Connecting Cultures: Drama Becomes a Bridge Across Continents

Guest Indigenous artist, actor Brefny Caribou of Cree/Irish-settler descent leads UTS Senior drama and Rysensteen Gymnasium students in a joint drama workshop.

They were two classes, half a world apart, and only had a short time together. The Danish students at UTS partner school Rysensteen Gymnasium were at UTS for a week-long exchange, focused on learning about Canadian Indigenous cultures and peoples, as part of the UTS Global Citizenship Program. Today, they would join the UTS Senior Drama Class for a joint workshop in the Jackman Theatre, led by guest Indigenous artist, actor Brefny Caribou of Cree/Irish-settler descent, and UTS Drama Teacher Gabrielle Kemeny.

Tapping into the power of drama to break the ice, Gabrielle led the students in collective drama games that got them talking with each other and moving. The students teamed up in mixed groups of Canadian and Danish students to workshop scenes together before presenting a staged reading from the play 1939, which Brefny was acting in at the Canadian Stage Theatre. 

Drama games and activities enable students to get to know each other quickly. Photo by Rysensteen Gymnasium Teacher Nanna Flindt Kreiner. 

“When you put students in a learning situation together, they become more equal,” said visiting teacher Nanna Flindt Kreiner. “More than being hosts and guests, they're just students learning together. It's really lovely to see this interaction. This is everything that we're hoping for from this exchange.” 

By exploring a shared text together, the students built empathy for each other by examining the stories from their different perspectives, says Gabrielle. “The experience was moving, memorable and one of profound connection despite having only a short time to collaborate in person. Theatre tools and games have proven to be a powerful method to forge personal and meaningful connections among the two groups from different countries.”

Danish and UTS students workshop scenes together.

A joint drama workshop led by Gabrielle in conjunction with the Danish teachers has been part of the Global Citizenship Program for the last five years, where UTS students travel to Copenhagen for a week in the spring and Rysensteen students come to UTS in the fall. Similar workshops have also taken place with exchange students from Mexico and Germany. 

UTS guest Indigenous artist, actor Brefny Caribou (centre) led the workshop with UTS Drama Teacher Gabrielle Kemeny (second from right).

Rysensteen Gymnasium is a public high school dedicated to global citizenship and since grade 10, the exchange students have been studying Canada in-depth. This year they focused on Indigenous issues, with the exchange timed so they would be at UTS for the school’s annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Assembly. 

“It was very interesting experiencing the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation at UTS,” says Rysensteen grade 12 student Linea. “I didn't know it would be such a big deal, and that people took it so seriously. And I really liked the moment of silence we had with the names of children who died in Canada’s residential schools on the screen, which was very moving. In Denmark, we have a similar history with Indigenous peoples in Greenland, so it’s very relevant.” 

Visiting Danish students take part in a joint world issues class led by UTS Teacher Richard Cook.

Aside from the Drama Workshop, the Danish students also took part in other activities, including a joint world issues class with UTS Teacher Richard Cook, where they discussed questions like: “Does globalization lead to a blending of cultures or does it threaten local traditions and ideas?”

Richard, who is also Coordinator of the Global Citizenship Program at UTS, says the multicultural success of Toronto provides a great learning opportunity for our Danish counterparts. “Denmark and many parts of Europe are experiencing a new reality with really large immigrant groups now arriving into their communities. As the numbers are coming up, they're looking around and asking, ‘Who does this really well?’ and Canada is a great example.”  

UTS Teacher Richard Cook, who is also Coordinator of the Global Citizenship Program at UTS, with Nanna Flindt Kreiner, an English teacher at Rysensteen Gymnasium.

For this trip, the main focus of the Danish students’ visit was learning more about the Canadian Indigenous experience and their cultures. Around the UTS school building at Bloor and Huron, they explored Indigenous art, cultures and services in the neighborhood, as well as meeting with Indigenous women at the Native Women’s Resource Centre on Gerrard Street. In Niagara Falls, they listened to Niagara Parks’ Rekindling All Our Relations, an Indigenous audio tour of Niagara Glen. On the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, they began their day at Toronto City Hall’s Nathan Phillips Square for the official opening of the Spirit Garden, a new outdoor space that honours residential school survivors and all the children who were lost to their families and communities, as well as the diversity of First Nations, Inuit and Métis cultural traditions.

Danish students from Rysensteen Gymnasium school attended the opening of Nathan Phillips Square’s Spirit Garden, a new Indigenous cultural space for our city. Photo by Christopher Wahl, courtesy of Gow Hastings Architects.

UTS parents Valerie Gow and Philip Hastings P ’25, partners in Gow Hastings Architects, were on hand as their firm collaborated with the Indigenous firm, Two Row Architect, to bring the 30,200 square foot Spirit Garden to life, featuring works by Anishinaabe, Inuit, Métis and Iroquois/Haudenosaunee artists. 

It was a full circle moment, as Valerie, Philip and their daughter, S6 (grade 12) Justine, have hosted Danish students in their home for the last three years during the week-long exchange, and Justine visited Copenhagen in 2023 as part of the UTS exchange visit to Rysensteeen. 

“Hosting students from Rysensteen Gymnasium from Denmark in our home has been a truly rewarding experience for our family,” says Valerie. “It's heartwarming to see how, despite coming from separate parts of the world, kids are not so unlike one another.”   

Justine agrees. “We listen to the same music, we like going to the same stores, and other little things like that. Even though we live totally different lives in different countries, we have so much in common.”