Indigenous Media Teaching Demo with Kavelina Torres
Kavelina Torres
UAF Department of Theatre and Film welcomes the community to meet KAVELINA TORRES, a finalist candidate for the tenure-track position in Indigenous Media in the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø of Liberal Arts. This public teaching demonstration will be held this week on THURSDAY FEBRUARY 6 from 1-2PM in Gruening 304. The meeting will be both in-person and online.
Writing with passion, power, and humor, the Yup'ik, Inupiaq, and Athabascan writer, having been released from the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø qasgiq with an Indigenous Filmmaking Interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts degree, Professor Kavelina "Daagoo Qiilqaun" Torres was written into the First Nations Longhouse at The University of British Columbia where they dreamed into fruition their Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.
They are the Assistant Professor of Indigenous Media at The ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø with an emphasis on a decolonized classroom using Indigenous pedagogy. Currently, they teach Alaska Native performance, Dramatic Writing (write your play) and a graduate level class on writing your own feature. Some past classes they have taught were Previsualization and Pre Production, Indigenous World in Film, Dramatic Writing (write your pilot!) and Watching and Analyzing Film.
Professor Torres directs the Festival of Native Arts web streaming broadcast and is an alum of the Sundance Indigenous Film and the Alaska Native Playwrights Programs. They wrote and directed a short film: Yugumalleq. It was subsequently on FNX and PBS and went nationwide in 2018. They are also produced in theatre, had a short stint as a news anchor, published six short stories in prose - one of which was chosen as a must read by tor.com (Technician Qamaq North published in ).
They recently wrote and directed Tumyaraq-qaa, a Circumpolar North Indigenous futurism comedy pilot with a live studio audience, plus wrote and directed Something In The Living Room, an evening mainstage play comedy about an Alaska Native assassin who has a very very bad day.