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Firehorse & Shadow in Community:

Story Poems

Through a series of consultations supported by Ontario Arts Council Artist-Presenter Collaborations program we worked with April Liu from Chinatown Storytelling Centre (CSC); Jasper Yip from Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society (VAHMS); creative collaborators Sarah Chase, Annie Katsura Rollins, and Cindy Mochizuki; and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier, to better understand current contexts and community needs in Vancouver’s Chinatown, and to devise community engagement initiatives that would allow us to 1. extend the scope of our existing work and 2. to share the unique practices that were part of Firehorse and Shadow creation process within the Chinatown community and beyond.

With generous support from Canada Council for the Arts Public Outreach program Firehorse & Shadow in Community began with a series of creative workshops and community gatherings to engage members from Vancouver’s Chinatown community (individuals ages spanning from youth to seniors).  Our work aroused sensation, memory and imagination as past experiences were embodied. Our process was grounded in Dreamwalker’s trauma-informed practice Conscious Bodies Methodology.  Individual storytelling emerged as groups entered into collaborative process and creative practice, inviting deeper essences of an experience, a person or a place being re-membered to be felt, met with love, and shared with others.  Creative workshop themes included: Shadow and Storytelling, Storytelling and Movement, Dumplings and Divination, Intergenerational Walking Talks, Sealed Secret Releasing Rituals and more. During each workshop participants were moving together, playing, imagining, creating, sharing tea, reflecting, eating and spending time visiting. These collective experiences supported each individual to journey into felt experience in the kind and care-filled presence of others. Filmmakers Yasuhiro Okada, Sophia Mai Wolfe and Dan Loan were present to document workshop experiences; to witness and record all verbal and non-verbal sharings. Editors Ran Zheng, Sarah Genge and Jennifer Baichwal wove this series of four video story poems.  Creative Producer Kelsi James stewarded our journey with care and love.

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