June 6 Newsletter
- adinaherling
- Jun 5, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 17, 2025
Firehorse and Shadow - Closes Sunday!
Thank you everyone for such a joyful (sold out) opening for Firehorse and Shadow last night! We have four more shows: tonight June 6th at 8pm, Saturday June 7th at 4:30pm and 8pm, and Sunday June 8th at 2pm! Tickets are selling very quickly – grab ‘em before they’re gone!
When: June 5-8th, 2025
Where: The Citadel: Ross Centre For Dance (304 Parliament St, Toronto)
Tickets: $35 General Admission, $25 Student/Arts Worker/Senior (limited)
Firehorse and Shadow is a deeply personal and evocative autobiographical work co-created by Andrea Nann (writer, choreographer, and performer), Annie Katsura Rollins (shadow artist/performer), Sarah Chase (director/dance-storyteller), and Cindy Mochizuki (dramaturge), with music by Ben Grossman, animation by Elysha Poirier, video by Henry Mak with Eric Chan, and lighting by Echo Zhou (after Jennifer Lennon).
Rooted in family history, the piece traces the matrilineal line of Andrea’s Chinese-Canadian heritage, drawing attention to the generational patterns of silence and self-suppression experienced by the women in her lineage. As a child, Andrea grappled with a sense of voicelessness, often struggling to express her innermost thoughts and feelings. She began to notice a troubling absence in the conversations around her and within her community – people rarely asked their mothers or grandmothers about their passions, their dreams, or the intimate details of their lives. This silence became the catalyst for a profound artistic and personal investigation into the cultural norms that discouraged emotional expression and individuality—particularly among women in Chinese-Canadian families.
Dreamwalker Dance Company presents the Tkarón:to premiere of Firehorse and Shadow, a co-production with Citadel + Compagnie. Firehorse and Shadow is produced with the generous support of Sandra & Jim Pitblado, and with funding from Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.
Queer Conscious Moving Bodies
In celebration of Pride Month, Conscious Bodies practice is coming to The Fifth (Tkarón:to) every Sunday in June! Produced with Eilers Dance Theatre and facilitated by Sid Ryan Eilers (them/them), Chase Lo (they/them), Kelsi James (she/they), Shannon Kitchings (she/they), Danielle Denichaud and Andrea Nann (she/her/they), Queer Conscious Moving Bodies will explore Queer, Trans, and Gender Non-Conforming embodiment through curiosity, creativity, and community.
Rooted in Dreamwalker Dance’s Conscious Bodies Practice, we invite participants into a shared space of connection and resilience.Through movement, sound, writing, image-making, and relational activities, we foster agency, presence, and celebration. The approach is person- and community-centered, with a strong focus on collective exploration and co-creation. Participants leave with a deeper sense of the dancing artist within, and a strengthened relationship to their body and community.
When: Sundays 3:30-4:45pm, June 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd
Where: Main Studio at 366 Adelaide East (Toronto)
Registration (sliding scale): HERE
Queer Conscious Moving Bodies is happening alongside Sid Ryan Eiler’s Kiss The Stormy Sky, happening June 26-28 at The Winchester Street Theatre (Toronto, ON)! Grab tickets here!Queer Conscious Moving Bodies is produced in partnership with Dreamwalker Dance Company with generous support from Canada Council for the Arts.
Wild Soma at Hollyhock!
In this time of intersecting social, political, and planetary crises, how do we embrace and honour all that is arising in us as bodies?
Join us, Wild Soma, at Hollyhock Retreat Centre on Cortes Island, BC from June 22-27 for ‘Wild Soma Being and Becoming: Embodied Practices for Collective Thriving’.
Wild Soma is Andrea Nann, Julia Aplin, Shannon Litzenberger, Roula Said. We will spend a delicious time filled with moving, singing, walking, resting, swimming, playing and BEING… together with each other, the land, trees and waters.
This experience will leave you with:
An expanded awareness of embodied ways of knowing, being and doing
A repertoire of individual and collective practices designed to support your wellbeing and aliveness, including sensory, attentional, relational, and creative practices
An enhanced capacity for cultivating life-giving relationship with self, others, and the world around you
A better understanding of how embodiment is a world-making gesture
“I recommend you jump all-in to the Wild Soma retreat experience. This seriously thoughtful program is in equal parts deep learning, Being shifting and delightful fun. I can’t recommend it enough.”
– Deborah Farquharson (artist, past participant.)
Follow our collaborators on Substack!
Judy Luo – https://judyluo.substack.com/
Shannon Litzenberger – https://shannonlitzenberger.substack.com/
Andy Maize / Skydiggers – https://skydiggersofficial.substack.com/
It is such a treat to be sharing Firehorse and Shadow in Tkarón:to. To our West Community community, to everyone who was part of Firehorse and Shadow In Community in Vancouver’s Historic Chinatown – we feel you so deeply in this iteration. Thank you for your time, stories and deep care with us when we were there with you.
With warmth and gratitude,
Dreamwalker
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