Current Research Team (2026)
Shauna Janssen, PhD
PULSE Creative Director & Principal Researcher
Shauna (she/her) is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Theatre, Concordia University. From 2018-2023 she held a Concordia University Research Chair in Performative Urbanism, and between 2018 and 2020 she was the Director of Concordia's Institute for Urban Futures. She is currently studio director of the immersive storytelling studio (postimage cluster) at Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture & Technology, and co-director of the Faculty of Fine Arts Research Creation atelier (2023-2026).
Shauna’s current research and creation activities are focused on the dramaturgy and crafting of site-specific extended reality experiences with 3D visualization technologies (VR/AR/MR/XR) and the capacity for immersive aesthetics using 3D technologies to mediate and redress overlooked spatial injustices in the built environment. This research is located at the intersections of performance and atmospheric studies, queer phenomenology (Ahmed 2006), pluriversal scenographic design practices (Escobar 2020; Hann 2024), and queer-feminist technoscience studies.
Her ongoing research and creative practice are consonant with urban humanities, critical interdisciplinary spatial practices, performative and dramaturgical explorations with and within the urban realm, often taking the form of site-responsive performances/ installations, urban interventions, and community-engaged collaborations.
In Montreal, she has been commissioned to facilitate workshops, create artistic and curatorial public art projects for the Centre d’Histoire de Montréal, La Fonderie Darling, Imago Theatre, Playwright’s Workshop Montréal, and has collaborated on community events and cultural exchanges with institutions such as Mutek, Heritage Montréal, Montréal Arts Interculturel, and Parks Canada. Her contributions to research and the advancement of knowledge in critical urban spatial practices beyond academic audiences include a number of university-community collaborations, and invitations to give public lectures at cultural institutions in Montreal such as Observatoires des médiations culturelles, the Canadian Centre for Architecture (Ephemeral City), the artist-run centre Articule (“Would you be my curator?”), and the McCord Museum (City Talks).
Internationally, she has given workshops and presentations about her research and urban curatorial work, as well as participated in various interdisciplinary and research-creation activities, events, curatorial and visiting scholar/ artist residencies hosted by institutions such as the Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, and Agora, Berlin (2015); the School of Art, Design and Architecture Creative Exchange Institute, University of Tasmania, Australia (2016); the Department of Spatial Design at Massey University, New Zealand (2017); the XX Architecture and Urbanism Biennial, Chile (2017); Performance Design at Roskilde University, Denmark (2018); Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design & Space (Czech Republic, 2019, 2023); The School of Performance Design and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, UK (2021, 2023); the DesignLab, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago de Chile (2022); Matters of Activity (MOA) at Humboldt University (Oct & Nov 2023); and the Immersive Arts Centre, University of the Arts Zurich (2023). She also co-convenes the Theatre & Architecture working group for the International Federation for Theatre Research (2021-2025). In 2023-2024, Shauna was a visiting researcher at the Matters of Activity cluster of excellence, Humboldt University, Berlin, and an artist in residence with Euroatlas/ Hangar in Lisboa, Portugal.
Her writing on site-specific art, urban scenography, art and public space, performance pedagogy, new media performance, and performative practices have been published in numerous essays and monographs, and peer-reviewed scholarly publishing houses, including with Bloomsbury, Routledge, the Journal of Theatre & Performance Design, FIELD: a journal of socially-engaged art criticism, PARtake: the Journal of Performance as Research, and JAR 28 (journal of artistic research). She is co-editor of the book anthology Performing Institutions: Contested Sites & Structures of Care (Intellect Books 2023).
Her research has been funded by Hexagram (réseau de recherche-création en arts, cultures et technologies), the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Fonds de recherché Québec - Société et Culture (FRQ-SC), the Office of the Vice President Research and Graduate Studies, Concordia University, and the Deutscher Akademisches Austanschdienst (DAAD).
Laura Acosta
Laura Acosta is a Colombian-Canadian transdisciplinary artist who explores the intersections of textiles, performance, and immersive audio-visual installations. Her work examines the relationship between body and space, delving into themes of identity, representation, and dislocation through the creation of characters and scenographies. Collaboration is central to her practice, as she partners with artists and researchers from diverse fields to enhance her material and corporeal explorations through digital and virtual manipulation, aiming to forge new aesthetic languages.
Acosta has showcased her solo and collaborative work through exhibitions, talks, and workshops across Canada, Latin America, Europe, and South Korea. Her projects have been supported by the Canada Arts Council and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. She holds an MFA in Fibres and Material Studies from Concordia University, where she is also pursuing a PhD in Humanities and Fine Arts.
Her notable collaborative project, “The Novels of Elsgüer,” integrates performance with various technologies to create interactive and immersive mixed reality installations. This work earned her and her collaborator a nomination for the Sobey Art Award longlist from the National Gallery of Canada in 2023, as well as the Plein Sud Award in 2021.
Jacob Caines
Jacob is undertaking his doctoral work in the Individualized PhD program at Concordia University, where he is researching the role that Canadian communities of Queer+ classical musicians play in shaping the culture of cities. His research is supported by a SSHRC. Jacob is also conductor, musicologist, and performer based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is a faculty member at Dalhousie University, where he directs the DAL Wind Ensemble and teachesf music history. Jacob has also been on faculty at The Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts as the head of the woodwind and theory departments.
Jacob is the founder of classicalqueer, a project dedicated to interviews with Queer+ performers, writers, musicians, administrators and artists. As a performer, Jacob was the music director for the award winning national tour of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He is also a founding member of the ALKALI Collective which performs and commissions works by living Canadian queer and BIPOC composers. The group is proud to be funded by the Canada Council. Jacob is an active adjudicator and clinician and has worked with the Canadian Music Competition and dozens of ensembles and arts groups across Canada.
Esteban Donoso
Esteban Donoso is a researcher-artist from Quito, Ecuador. He recently completed his PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University in Toronto and currently lives in Montreal. His work focuses on dance and performance archiving and transmissions, oral histories and practice-based methodologies. In 2020-2021 he was associate researcher at a.pass (Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies) in Brussels, BE. His artistic work has been shown in Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, Belgium, Switzerland, France, U.S. and Canada. He has published articles and other texts in journals such as Post(s) and Performance Research.
Syd Hamidreza Hosseini
Syd Hamidreza Hosseini, currently based in Montreal, is a theatre practitioner who works at the intersection of theater and technology. His journey as an individualized PhD candidate at Concordia University is guided by the project "Rethinking Technology Dramaturgically" focusing on connecting spectators with the stage through the channels of a virtual sphere. He also founded CyberShakespeare collective where people come together to find performative solutions for censorship all around the globe. CyberShakespeare utilizes cutting-edge technologies to create immersive, interactive experiences. The work of this collective in site-specific virtual performances, such as "City Park," utilized location-based technologies to anchor theatrical narratives in real-world settings. This approach not only bridges the gap between the physical and digital realms but also invites audiences to engage with performances in a more dynamic and participatory manner. You can visit his portfolio at www.hamidrezahosseini.com
Abi Hodson
Abi Hodson is a transdisciplinary artist and facilitator based in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, with a Bachelor of Design from Toronto Metropolitan University (2017) and an MFA in Studio Arts, Fibres and Material Practices from Concordia University (2026). Using video, movement, sculpture, and zine-making, they construct a language of sensory entanglements to query the real and manufactured space between ourselves and the rest of the material world (between the tongue and what it tastes, between our bodies and the environments we build).
Hodson’s research has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Jorisch Family Residency Award and the Elspeth McConnell Fine Arts Internship Award. They have shown work at artist-run-centres, galleries, and festivals including articule, Fonderie Darling, FOFA Gallery, and Nocturne Festival. They have facilitated workshops across Canada and internationally in collaboration with organizations including the Rainbow Refugee Association of Nova Scotia, Art Souterrain Montréal, and the Museum der Moderne Salzburg.
Peng Hsu
Peng Hsu is a Taiwan- and Montreal-based theatre director, playwright, actor, and beginner-level animator. Her work explores excess, bad taste, humor, and Taiwanese-perspective lesbian/queer camp. Since 2020, Peng has been developing a dramaturgy that allows the body to move with — and act out — Broke Broke Recitation, or BBR: her translation of a term used in Taiwan to mock how women always talk nonstop about daily trivialities. She sees it as a point of contact where queer literature, anime aesthetics, theatre actor training, and a specific kind of languaging around minor experience converge. Peng came to Montreal in 2023 to pursue her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Humanities at Concordia University.
Gabriela Petrov
Gabriela Petrov was raised in Toronto by Czech immigrant parents, and now lives in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. She is part-time faculty in the Dept. of Theatre at Concordia and has taught at McGill, and Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where she received her MFA in Contemporary Performance. She facilitates workshops for artists independently and in partnership with organizations. For over twelve years, Gabi has practiced the Six Viewpoints approach to performance. She has studied Body-Mind Centering® for almost 10 years in five different countries and is nearing certification as a Somatic Movement Educator. In her artistic practice and research, Gabi uses somatic movement and improvisation to explore how we inhabit spaces of performance and everyday life.
Kévin Pinvidic
Kévin Pinvidic is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal. He is currently a PhD candidate at Concordia University (INDI program), and holds a SSHRC scholarship. His doctoral research creation project focuses on the multiple crossroads between scenography, urban studies, geography, and computation arts, and draws from performative and collaborative methods for engaging citizens in processes of urban change.
Kévin is a visual artist and in his practice he often works with repurposed architectural representations such as plans, models or digital softwares which give shape to scenographies where residual matters and theatre elements, such as lights and projections, are assembled in site-specific works. Pinvidic trained in design and architecture (Ecole Boulle, Paris, 2008, National School of Architecture of Versailles, 2010), and holds a Master of Fine Arts from UQÀM (2015). Kévin is also an active scenographer and designs for live performances with a number of theatre and dance companies in Montréal.
Past Research Fellows
Ian McCormack
Ian McCormack (they/them) is a queer and neurodivergent dramaturg, playwright and
interdisciplinary artist and scholar originally from Northern Ontario, who now splits their time between Montreal, Quebec and the north. As a disabled and queer artist, their performance practice is centred on curating an accessible creation and dramaturgical process that promotes spaces for play, safety, and inclusivity, allowing bodies and abilities to lead their theatrical pursuits.
Ian joins PULSE as a proud recipient of the 2025 Concordia Undergraduate Student Research Award (CUSRA) exploring the potentiality of LiDAR capturing as a dramaturgical tool in neurodivergent performance and spatial curation. Ian is the artistic producer of Dense & Stage, an experimental physical theatre collective made up of queer and neurodivergent/disabled artists based in Montreal. The collective has produced work across Eastern Canada, as active members of the fringe circuit. The collective has partnered various with theatre companies such as Teesri Duniya Theatre, The Mainline Theatre, etc.
Jamie Woollard
Jamie is a musician and researcher. She is pursuing her PhD in sound, theatre, and urban geography through the Individualized Program at Concordia. Her research considers how sound and spatialization can be used in theatre performance to emphasize intimacy, complexity, empathy and humour, in order to expand understandings of urban community. Her research is supported by a SSHRC scholarship.
Her work with soundscape, multi-channel spatialization and experimental performance contexts is guided by a focus on place. She grew up on the prairies in Treaty 1 territory and is now based in Tio’tia:ke (Montreal, Canada). Jamie creates film scores and performance works, with an emphasis on surrounding the listener with sound to produce an immersive experience.
Jamie trained as a classical pianist for twenty years before becoming interested in electronic composition. She studied piano performance and electroacoustics at Concordia University, where she completed a BFA in Music in 2014 and published research on emergent practices in laptop music. After working with filmmakers for several years, she created "Heat Wave", a large-scale solo work for piano and electronics, and "Immortal Words", a solo album based on the poetry of bixsexual writers throughout history.
Adela Goldbard
Adela Goldbard is an interdisciplinary artist/educator/scholar from Mexico City. She holds an MFA as a Full Merit Fellow in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in Hispanic Language and Literature from the National University of México (UNAM). She is a PhD student in the research-creation stream at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society (CISSC) at Concordia University and a member of the National System of Artistic Creators of México. Her doctoral research (supported by an FRQSC scholarship) focuses on developing a Poetics of Violence: a research-creation project proposing that dramatic violence with its aesthetic potential—ritual, collective, affective—can become a tool for the unsilencing of non-hegemonic narratives, for epistemic decolonization, and to support struggles for justice and autonomy. Her research-creation takes place in the Andean region of Bolivia and Perú.
Goldbard’s art practice draws on experimental/collaborative/sensory field research and brings together sculpture, video, photography, sound, text and traditional textiles, pottery, woodwork and pyrotechnics. Her recent projects include a pyrotechnic play with/for the Mexican community of La Villita in Chicago, commissioned by Gallery 400 (University of Illinois, Chicago, 2019-2020) and a socially engaged art project with/for the P’urhépecha community of Arantepacua, commissioned by the XIV FEMSA Biennial (Michoacán, México, 2020-21).
https://adelagoldbard.com