Since 2011, Repercussion has been working with IPLAI (The Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas) of McGill University.  Their mission is to “connect interdisciplinary academic research with the public world of art, policy and culture.”  We work with IPLAI to explore Shakespeare’s text in various ways through various events (see the list below). They offer us access to amazing scholars and researchers, providing context and insight, as well as a chance to exchange and explore in new ways; and we provide theatrical know-how, artistic insight, and help to entice Shakespearean scholarship into the real world. It has become an incredibly nourishing partnership. 

One of IPLAI’s ongoing research and public exchange projects is Early Modern Conversions. This international research project involves universities across Canada, the US, Australia and England, as well as arts organizations like Repercussion Theatre, the Stratford Festival, the Montreal Baroque Festival, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Folger Shakespeare library. (See all the partners here.) These various partners work together toward rethinking early modern Europe as an “age of conversion” and apply such re-thinkings to our 21st century understanding of “corporeal, sexual, psychological, political and spiritual kinds of transformation.” 

Some of Repercussion and IPLAI’s collaborations:

• Fall 2018: Much Ado About Nothing Opera Workshop (by Patrick Hansen and James Garner) 
• Summer 2017: Converting Sounds: A New Much Ado About Nothing Opera in London
• Fall 2016: Early Modern Theatre and Conversion Symposium at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC
• Spring 2016: Bloody Caesar: Gender, Revolution, Violence at the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival
  In partnership with McGill’s Early Modern Conversions Project, and acclaimed director/actor Tina Packer. (Check out Tina’s intriguing book Women of Will...)
• Spring 2013: Performing Scenes of Conversion. Key performance for “Early Modern Conversions – Religions, Cultures and Cognitive Ecologies” at McGill University
• Spring 2011: Deadly Sin, Macbeth in Hell: a Cabaret
  Closing Grand Concert for the Montreal Baroque Festival