Remembering Beyond Form

Commissioned work by: Dance Ontario Creative Partnership

A prayer for radical responsibility

Perhaps humanity has done this dance many times before. Drawing from the wisdom of the ancestors, this piece invites us to go beyond the forms of ethnicity, color, race, and other dividing lines. To utilize our gifts of knowing, to tap into the memories woven into our cells, encoded in our hearts, and to remember who we really are. May we move beyond the blame and finger-pointing and take radical responsibility for what we create next on this planet.

A calling to remember…

Our ancestors stand each night looking over us as we sleep, reaching through the realms that separate the dimensions hoping we will hear them.

“You have the gift child”

We stir, we stretch, we awaken for a moment only to fall back asleep. This life is a dream within a dream, and we fall deeper and deeper into the trance of reality.

We dance, we fight, and we point our fingers outwards.

“It’s you!” “It’s you!”
“No, it’s you!”

“It’s your fault we are here in this place. You did this. Your race did this. Your people did this.” “You must hurt. You must be punished. You must suffer as I suffer. You must suffer as my people suffer. You must know the pain. You must feel our pain.”

And so we row this boat, this body of ours into the dark valleys of the earth; getting tangled in the weeds of blame.

What if our physical form has played with many colours? What if we’ve all been black, we’ve all been white, we’ve been brown, and everything in between? We keep coming back here, to this earth, replaying the same song, the same dance, wearing different colours and masks, and yet we do not remember.

We hurt, we kill, we maim, and oppress each other. We are disconnected from the pain of the other. We have forgotten that this is our own pain being projected, magnified, and amplified out into the world. What we do to the other, we have done to ourselves, and continue to do to ourselves.

What if we are both victims and perpetrators of every crime ever committed, and every hurt ever inflicted? Perhaps we have danced this dance many times before. We have created, cast, and danced circles around pain. We have given up our lives and taken lives.

The voices of our ancestors beckon to us....“You have the gift child. It’s time for you to remember.”

Artists: Jaedyn Richards, Soraya Lee Wo, Zachary Seto
Image Credit: Mark Mercado

Nostalgic Beings Of Synesthesia

World Premiere: Battery Dance Festival - New York City

The Dream

Earth is the geolocation of our minds. A butterfly illusion of what we want and yearn for. The trance is our existence, the constant flow of infinite gold light and spiralling energy, travelling 360 degrees both internally, and externally around us. 

The nostalgia is our bodies, the instrument of our collective trance. It plays, recalls, and evokes the 3D sensations of memories, and the physical flow of remembrance in our minds. We are the physical and metaphysical existence of the mind on earth. Exotic winged creatures in a constant state of the chrysalis. We are from the before and after time. Being in the trance of nostalgia and its memories, we fall into a pocket of time and space. All is felt absolutely lost with a blinded sense of reminiscence and remembrance. 

We carry and hold every soul’s energies and the memories of earth in our external wings. Variations of events play through our bodies as we channel infinite frequencies and scales of one another. Working through each event filled with a kaleidoscope of emotions, healing and transforming every soul into the realms of light and love; holding the dream of a day when each one will be able to awake, remember, and enter alternate dimensions seamlessly.

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The Reality

Nostalgic Beings of Synaesthesia is a visual representation of the persistent feelings of remembering and forgetting by humans on earth; the diversity of each individual’s experience of reality, and the various expressions of the human brain and mind. The piece offers a glimpse into the inner world of a dancer with synaesthesia, which acts as a portal into accessing other realms of consciousness, and memories.

Through the embodied experience of the merging of his and her senses and expanded experience of reality; they are working to remember their wisdom. What if every mind on earth was in a constant state of creating its own reality?  What if each mind is valid & beautiful and was put here for a reason? How can movement tap into these intimate landscapes and express itself through the idiosyncratic and distinctive movement of the dancers?

As a choreographer, I am taking the experience of synesthesia and attempting to bring my viewers into a world of memories, and other realms of existence, and giving them a glimpse into the full sensory experience of synaesthesia. The trance is set in motion through the compilation of numerous instrumental sounds, rhythms, beats, tempos, and patterns, evoking and moving the audience to go deeper into self.

Artists: Rakeem Hardy, Zachary Seto, Mateo Vidals
Image Credit: Mark Mercado

Estrella Emergence

Commissioned: Recipient of Dance on Film Grant - Mississauga Arts Council

The Story

Estrella Emergence is a movement-based short film, transitioning from the darkness of the worldwide pandemic to the light & celebration that awaits humanity. Estrella, the Spanish origin meaning star, is a metaphor for the light that is in each human being. We explore the sensations of being tethered to a location with the burdens of everyday life and the transformation of becoming a warrior of the light. How can we move through the pain of last year to find the wisdom & strength to move forward? How can we trust that joy & freedom can enter our lives again?

Artists: Flora Ferguson, Tegan Soni, Larissa Leung, Soraya Lee Wo
Image Credit: Mark Mercado