Denise Kenney

Guest Artist / Instructor

Denise Kenney has worked as a theatre performer, creator, and director and has written, directed and produced narrative and documentary film and television. 

She has enjoyed working on a number of productions with Tempest Theatre, including “What a Mess”, “The Half Life of Marie Curie”, and “Malleus Maleficarum.” She performed her own show “Canary” at Tempest and has taught mask, acting, and movement workshops with Kate. She studied at the Lecoq Theatre School in Paris and has her MFA in film directing from the University of British Columbia. 

Denise is Co-Founder of The Eco Art Incubator, a research project designed to foster production of eco art in the Okanagan valley and Inner Fish Performance Co., an interdisciplinary performance company that creates original work to challenge the boundaries of live performance and cultivate connection and belonging. Theatre highlights include: Cyprus: Sites Embodied, a site specific performance project on the Akamas Peninsula in collaboration with the European Dance Network; Handheld Devices:  Body Politic, a two-person intimate performance using the cell phone as a window to the naked body for the Montreal Encuentro Festival; Social Potluck, a dialogical performance model combining storytelling, community building and community food action for Key City Public Theatre, Port Townsend, WA; Green Space, a hybrid of installation/ performance art and participatory theatre project for the Canoe Festival, Edmonton; Soundcan: Art of Public Noise, an outdoor public space interventionist project that toured Europe; and multiple original works as deviser/performer with Edmonton’s Catalyst Theatre. Film/TV highlights include: The Living Building, a documentary celebrating sustainable living and diversity in our communities; The Common Fag, a short film satirizing the struggles and victories of a queer man within the Canadian “landscape”; Taaloo Zorouna, a series of interviews with Syrian refugees, recorded for an online resource; and writing, directing and field producing many episodes of the Weird Homes, Weird Wheels and Weird Weddings lifestyle series television with Vancouver’s Yaletown Productions (Leo Award for best Director in a Lifestyle Series). 

Denise is currently an Associate Professor in Creative Studies at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan.