An adelheid & Dreamwalker Dance Company co-presentation with support from SummerWorks, the Citadel
and the Taipei Cultural Center in New York
and the Taipei Cultural Center in New York
International Choreographic Interlink: Toronto/Taipei
EVENTS
August 06, 2:15-3:45pm Producers Talk This conversation is an opportunity to learn from different contexts by sharing experience and knowledge as resources; a chance to hear what's on the mind of producers working on international projects and collaborations including questions they're asking, strategies they're developing, and what they’re excited about.
Guest producers include: Wen Huang /Taiwan, Ariana Shaw/Toronto, Kevin Matthew Wong/Toronto, and Aislinn Rose / Toronto
Venue: Meridian Hall
Venue: Meridian Hall
August 09, 1-2pm OPEN STUDIO [Toronto/Taipei] is an informal sharing of in-process performance work that brings together emerging choreographers Naceku [Taiwan] & Nyda Kwasowsky [Toronto]
Venue: The Citadel, 304 Parliament Street
Venue: The Citadel, 304 Parliament Street
Producers Talk // who's who:
Wen Huang (she/her) is an independent producer based in Taiwan. Her interests in dance, physical theatre, and interdisciplinary art lead her to productions and tours with dance companies such as HORSE, Legend Lin as well as independent choreographers/artists. She also works with various organisations/institutions for international projects and events such as ARTWAVE – Taiwan International Arts Network(Performing Arts, 2017-19), Tainan Arts Festival(producer, 2019), Pulima Festival(2018), Future Circus Lab(2017), Fly Global(2014-17), QA Ring(2014), Art Taipei, Taishin Arts Award, film festivals and dance documentary.
An International Relation graduate from National Cheng-chi University, Taiwan, and MA in Arts and Cultural Management form UIC, Barcelona, Wen was granted in 2014 by the NCAF for her research project on Site-specific and Urban Festivals. She continues to develop her interests in exploring the world, connecting people, and being inspired by the journey she’s been through.
An International Relation graduate from National Cheng-chi University, Taiwan, and MA in Arts and Cultural Management form UIC, Barcelona, Wen was granted in 2014 by the NCAF for her research project on Site-specific and Urban Festivals. She continues to develop her interests in exploring the world, connecting people, and being inspired by the journey she’s been through.
Aislinn Rose (she/her) Before joining the Theatre Centre as General Manager in 2014 and later becoming Creative Producer in 2017 Aislinn was known for her work as an independent producer and theatre-maker, working with several Toronto companies and artists. She was Artistic Producer (alongside Artistic Director Michael Wheeler) of Praxis Theatre, and co-editor of praxistheatre.com. In 2019 she was appointed General and Artistic Director following The Theatre Centre Board of Directors’ national search for a new leader. Over the years she has worked with our Residency artists on the long-term development of ideas through to production, while collaborating with national and international touring companies, solidifying the company’s reputation as an international live arts incubator and presenter.Aislinn has a strong belief in building deep relationships with artists over long periods of time including Liza Balkan (Out the Window) and Adam Lazarus (The Art of Building a Bunker and Daughter).Over the last several years, Rose worked closely with artist Ian Kamau through several creation periods of his Residency project Loss, which premiered at Luminato in 2023.
Ariana Shaw (she/her) is a Chinese-Canadian, from Tkaronto, also known as Toronto. For over a decade, she was an aerial circus artist who performed and taught both locally and internationally as an artist, choreographer, and instructor. Transitioning to arts management, Ariana completed the Arts Administration and Cultural Management post-graduate program at Humber College. Her career took a pivotal turn when she was hired from her internship at the Sony Centre to become a Programming Coordinator with Civic Theatres Toronto (now TO Live), an organization managing three of Toronto’s historic performing arts venues. Since 2017, Ariana has been responsible for managing and producing a wide range of performing arts events, and has since advanced to the role of Senior Producer at TO Live. Dedicated to the arts, Ariana has worked with a diverse array of local, Canadian, and international artists and companies. Her work spans various projects, from small local productions to large international ones, reflecting her commitment to enriching the performing arts community.
Kevin Matthew Wong (he/him) is a Hakka-Chinese Canadian theatre creator, performer, dramaturg, facilitator, video designer and producer. Kevin has created, produced and toured works across Canada and internationally, at organizations like Barbican Centre (UK), Canada's National Arts Centre, Shaw Festival, Stratford Festival, Canadian Stage, Luminato, Music Picnic (Macau-Toronto), and Festival Theaterformen (Germany). Kevin is the Director of Producing and Creative Associate at Why Not Theatre leading large scale projects like the critically-acclaimed world premiere and international touring of Mahabharata. Kevin is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of Broadleaf Creative, which merges social justice and live performance. His documentary-theatre solo-performance The Chemical Valley Project - a collaboration with Julia Howman and Aamjiwnaang First Nation Water Protectors Vanessa Gray and Beze Gray - tackles longstanding environmental racism in Ontario and has toured widely. Kevin’s recent projects entitled Benevolence include a documentary film created with the ReelAsian International Film Festival, an art installation with Toronto History Museums, and a new solo-performance premiering in 2025 at the Tarragon Theatre. Kevin is the inaugural winner of both the Jini Stolk Creative Fellowship and the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Innovative Experience.
OPEN STUDIO artists
OPEN STUDIO [Taiwan] features Naceku's《Where are the snails?》which uses the Pinuyumayan (one of Taiwanese Indigenous peoples) traditional home-cooked meal —snails, as a metaphor to explore the Naceku's experience as an urban-living Indigenous person. It delves into the confusion, fluidity, and authenticity surrounding Naceku's mixed descent (Pinuyumayan and Taiwanese Han), examining the indigenous experiences and embodiment of indigeneity within the context of a mixed-race identity. In a diverse and complex contemporary Taiwan society, the piece investigates how to create pathways to reconnect with the maternal culture, shifting the fringes of different cultures and regions to construct a sense of identity. The foundation of the piece is based on the use of objects and body movements, deconstructing the original symbolic meanings and uses of these objects in both urban and tribal settings. It seeks to reassemble and reinterpret these meanings to reflect how a multi-layered sense of identity and subjectivity can be imagined and embodied within the context of urban indigeneity.
He Yan-Yu [Naceku] is a Taipei, Taiwan, raised and based non-binary performance artist of Pinuyumayan (one of Taiwanese indigenous peoples) and Taiwanese Han descent. Graduated from the Dance Department at the University of Taipei, and currently working as a rehearsal assistant at the Kua Bo Dance Theatre, Naceku's artistic practice focuses on indigenous culture, queer perspectives, and gender issues. They actively explore maternal tribal culture, using physical creation to present their complex identity of mixed Taiwanese Han and Pinuyumayan descent in contemporary contexts, seeking new understandings of diverse identity recognition.
OPEN STUDIO [Toronto] features Nyda Kwasowsky's work in progress entitled version 11:11 looks at grief and the erotics through practices the ‘gap of unknowing’ and ‘object intimacies’ in the context of diasporic hybridity. As a multidisciplinary maker, the forms challenge and deconstruct via cultural materiality; sensorial embodiment, visuals, sound and objects used in an experimental, improvisational choreographic score for relationality into the spaces that reveal memory and multiplicity.
Acting as a ritual to empower and ground marginal existence and the tenderness of unknowing. The materiality of time, the body in activated pleasure and ease and object intimacies shares a relationality to imagination that echoes EROS/love from a diasporic context for place making and world building.
Nyda Kwasowsky is a freelance multidisciplinary dance artist, interpreter, performer and emerging choreographer based out of Tsi Tkaronto.‘This body has the role of remembering, dance as the action that collects us.’ Her work centres around grief, hybridity and longing in racialized diasporic experience. Studied in trauma informed practices and somatics, she scores multidisciplinary improvisational and experimental explorations. Her most recent explorations look at the intersections of movement and cultural materiality.
WORKSHOPS
After an ongoing collaboration, International Choreographic Interlink: Toronto/Taipei is pleased to share a collection of workshop offerings that give a window into the creative process, physical approach, and practice of three incredible artists: Fangas Nayaw [Fist & Cake Productions]; WuKangChen [HORSE]; PinWen Su [KuaBo Dance Theatre].
1) Connect w/The Bones with WuKang Chen
August 03 from10am-12pm
Description: It would be my attempt to combine the sensations I gained from some of my favourite movement practices. Includes touch/stretch/walking/running.
For you if: you are willing to touch and be touched (with clothes on).
Bio: Born and raised in Taiwan and trained in National Taiwan University Academy of Arts, Wu-Kang danced with Feld's Ballet Tech and Peridance in New York where he grew fully as a dancer under Mr. Feld’s creative work (2001-2013). He established an ensemble, HORSE a dance collective troupe in Taiwan, which he is the artistic director from 2004 until now.
August 03 from10am-12pm
Description: It would be my attempt to combine the sensations I gained from some of my favourite movement practices. Includes touch/stretch/walking/running.
For you if: you are willing to touch and be touched (with clothes on).
Bio: Born and raised in Taiwan and trained in National Taiwan University Academy of Arts, Wu-Kang danced with Feld's Ballet Tech and Peridance in New York where he grew fully as a dancer under Mr. Feld’s creative work (2001-2013). He established an ensemble, HORSE a dance collective troupe in Taiwan, which he is the artistic director from 2004 until now.
2) Move to Play: find your motif with Fangas Nayaw + I-Fen Tung
August 09 from 10am-12pm
Description: Think about body movements in the way of competitive sports and create a playful relationship between the body and individuals, objects, and two people. An extended body development approach from sports to dance, everyone who is interested in body movement, dance, and performance is welcome to participate.
For you if: you have an interest in playful and athletic movement, duo-related dance, and if you have a movement background not necessarily dance-focussed - but are interested in creative ways to challenge the body's movement.
Bio: Fist & Cake Production was founded by choreographer I-Fen Tung and stage director Fangas Nayaw. Fascinated by themovement of "people" in "society" and "nature", the group continues to explore the natural world, aiding humans in society to voice their whims out loud. Fist & Cake Production was founded to extract the inner foundations of performing arts, to explore the diversity of the ever-growing, ever-moving contemporary arts. The spectrum of their work includes but is not limited to theatre, dance, exhibition, installations, sounds, multimedia, film, and text; presentations are displayed using mixed diverse materials.
August 09 from 10am-12pm
Description: Think about body movements in the way of competitive sports and create a playful relationship between the body and individuals, objects, and two people. An extended body development approach from sports to dance, everyone who is interested in body movement, dance, and performance is welcome to participate.
For you if: you have an interest in playful and athletic movement, duo-related dance, and if you have a movement background not necessarily dance-focussed - but are interested in creative ways to challenge the body's movement.
Bio: Fist & Cake Production was founded by choreographer I-Fen Tung and stage director Fangas Nayaw. Fascinated by themovement of "people" in "society" and "nature", the group continues to explore the natural world, aiding humans in society to voice their whims out loud. Fist & Cake Production was founded to extract the inner foundations of performing arts, to explore the diversity of the ever-growing, ever-moving contemporary arts. The spectrum of their work includes but is not limited to theatre, dance, exhibition, installations, sounds, multimedia, film, and text; presentations are displayed using mixed diverse materials.
3) My Nude Self with PinWen Su
August 10 from 9:30am-2:30pm (w/break 11:30-2:30)
Description: Tactility, skin, and nudity. In this workshop, I will share my practice that began with tactility in 2013, expanded into the study of skin experiences, and progressed towards nudity as the form of artistic expression, with a focus on embodied experiences. This workshop aims to guide participants in exploring non-visual dominant bodily methods, re-evaluating their personal sensory experiences, and approaching a holistic presence. Through this, PinWen responds to feminism's critique on the "gaze."
For you if: you are an artist with experience in body performance, including art students. The process may trigger discussions related to feminism, gender, race, and culture, thus requiring participants to be sensitive and inclusive regarding body politics. Considering that there may be nude practices during the session, participants are advised to be adults who can exercise personal discernment and take responsibility for their decisions.
Bio: SU Pin-Wen is a Feminist Artist. Artistic Director of KuaBo Dance Theatre and residency at Chiayi Performing Arts Center . SU holds MFA in Choreography at Taipei National University of the Arts and Bachelor in Philosophy at NanHua University. SU’s work challenges the heteronormative revolving around notions of gender, feminism and nudity. Since 2013, SU's researched and practiced tactile culture. They take dance into conceptual art beyond the aesthetic genre.
August 10 from 9:30am-2:30pm (w/break 11:30-2:30)
Description: Tactility, skin, and nudity. In this workshop, I will share my practice that began with tactility in 2013, expanded into the study of skin experiences, and progressed towards nudity as the form of artistic expression, with a focus on embodied experiences. This workshop aims to guide participants in exploring non-visual dominant bodily methods, re-evaluating their personal sensory experiences, and approaching a holistic presence. Through this, PinWen responds to feminism's critique on the "gaze."
For you if: you are an artist with experience in body performance, including art students. The process may trigger discussions related to feminism, gender, race, and culture, thus requiring participants to be sensitive and inclusive regarding body politics. Considering that there may be nude practices during the session, participants are advised to be adults who can exercise personal discernment and take responsibility for their decisions.
Bio: SU Pin-Wen is a Feminist Artist. Artistic Director of KuaBo Dance Theatre and residency at Chiayi Performing Arts Center . SU holds MFA in Choreography at Taipei National University of the Arts and Bachelor in Philosophy at NanHua University. SU’s work challenges the heteronormative revolving around notions of gender, feminism and nudity. Since 2013, SU's researched and practiced tactile culture. They take dance into conceptual art beyond the aesthetic genre.
design: Jeremy Mimnagh