Firehorse and Shadow Community Activations are an extension of Firehorse and Shadow, a performance work that brings forward embodied, felt and often untold stories focusing on but not limited to the lived experiences of Chinese Canadian women situated in Vancouver’s Historic Chinatown. The invitations below are part of a series of embodied activations designed to engage individuals of all ages, all background in thoughtful reflection. Creative Producer: Kelsi James Collaborating artists and contributors: Andrea Nann, Sarah Chase, Cindy Mochizuki, Annie Katsura Rollins, April Liu, Jasper Sloan Yip, Cherry Wen Wen Liu, A.J. Morra, Yasuhiro Okada, Daniel Loan, Sophia Mai Wolfe and Philip Davis.
Generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts Public Outreach program
Historic Chinatown Stories Hotline
604-449-9957
Throughout Asian Heritage Month, we are activating a Historic Chinatown Stories Hotline. You are invited to call the Hotline, where you will be received by voicemail, and prompted to share stories about your Chinatowns, about family traditions and memories, about women in their matrilineal line whose stories perhaps have been silently held or sealed away. The Hotline will be live from April 29 to July 31.
Photo by Cindy Mochizuki
Prompts:
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Is there a woman in your familial line, or in your circle of relations, who is connected to Chinatown? Would you introduce her to us through a story?
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Is there a question you wish you had asked a member of your family who is no longer alive?
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Is there something you wish you had said to a relative such as your grandmother or aunt?
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Is there a building or address that was particularly important to you or your family? Can you describe a specific memory of that location?
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Was there an event in your family that changed and shifted your own fate or your perception.
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Is there a particular piece of music that time travels you back to a certain era in your life?
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What do you find yourself longing for? Longing to be able to speak aloud.
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Is there a story you think is remarkable in your own family history?
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Is there an individual you find particularly inspiring in your family or extended family?
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What food do you associate with a special event?
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What was your favourite food or snack destination in chinatown?
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Was there an animal that you or your family befriended?
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What kind of clothes do you remember your grandmother or mother wearing?
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What is your connection to Chinatown? What does it mean to you now?
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If you could sit down and have a cup of tea in Chinatown with anyone across time (past or present) who would it be?
***Written Story Sharings - If you prefer to submit your story in writing we are so happy to receive you at this email kelsi@dreamwalkerdance.com
Giant Dumpling Sealed Secrets
The Giant Dumpling metaphorically represents and holds the connection to home, intergenerational sharing, dim sum, food and stories. In the dance piece Fire Horse and Shadow, the Giant Dumpling represents the “sealed and contained silence” that emanates through the matrilineal lines of story-gathering that took place in the process of creating movement, shadow and choreography for this project.
Giant Dumpling is offered as a safe and sacred place to contain the stories and life experiences that have yet found a voice. This is a place to make a wish or hold a private grief, sincere wish for future joyful and free expression. Your stories are anonymous. Nobody will open and read your paper. All secrets and the Giant Dumpling itself will be ceremonially burned as part of Light Up Chinatown (September 11th-12th, 2023).
Please visit Giant Dumpling ‘on tour’ in the Lower Mainland at the following locations from April 29 - September 12.
April 29 - Chinatown Storytelling Centre
April 30 - May 30 - Richmond Cultural Centre (main foyer)
June 21- Centre A Gallery - Library
Giant Dumpling welcomes you! You are invited to quietly sit and reflect upon the prompts shared below and to respond on slips of paper that we have provided however feels best – through writing, drawing, gesturing, speaking into the paper, stamping upon or otherwise! Once you have released your secret onto the paper, fold then insert the secret into the small slot opening of Dumpling.
Prompts:
We invite you to think about stories, people, places; lost and found.
What are some memories, tastes and smells that are folded into our hearts and bodies that we carry with us for generations?
What are the silent stories that you want to give energy to at this time?
Is there a question you wish you had asked a member of your family who is no longer alive? Is there something you wish you had said to a relative such as your grandmother or aunt?
Is there a story in your family that cannot yet be told?
Is there a private and beautiful experience you treasure.
Are there secret examples of courage in your family line?
What has occurred in your life or your loved one’s life that you must keep silent?
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Take these offerings and write them onto the paper and quietly place them into the Giant Dumpling. They will be released later into the red ceremonial fire and given a new life. . "The Chinese valued the colour red for its symbolic connection to fire, the sun, the heart, and the southern direction—all positive forces of energy.” (Jan Stuart (2016) "Chinese Red" blog post, https://asia.si.edu/red/).
Giant Dumpling was designed by Annie Katsura Rollins and created lovingly by visual artist Cherry Wen Wen Lu.
Storytelling & Dance Workshop with Sarah Chase
May 9 from 10:00am - 4:00pm
Chinatown Storytelling Centre, Vancouver
Sarah Chase will offer a workshop focusing on how to draw upon story, narrative and memory from our own lives to create gestures and movement patterns in new and unexpected ways. For many years her work has been centred on biography, memoir and storytelling, overlayed with looped sequences of gestures. She searches for ways in which people may share their rich inner worlds and magnify the gestures that belong to them in a danced expressive language.
Artist Statement: “I think we are all in the middle of a mystery, and each of us experiences in our lives some kind of intricate predicament. In hearing other people's stories I often feel a deep sense of relief to know that I am not alone in feeling bewildered or overwhelmed by experiencing love and loss, which is inevitable in any life well lived. When I make work I am hoping that by arranging personal stories in a careful constellation, they become universal. A kind of poetic logic and rigour takes place, making sure that not more is said than needs to be said. I am always interested in specific details. Small histories say so much; the clothing once worn, beloved objects, animals and birds that entered our lives, routes walked day by day, songs played in the home while growing up, these particular kinds of details make a story vivid and alive.” -Sarah Chase
Some parts of the workshop will be filmed and brief moments of our time together may be included in a short documentary we are making in and around Chinatown.
Shadow Workshop with Annie Katsura Rollins
May 5 from 2:00pm - 5:00pm
Left of Main, Vancouver
Join us for a shadow workshop with artist Annie Katsura Rollins, in collaboration with the Firehorse and Shadow performances. This workshop utilizes the medium of shadows to catalyze a deep dwelling in the question of "place". Participants will be invited to dwell on "this place", Vancouver's storied Chinatown, and how particular places and spaces have shaped us and continue to create a sense of identity, even if those places have undergone a visible transformation.
Artist statement: As a young child of mixed ethnicity, I searched long and hard for a way to connect myself with a lineage that I caught only in fragments and whispers. With waves of immigration and displacement, I was far away from my Grandmother's homeland in Southern China, whiling away the years in a snowy white Minnesota. There was nothing to physically connect me to my maternal Chinese ancestry other than a few foreign sounding words we said at New Years, some ancestral dishes, and my mother's selected stories. I sought and probed, but felt as distant as ever until I discovered China's tradition of using shadows for storytelling. I took myself to China and over the course of a decade, spent nearly 4 years researching, apprenticing, and drinking in the darkness. In the absence of light, I found and created a place to dwell in that finally rooted me and connected the fragments. I hope to share this love and power of shadows with you!- Annie Katsura Rollins
Shadows, a long-utilized storytelling medium in China, help to uncover the enigmas and traces of our pasts through their inherent darkness, ambiguity, dwelling in, and play. Participants will be welcomed in and invited to engage in a number of thoughtful storytelling prompts and shadow activities to explore "this place". No special skills needed, just bring your curiosity and willingness to try!
This workshop will be filmed and brief moments of our time together may be included in a short documentary we are making in and around Chinatown.
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Kobachi, Divinations and Drawings Workshop with Cindy Mochizuki
March 28, 2023 10am – 12 noon
Chinatown Storytelling Centre - Vancouver
Visual artist Cindy Mochizuki will introduce 5 Simple Morning Kobachi (small side dishes) based on the 5 elements (Fire, Wood, Metal, Water, and Earth) of simple ingredients of good health and luck for the 2023 year. The five savoury dishes will end with a complimentary tea leaf reading offered to the guests. Guests will also learn about the power of the ingredients and work with some of its raw sources as drawing tools led by Cindy using ink and water to manifest stories.
Evening of Dumplings, Divinations and Drawings
Saturday, March 25, 2023 7:30pm – 9:30pm
The Social Room of 188 Aquarius Mews, Vancouver
Visual artist Cindy Mochizuki will introduce 5 Transpacific Fusion Dumplings based on the 5 elements (Fire, Wood, Metal, Water, and Earth) composed of ingredients of good health and luck for the 2023 year. There will be four savoury ‘dumplings’ and 1 dessert edition and a complimentary tea leaf reading offered to the guests. Guests will also learn about the power of the ingredients and work with Cindy using ink and water to draw out images and stories.
Our flow for the evening will be:
• Tasting – Water Dumpling
• Ink & Water Creature Drawing + Tasting – Fire Dumpling
• Tasting – Earth Dumpling
• Lucky Lotus Root Print Making + Tasting – Wood Dumpling
• Tea Readings or Japanese Goddess Card Reading + Tasting — Metal Dumpling
Between tastings, drawings and print makings, there will be gentle space for storytelling and socializing. We will move between more formalized activities and more organic time for togetherness. Our workshop will be filmed and brief moments of our time together may be included in a short documentary we are making in and around Chinatown.
Shadow, Storytelling, Tea and Dumplings Workshop
October 5, 2022 9:30am -11:30am
Chinatown Storytelling Centre, Vancouver
A Warm meal of tea and dumplings to be served.
A Storytelling with Shadow Workshop devised by Annie Katsura Rollins and guided by Andrea Nann and Sarah Chase.
Things in the light are almost never as simple as they appear to be. Shadows remind us that everything is unknowable – that we are only ever scratching at the surface.
Shadows are all around us, populating our every day, illuminating dimensions and enlightening enigmas. They are what allow us to see in three dimensions, they are what bring us the darkness each night.
Shadows are deceptively simple - just the absence of light - but within that dark absence, our imaginations are fostered and our memories stirred.
What stories, tales, or memories might shadows unlock for you? What messages will shadows share for you, and who will they tell them to?
This workshop reflects on various sensorial and memory-based workshops that have been integral to the artistic processes inside the creation of the performance work Firehorse and Shadow.
Storytelling, Movement, Tea and Dumplings Gathering
October 4, 2022 1pm - 3pm
Chinatown Storytelling Centre, Vancouver
A Warm meal of tea and dumplings to be served.
A Conscious Bodies Storytelling and Movement gathering guided by Sarah Chase and Andrea Nann with Kelsi James and Philip Davis.
We will gather and create a circle at the Chinatown Storytelling Centre to meet, share and explore artifacts, archived events and stories in the collection to create gestures and movement patterns in new and unexpected ways.