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Natalie Alvarez

Professor and Associate Dean, Scholarly, Research, and Creative Activities
DepartmentPerformance
EducationPhD Theatre Studies, University of Toronto | MA English, University of British Columbia | BA English, Simon Fraser University
Areas of ExpertisePerformance studies, contemporary political performance and rights emergencies in the Americas, Latinx-Canadian theatre and performance, immersive performance in the public sphere, art activism, scenario-based pedagogy, and performance and critical theory.

Natalie Alvarez is Associate Dean of Scholarly, Research and Creative Activities and Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies in the School of Performance with research specializations in performance studies, contemporary political performance and rights emergencies in the Americas, immersive performance in the public sphere, Latinx diasporic performance, art activism, and scenario-based pedagogy. She is author of Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance (external link, opens in new window)  (U of Michigan Press, 2018) winner of the Ann Saddlemyer Book Prize by the Canadian Association for Theatre Research (CATR); co-editor with Keren Zaiontz and Claudette Lauzon of Sustainable Tools for Precarious Times: Performance Actions in the Americas (external link, opens in new window)  (Palgrave Macmillan 2019), winner of the Excellence in Editing award by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE); and editor of Essays on Latina/o Canadian Theatre and Performance and Fronteras Vivientes: Eight Latina/o Canadian Plays (Playwrights Canada Press, 2013) winners of the 2014 and 2015 Patrick O’Neil Book Prize by CATR. Her most recent book, Theatre & War, is currently in press with Bloomsbury and due for release in January 2023. Her work has been published widely in international journals and essay collections.

Natalie is the Principal Investigator of a four-year SSHRC Insight Grant, “Scenario Training to Improve Interactions Between Police and Individuals in Mental Health Crisis: Impacts and Efficacy”, which uses performance as a nexus for multidisciplinary research across the humanities and social sciences. With co-investigators Dr. Yasmine Kandil (University of Victoria) and Dr. Jennifer Lavoie (Wilfrid Laurier), the project brings together a national team of theatre practitioners, simulation training experts, individuals with lived experience of mental illness and peer support workers, Indigenous cultural safety experts, mental health clinicians, and forensic psychologists to co-design and measure the efficacy of problem-based scenario training in de-escalation and mental health crisis response. The community co-designed program is now being developed in both live action and VR formats for police services across the province of Ontario.