GENesis 2022: Pocket Conference & Festival: Recent Episodes
fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company
In an effort to nurture the relationship between scholarship and artists, fu-GEN Theatre planned a first of its kind week-long conference dedicated to Asian Canadian Theatre. The conference launched alongside the first ever anthology of Asian Canadian plays: Love + Realasianships, edited by founding Artistic Director Nina Lee Aquino. 2010 became a seminal year in Asian Canadian theatre research; a new wave of Asian scholarship in theatre emerged from our newly canonical history. GENesis 2022: Pocket Conference & Festival builds upon the legacy of GENesis 2010. With Pocket Conference & Festival, we bring this legacy to an international scale; questioning our relationships to one another during a global pandemic, our interconnectivity, and our innate desire to create innovative theatrical work during a time when theatres are rebuilding and redefining their roles in the community. Pocket Conference & Festival is a fundamental launching point for a new era of Asian theatre and performance scholarship. Investigating innovation and reinvention in Asian work from across the globe will inspire a new wave of Asian scholarship, one that our global community can share.
About No Foreigners: Staging the Present-Future and PastNo Foreigners is a collaborative work co-produced by fu-GEN, Hong Kong Exile, and Theatre Conspiracy. Written by David Yee and staged by Milton Lim, the play uses digital imagery and media technology to unfold its narrative intentions. By using post-Brechtian techniques No Foreigners addresses questions of belonging and cultural expectations with action taking place in the present-future, and the past. The production encourages audiences to think critically about the roles they inhabit within the broader socio-political arena.Dr. Eury Colin Chang:Eury Colin Chang is a Vancouver-born theatre artist and scholar living on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations. His forthcoming doctoral dissertation entitled "A History of Asian Canadian Theatre, 1971-2021" is the first book-length study to trace the last fifty years of Asian Canadian theatre. Over the past twenty years, Eury has worked as a professional arts writer and Editor of Ricepaper magazine (Asian Canadian Writers Workshop) and independent dramaturge/director and general/tour manager in the performing arts. His recent jury work includes the BC Arts Council (Publishing), the New Script Jury for the Jessie Richardson Awards, and Board of Director (BC Representative) for the Canadian Association for Theatre Research. His work has been published in anthologies by Playwrights Canada Press, Arsenal Pulp Press, University of Wisconsin Press, and in journals such as Theatre Research in Canada, and Canadian Theatre Review.
About the panelists:
André Dae Kim, is an actor/writer from Toronto Canada. Kim had done theatre since the age of 8 and continued pursuing dramatic studies in high school and university. Kim's professional career started with Degrassi: The Next Generation / Next Class and since then Kim has been working in film for the last 10 years. Some notable productions have been "Salvation", "Schitt's Creek", "American Gods", "Locke & Key", "Mary Kills People" and many more. As a Canadian-Korean actor, André hopes to continue to take part and create stories that shed light on the Asian Canadian experience and hopes to work and create more projects that show more diverse areas of Film and Television that have yet to be explored.
A long-time friend of fu-GEN Theatre, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee is a Korean-Canadian actor and television host. He is best known for his roles as Randy Ko in the soap opera Train 48 (2003–2005) and as family patriarch Appa in the play Kim's Convenience (2011) and its television adaptation (2016–2021).Lee has won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series four times for his role as Mr. Kim in Kim's Convenience, and has been nominated twice for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Principal Role, Large Theatre, for The Monster Under the Bed in 2010 and the stage version of Kim's Convenience in 2012.
Leon Aureus is the Artistic Producer of Carlos Bulosan Theatre, a Filipino-Canadian Theatre company based in Toronto that has been supporting artists and producing theatre for over 40 years. He is also a playwright, a Dora nominated actor, filmmaker and producer. Past roles and select credits include: co-founder of fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company; co-founder Step-UP Improv Comedy troupe, Playwright – Banana Boys, People Power, In the Shadow of Elephants, Kaldero; Director – Anak, Kaldero, The Commute; Associate Producer – Kim’s Convenience (Toronto Fringe). He has also directed work on the commercial side for clients such as CAMH, Scotiabank and BMO.
Grace Lynn Kung holds two Certificates of Distinction for Speech and Drama from Trinity College London in the UK. Her voice can be heard in Fallout 76, Far Cry 4, the Doozers, and several audiobooks including the Ava Lee crime series, Disappearing Moon Cafe and The Tiger Flu, LAMBDA Literary Award winner for queer fiction.Screen credits include lobbying with Jessica Chastain (Miss Sloane), NCIS, Clarice, Star Trek Discovery, Designated Survivor, The Expanse, Cult of Chucky, Transplant, Sarah Polley's web series – Hey Lady – and Ramin Bahrani's HBO adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, with Michael B Jordan. Grace's directorial debut – A False Sense of Security – won Special Jury Mention at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas in Texas. She play Bessy in this year's Peabody award winning series “Sort Of” and in 2023 will play the lead Marissa Wong, in the Lionsgate series “Wong + Winchester”.
About the presenter:
Vicki Zhang is an Associate Professor (Teaching Stream) at University of Toronto. Some academic interests include "embedded ethics" in finance education, narrative and arts integrated math education, insurance and financial regulations, and AI ethics. They are the author of the book Uncalculated Risks (Canadian Scholars' Press), which examines the transformation of insurance products and regulation, and the economic and social consequences.
About the presenter:
Over the last decade, Asian Canadian theatre has developed and expanded in terms of themes, subject matter, and ways of representation. Since the publication of Nina Lee Aquino’s two volume compendium Love +Relasianships in 2009, there has been several plays that go beyond the realist depiction of an immigrant family’s struggle to survive in one’s adopted land, beyond the conflicts between older and younger generations, issues common to immigrant drama. While issues of assimilation and adjustment are still present, many playwrights present their stories in innovative ways, include elements of music, dance, performance and even some magic to produce entertaining yet challenging plays, to raise important social issues about race, gender, and social justice.
About the Panelist:
Signy Lynch is a theatre scholar, critical dramaturg, educator, and Governor General’s Gold Medal winner (2022). Her areas of research specialization include contemporary intercultural, intermedial, and participatory theatre in Canada; audience research; and theatre criticism. Her work has been published in numerous journals and edited collections. She is co-editor of Canadian Theatre Review volume 186, “Theatre After the Explosion” (Spring 2021), and is co-chair of the board of directors of Toronto’s Cahoots Theatre. Her PhD dissertation in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University (2021) won the Barbara Goddard Prize for best dissertation in Canadian Studies. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Toronto Mississauga and co-director of the Centre for Spectatorship and Audience Research (Queen's University).
About the presenter:
Meera Kanageswaran is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies. She holds an MA (Master of Arts) from the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto and an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Dance from York University. Her MFA thesis examined dance works produced by diasporic Tamil artists during the civil war period in Sri Lanka. Her MA thesis critically examined the teacher-student relationship within Bharathanatyam classrooms in order to assess the efficacy as well as ineffectiveness of various aspects of this relationship. Meera’s doctoral research trajectory includes critically studying current Bharathanatyam pedagogy in order to create inclusive and accessible Bharathanatyam classrooms. In her performance career, Meera has danced in Germany, Switzerland, India, South Africa, the US and Canada. Meera is the principal teacher at Mississauga-based dance school, Confidance Bharatham, which she founded in 2006.
About the Panelists:
David Yee is a mixed race (half Chinese, half Scottish) playwright and actor, born and raised in Toronto. He is the co-founding Artistic Director of fu-GEN Theatre Company, Canada’s premiere professional Asian Canadian theatre company. A Dora Mavor Moore Award nominated actor and playwright, his work has been produced internationally and at home. He is a two-time Governor General’s Literary Award nominee for his plays lady in the red dress and carried away on the crest of a wave, which won the award in 2015 along with the Carol Bolt Award in 2013. He has worked extensively in the Asian Canadian community as an artist and an advocate.
Julie Phan 潘家雯 feels empty inside. If this McGill dropout was a piece of art, she would be the world’s biggest rubber duck in the Toronto Harbour. She is a Hoklo- Vietnamese writer, actor and exotic dancer based in Toronto and Montreal and recent graduate from the National Theatre School of Canada in playwriting. She is best known for disappointing her father and her work with fu-GEN asian theatre company (double bill, fearless).
郝邦宇 Steven Hao is a Chinese-born Canadian actor, director, and theatre creator based in Tkaronto. You may recognize him from the Tarragon stage as Cockroach in Jeff Ho's play Cockroach. Or maybe you’ve seen the latest rendition of A Perfect Bowl of Pho he directed at the Fringe. Or maybe you recognize him just as a regular fella, searching for love in this sometimes loveless city. Maybe you know him as a friend, who sometimes bought you bubble tea; maybe a foe, who wronged you in the past; maybe you know him as a stranger, you know, like one of those familiar-looking people you come across but don’t quite know if you know them or not; or maybe you don’t know him at all, maybe you don’t want to know him, and…maybe that’s ok. Maybe none of us actually really know each other, maybe we’re all just supporting characters in each other’s movies, maybe…maybe. This is Steven’s first time producing, so he wants to shout out David Yee, Marissa Orjalo, Tiffany Ledesma, Deborah Lim, and Crystal Lee for trusting him with this task. Toodle Loo!
Marjorie works variously as writer, director and dramaturge in opera, and performance and is the Artistic Director of Theatre Passe Muraille. Her work has been seen and performed in the United States, Scotland, Hong Kong, Russia and across Canada. Her plays include China Doll, and Lady Sunrise, which have both been nominated for the Governor General’s Award. Her other plays include, The Year of the Cello, The Madness of the Square, a nanking winter, and Tails From the City, as well as the libretti for the operas, Sanctuary Song, The Lesson of Da Ji, M’dea Undone, The Monkiest King, and upcoming The Nightingale of a Thousand Songs. Marjorie has been nominated for nine Dora Awards and is the recipient of four. Other recognition includes the KM Hunter Artist award, a Harold Award, Bra D’Or Award, and the George Luscombe Award. She has been artist-in-residence with Factory, Banff, Tapestry Opera, Cahoots Theatre, Theatre Centre, Theatre Direct, SUNY (Geneseo, New York) and Theatre du Pif (Hong Kong). Upcoming: Direction for The Chinese Lady by Lloyd Suh (fu-GEN/Studio 180/Crow’s) and the operatic adaptation of Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing.
About the presenter:
Governor General’s Award finalist, Tetsuro Shigematsu, became the first person-of-colour to host a daily national radio program in Canada, where he coproduced nearly a thousand hours of network programming, as well as writing, producing and voicing over 50 pieces of radio drama. His last three stage plays have garnered a total of 21 Jessie Richardson Theatre Award nominations, including 3 for “Best Original Script.” A former writer for This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Tetsuro’s solo-work Empire of the Son was described by theatre critic Colin Thomas as, “one of the best shows ever to come out of Vancouver. Ever.” In 2018, he earned his PhD in arts-based research from UBC as a Vanier scholar, and now serves as Creative Director of UBC’s Research-based Theatre Lab. Visit him at shiggy.com
About the presenter:
Queer Filipinx playwright C.E. Gatchalian talks about how the impulse to decolonize and indigenize led him to crack back open and rework his award-winning 2011 play Falling in Time, which deals with white supremacy, queerness, toxic masculinity and the Korean War.
About the panelists:
Loretta Seto is a screenwriter, children's book author, and award-winning playwright. Her play Dirty Old Woman was a smash hit at the 2014 Vancouver Fringe Festival, enjoying a completely sold-out run, and winning the Pick of the Fringe and The Cultchivating the Fringe awards. The play was remounted in April 2016 at The Cultch, again selling out its entire run and garnering more positive reviews. Her latest play, The Ones We Leave Behind, was developed and produced by Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, and had a successful run at The Cultch in 2018, winning a Jessie Richardson award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Alannah Ong).Loretta is the author of the children's picture book Mooncakes (Orca Books). She is also a co-founder of Wet Ink Collective, an initiative that supports the creation, development and production of new stage- and screenplays written by women.
Born and raised in beautiful Vancouver, Jennifer started performing as a kid and has journeyed through musical theatre, high school drama, improv and film. Select credits include A Christmas Carol (Exit 22), China Doll (Gateway Theatre), Sacred Lies (Peacock), Grand Army (Netflix), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (The CW), The Good Doctor (ABC), Honey Girls (Sony Pictures) and a lead role in Fakes (Netflix/CBC Gem). When she's not in front of a camera or onstage, you can find her dancing, tending to her garden, or eating too much raspberry liquorice.
Anjela is an actor, director, and producer holding a BFA in theatre performance from SFU. She has worked nationally across Canada and internationally in Hong Kong and various parts of the UK as a performer and collaborator in devised theatre. Anjela is the Co-founder of New(to)Town Collective, a company believing that physical performance training should be economically accessible. She is the first recipient of Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre’s Emerging Director’s Award, a program spring boarding the careers of emerging Asian directors.
About the presenter:
Priyanka Chatterjee has done a M.A. and M.Phil in English from the University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India. Her M.Phil topic was Malefriendship in the plays of Samuel Beckett: a study of Waiting for Godot and Endgame. Presently, she is pursuing her PhD in Theatre (Theatre Studies) from University of Victoria, Canada. Her topic is Beckett between cultures and the reception of Samuel Beckett in the theatres of India. She was the Convener of Indian Society for Theatre Research’s (ISTR) IXth Annual International Conference in 2013. She was the Research Assistant of the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) project Ibsen, Chekov and Brecht in Bengal: Negotiating Differences in University of Calcutta. She has presented research papers at the University of Oxford (UK), the University of Gdansk (Poland), the Osaka University (Japan), the Buddhasravaka Bhikshu University (Srilanka), the Faculty of Letters (Morocco), the University of Reading (UK), the University of Lapland (Finland), the University of Warwick (UK), the Stockholm University (Sweden), the University of Belgrade (Serbia), University of Iceland (Iceland) and so on. She is one of the Board members of Jura Soyfer Society, Vienna (Austria). She was the recipient of Women Economic Forum's prestigious Award "Exceptional Woman of Excellence" on March 8, 2018 at Den Haag in The Netherlands. She is the Joint Secretary of Indian Society for Theatre Research (ISTR), India for the last few years.
About the presenter:
Eury Colin Chang is a Vancouver-born theatre artist and scholar living on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations. His forthcoming doctoral dissertation entitled "A History of Asian Canadian Theatre, 1971-2021" is the first book-length study to trace the last fifty years of Asian Canadian theatre. Over the past twenty years, Eury has worked as a professional arts writer and Editor of Ricepaper magazine (Asian Canadian Writers Workshop) and independent dramaturge/director and general/tour manager in the performing arts. His recent jury work includes the BC Arts Council (Publishing), the New Script Jury for the Jessie Richardson Awards, and Board of Director (BC Representative) for the Canadian Association for Theatre Research. His work has been published in anthologies by Playwrights Canada Press, Arsenal Pulp Press, University of Wisconsin Press, and in journals such as Theatre Research in Canada, and Canadian Theatre Review.
About the panelists:
Remy Siu 蕭逸南 is a composer, new media artist, and game developer.Recently, his work has involved the construction of automated and variable performance apparatuses that employ light, sound, software, and the body. He is interested in creating friction and stakes between the performer, the interface, and the system through the use of game mechanics and failure. His output spans chamber music, dance, theatre, installations, and audio-visual work.
Governor General’s Award finalist, Tetsuro Shigematsu, became the first person-of-colour to host a daily national radio program in Canada, where he coproduced nearly a thousand hours of network programming, as well as writing, producing and voicing over 50 pieces of radio drama. His last three stage plays have garnered a total of 21 Jessie Richardson Theatre Award nominations, including 3 for “Best Original Script.” A former writer for This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Tetsuro’s solo-work Empire of the Son was described by theatre critic Colin Thomas as, “one of the best shows ever to come out of Vancouver. Ever.”
Born in colonial Hong Kong, Stephanie Wong (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist based on the ancestral and unceded lands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ peoples. Her art is an invocation to imagination. Her practice dances between introspection and connection. She thrives in community, and strives to give back through a commitment to collective care.Her disciplines include directing, producing, dramaturgy, new work creation, performance, and design. A graduate of Studio 58's Acting Program, and the current Associate Artistic Director of re:Naissance Opera, she has transferred her multidisciplinary live performance skills to the digital landscape.
Sound Artist, Nancy Tam (譚亦斯), works and lives on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam and Tsleil- Waututh Nations. She works across disciplinary bounds with sound and performance as her primary media. Using multi-channel audio, and musical composition her current research triangulates between sound, space, and body to investigate tendencies of global and local mobilizations of creatures, objects, and events. Nancy is an award-winning composer. Her compositions, audio walks, performances, and collaborations have toured in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Norway, Hong Kong, the U.S. and throughout Canada.
More about Siyuan Liu:
Siyuan Liu is a professor of theatre at the University of British Columbia and editor of Asian Theatre Journal. His research focuses on Chinese theatre in the modern era and Asian Canadian theatre. His recent published books include Xin Fengxia and the Transformation of China’s Ping Opera (author, Cambridge 2022), Transforming Tradition: The Reform of Chinese Theatre in the 1950s and Early 1960s (author, Michigan 2021), and Rethinking Chinese Socialist Theaters of Reform: Performance Practice and Debate in the Mao Era (co-editor, Michigan 2021).
Embark on an exploration of creative challenges through the perspective of a creative technologist. Learn how interactive collaboration enabled 3D virtual world projects such as Pluritopia, Window by Attempts, and Cloud House with Centre 42 to be deployed and performed with live and recorded elements. Gain critical insights and perspective on the potential and future of VR/AR 3D virtual world performance.
Thong Pei Qin is a Singaporean theatre director whose theatre-making encourages the staging of new writing, and rediscovering innovative forms of cross-disciplinary research and creations across the physical, visual, verbal, textual and technology. Many of her devised original works consider the sensitive use of spaces within their historical contexts, and involve diverse groups of art-makers from different mediums and realms, including the digital metaverse. Read about her portfolio here: (https://www.facebook.com/thongpeiqin.director/)
This project is interested in mainly two concepts; anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism. It is argued that anthropomorphism is significantly rooted in anthropocentrism, which ironically subverts the attention away from the animal narrative and back on humans, thus exacerbating an already decrepit relationship. This is a crucial problem as it is argued that such narratives can directly influence audience members’ perception of animals, which may determine the way in which animals are treated in real life. Evidently, is it argued that theatre has a direct connection to animal welfare and can potentially determine it. As such, this dissertation aims to answer this question, ‘Within the realm of theatre in Singapore, what is the optimal/most effective method of anthropomorphism to encourage empathy in audience members for animal welfare?’ Research was conducted through four qualitative methods, namely, literature review, historical review of past productions staged in Singapore involving animals, play analysis of two local plays that include animal portrayal, and finally, interviews were conducted with one practitioner from each of the two analysed productions, to gain better insight into their process’ and objectives. This research concludes that the societal context and national culture may affect the type of method of anthropomorphism most suitable for that demographic. In addition, five main criteria are proposed when it comes to incorporating anthropomorphism in theatre productions, should the concern be to do so respectfully, ethically, and with animals at the heart of the narrative as we innovate towards a new Singaporean theatre.
Very often, drama lessons require live action, interaction, kinaesthetic experience, and co-collaboration in a shared space. However, the pandemic and the restrictions that followed, gave educators the opportunity to find innovative ways to teach, train and direct online.The effective utilisation of technology enabled the delivery lessons without compromising its rigour, academic and artistic qualities. During this time, students participated in individual improvisation activities, made virtual monologue videos, created, and analysed characters through process drama activities, devised and presented scenes in breakout rooms, explored playscripts and learnt about digital theatre. Students were made to present their research findings through interactive mediums and share their creations through live streaming. This required a balance of independent, peer-to-peer and group activities to encourage communication and learning from each other, even when separated.It became evident that teaching online was no longer about adjusting to an emergency but rather redesigning or re-strategising how drama activities are facilitated, and content is organised, transferred and shared online. In this presentation, Shanmuganathan presents reflections of teaching drama online to secondary level students in Singapore during the pandemic. She evaluates the effectiveness of the online assignment and discuss the factors that contributed to its success and discusses the changing pattern of delivery of this programme which now affords more opportunities for interaction and communication through a hybrid model that schools have adopted.
Acting is a practice of scripted and rehearsed performance, and the production of repeatable performances. It is also the practice of ‘aliveness’, a state of moment-to-moment awareness and consciousness, spontaneous and unpredictable. The ability to repeat beautifully, as if doing so for the first time, every single time, is what distinguishes a phenomenal actor from a mediocre one. Herein lies the actor’s paradox; how does one overcome lifelessness in endless repetition?This research thus presents ongoing research into Spontaneous Aliveness, a performance philosophy and accompanying method of training. I have identified physical ‘sensations’ — experienced as a result of interacting with the world around us — as physiological signifiers of human aliveness. I posit that the more well-versed an actor gets with their experience of sensations, the more effectively and reliably they can imbue their characters with life energy. My practice research therefore seeks to train the actor to increase their awareness of sensations, practice this awareness, and reliably repeat the experience of being alive.The Spontaneous Aliveness system relies on the practice of codified improvisation to train actors’ awareness of and response to themselves and others, within their surrounding environment. Some of the influences on my existing body of work include Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints training and composition, Ang Gey Pin’s Sourcing Within, Frank Camilleri’s Tekhnē Sessions and Laban Movement Analysis. In my current phase of research, I am interested in the potential of practising Spontaneous Aliveness in an ensemble of actors, as a means of psychophysical actor training.
Producing Artistic Director of Sight Lines Entertainment, Derrick Chew, speaks about the creative challenges and achievements behind two of the company’s recent projects: The Future Stage, and Murder at Mandai Camp. What can be considered game changing in our new pandemic world of experiencing theatre, Sight Lines Entertainment aims to bring audiences’ into the narratives they are creating in a visceral way. By not removing the intrinsic theatrical attributes of live theatre, the company rather heightens them through the digital medium.As an insider to the creation process, Chew will share how the pandemic’s shift towards digital theatre has enabled the company to approach performance work from a newly invigorated sense of significance. What potential does this work have to influence the trajectory of Singaporean theatre making? How does this surge in world-wide access to local theatre provoke our understanding of “live performance”? To simply digitalize a performance ignores the plethora of opportunities for audience engagement; Sight Lines Entertainment leans into satiating what a digital audience craves, and creates some thrilling digital theatre while asking the question, “what do these digital audiences want during a global pandemic and how can we provide it tenfold?”
An anonymous panel on government censorship, symbolism in theatre as activism, memory as a political act, and different forms of authorities we engage with – or actively combat – to create art.
Indigeneity as cultural subjectivity looks different and is engaged with differently in other parts of the world. Panelists discuss how their work as artists is innately cross-cultural. They explore the concept of language connecting us to land, identity as political power, and the idea of cultural authenticity.
More about our panelists!
Hiro Kanagawa is a Vancouver-based actor and writer. He is perhaps best-known for his guest appearances and recurring roles on popular television and streaming series such as Star Trek: Discovery, The Good Doctor, Altered Carbon, The X-Files, iZombie, Smallville and many more. Also a sought-after script doctor and consultant, he was story editor on several critically-acclaimed Canadian television series: Da Vinci’s Inquest, Da Vinci’s City Hall, Intelligence and Blackstone.His full-length plays The Tiger of Malaya and The Patron Saint of Stanley Park have been performed across Canada as have many of his shorter works. He received the 2017 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Drama for his play, Indian Arm. His latest play, an adaptation of Mark Sakamoto’s best-selling memoir, Forgiveness, will premiere in January, 2023 in an Arts Club Theatre / Theatre Calgary co-production directed by acclaimed Japanese Canadian director Stafford Arima.
Tiffany Thomas (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and performer based in Calgary/Mohkinstsis, the territory of the Blackfoot People, and other Nations signatory to Treaty 7. She is a transracial adoptee with Filipinx, Settler, and distant Mi’gmaq Ancestors. She works at the intersection of theatre, concert, epic poetry and activism, drawing inspiration from the communities she lives in, and those she shares ancestry with, to create electrifying oral histories that transcend time, space, gender, and generational divides.
Tammy Hailiʻōpua Baker is a playwright/director/scholar/educator whose work focuses on revitalizing Kanaka Maoli moʻolelo (native Hawaiian history and narratives). Across the Hawaiian archipelago and Oceania, her plays have invoked Indigenous consciousness and cultural identity. Hailiʻōpua is a board member of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists and an invited director at the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation. In the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, she oversees the Hawaiian Theatre and Playwriting MFA Programs. Originally from Kapa‘a, Kaua‘i she now resides in Kahalu‘u, Ko‘olaupoko, O‘ahu with her ‘ohana.
More about our moderators!
As a researcher and theatre-worker, Jill Carter (Anishinaabe/Ashkenazi) works in Tkaron:to with many Indigenous artists to support the development of new works and to disseminate artistic objectives, process, and outcomes through community-driven research projects. Her scholarly research, creative projects, and activism are built upon ongoing relationships with Indigenous Elders, scholars, youth, artists and activists positioning her as witness to, participant in, and disseminator of oral histories that speak to the application of Indigenous aesthetic principles and traditional knowledge systems to contemporary performance.