr. Gupa. “This research I am working with the Southeast Asian artists uses performance-based inquiry which intends to inform a course syllabus on eco-performance both here in Canada and beyond.”
His work and commitment to his craft and community have not gone unnoticed. He already has a long list of awards he has earned, with his most recent achievement being recognized as a Distinguished Alumni from UVictoria with the Emerging Alumni Award this past spring.
His advice for fellow dreamers is to be bold, and don’t hurry; there’s beauty in making things with a sense of delicateness.
“See the world with a lens of plurality,” shared Dr. Gupa. “The best positive impact we can engender in the world is within our community and we can re-world it with collaboration and love.”
