Dean "Deano, Dad-Roo, Rudy, Papa Dean" Beverley Fogal

Article on Dean's life in Vancouver Sun's Lives Told section

https://livestold.com/story/dean-fogal-68/

 

Obituary

 

Dean Beverley Fogal was born May 14, 1944 in Vancouver BC to nurse Pearl Patricia Fogal (née Dean) and welder Clifford Ross Fogal. The family lived in several places across Canada, Dean and his elder sister Gail navigating many schools in Toronto, Lethbridge, North Vancouver, and Nanaimo. His younger sister Jenna was born before they settled in Port Alberni, BC when Dean was in grade 7. He earned a BA in Psychology and English at UBC in 1966, then attended UBC’s School of Architecture, which involved a trip to Cadaques, Spain to meet Salvador Dali. 

 

Dean found his interest in spatial design shift towards how people can move and relate within a space, and his passion for physical theatre emerged. He married Leilani (Loni) Galloway in 1970 and they moved to Paris, France, where their daughter Claire was born in 1972, and Dean studied with renowned mimes Marcel Marceau and Etienne Decroux. In Arkansas, Dean did an MA in Drama and Speech Communication while assisting Thomas Leabhart with the Arkansas Mime Theatre, and their daughter Michele was born in 1974. Returning to Vancouver in 1975, he and Loni divorced. Both remarried and remained lifelong friends, cultivating a loving extended family.  

 

Dean was instrumental in saving Vancouver’s Firehall Theatre, and helped organize two Canadian International Mime Festivals in the 1980s, and SFU’s two Healing and Creative Arts Conferences in the 1990s. He co-directed the Beaux-Gestes Society in support of BC physical theatre, producing the Spontaneous Combustion festival. He co-founded the Corporeal Mime Society, Room To Move, and Tooba Physical Theatre Centre. In 1981, Dean married Catherine Lee (CLee); they separated in 1985, remaining life long friends and colleagues. As a studio-based researcher over the course of 50 years, Dean taught and continued to innovate Decroux’s Corporeal Mime as the root of the actor’s craft. 

 

Even as a child, Dean was interested in spirituality. As a young man, he read the philosophies of Carlos Castaneda, Buckminster Fuller, and Gurdjieff, and explored faiths such as Buddhism, Sufism, and finally Sant Mat, a path he joined in 1977, becoming a devoted member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. Eventually his sisters Gail and Jenna also joined this path which involves 2.5 hours of daily meditation, vegetarianism, sobriety, and striving towards high moral values. Dean became a lifelong volunteer and speaker at the Satsang Study Centre in Surrey, BC, traveled several times to the Dera in India, and was part of a vibrant international spiritual community with many Satsangi friends. 

 

Dean also had a lifelong interest in psychological wellbeing and a gift for therapeutic care. He worked as a counselor at Browndale Treatment Centre for children in the 1960s; at The Maples Adolescent Treatment Centre for 10 years starting in the 1980s; and privately with several clients who felt their lives were significantly healed in collaboration with Dean. He took excellent care of both his ex-wife Loni, and her husband William Elliott through their dementias from 2017 to 2024. 

 

For the last 15 years of his life, Dean developed a playful and metaphoric mixed-media visual art practice celebrated on his website deanfogal.com. Dean was known for his absurd sense of humour, fanciful writings, exquisite sense of style, and enthusiasm for moving furniture and creating beautiful welcoming spaces. He was a tireless work horse, and cheerfully stubborn about doing things his own way. He was also an extremely loving and playful father and grandfather, encouraging his daughters to draw on his paper walls, and hosting sleepovers at which a large black (stuffed) dog called Uma would pounce on the grandkids upon arrival. Even though their ages were quite widely spread, Dean and his sisters remained very close all their adult lives. 

 

Dean had a bright creative spark, was extremely patient and kind, and relentlessly looked for the positives in people and in life. His ability to be present and joyful profoundly impacted many: family, friends, partners, fellow artists and colleagues, students, Satsangis, clients, nurses, pharmacists, restaurant servers, etc.

 

He died of cancer on April 24, 2025, after a 2 year journey with treatment. All along his commitment to living a long and healthy life was tenacious (with wheat grass juice and carob as the downsides for his kids!) Even right before he died, he was excited to start taking spirulina (again) in hopes of extending his stay here in human form. If ever there was someone who was eager for life, and yet well-prepped to blossom into the next phase of his journey, it was Dad. His energy still hums within us. 

 

Dean is survived by daughters Claire Fogal (Warren Creighton) and Michele Fogal (Jonathan Fether) and ‘stepdaughter’ Camille Elliott (Pierre-Yves Duc); grandchildren Amelie and Sam Fether, Alasdair and Riley Creighton, and Jeremiah Duc; sisters Gail Lund and Jenna (Joan) Fogal and their families, including children Greg and Kerry Lund, Laura Holt, and Dawn Campbell; and former partner Catherine Lee.

 

Please feel free to share this link, mykeeper.com/DeanFogal and to post memories, photos and thoughts of Dean here, so family and friends can remember him together. You can also view his visual art on his website at deanfogal.com. 

 

If you would like to share your thoughts privately just to us, you can email us directly. Michele Fogal mrfogal@gmail.com Claire Fogal clairefogal@gmail.com.

 

In his last months, Dean and Claire worked on an article together, "Five Tools: A Corporeal Mime Perspective on the Roots of Expression in the Body" which will be published in the 2025 fall issue of the journal, Theatre Research in Canada. We will share a link here soon.

 

You can learn more about his physical theatre career and life’s work in Claire’s PhD dissertation here: Relational Performance Pedagogy. This includes two documentary films featuring Dean and his colleagues.