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Firehorse & Shadow

Firehorse and Shadow exists as a set of stories combining elements of contemporary dance, shadow puppetry, animation, film, and theatre. The stories belong to choreographer Andrea Nann whose great-grandmother Mew was ‘sold’ by her family in China and sent to Vancouver as a servant girl in early 1900.  Mew gave birth to Nann’s grandmother Lin in Vancouver’s Shanghai Alley in 1912.  Although Lin never left Vancouver she was forced to identify as a Chinese citizen when she married a Chinese man. Nann’s mother Bev was born during Canada’s Chinese Exclusion Act. She was taught to value assimilation during times of extreme anti-Chinese attitudes.

 

In this work intangible experiences are given form through Nann’s embodied familial histories process that has been developed in collaboration with core collaborators: director Sarah Chase; dramaturge/future teller/visual artist Cindy Mochizuki; and shadow artist/performer Annie Katsura Rollins. The work explores memory, sensation, perception, shadows, personal histories, relationships, cosmology, Chinese medicine, wellness, food, and fate.

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Firehorse & Shadow consists of the following:

It is our intent that everyone feels invited, wanted, and welcomed to participate in our events and activities. We continue to do the work to listen, learn, unlearn, and relearn in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action, in response to the Black Lives Matter Movement, and in recognition of all past and present atrocities, persecution and mistreatment of people based on their ethnicity, culture, place of origin, race, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical appearance, and/or (dis)ability.   We stand in solidarity with all who are facing or have faced persecution or discrimination, and are working to create a supportive, safe and equitable world. 

 

We are honoured to live, work and create in Toronto/Tkaronto on Dish With One Spoon Indigenous Territory and acknowledge the Land as Traditional Territory of many Nations including the Haudenosaunee, the Anishnabeg, the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Chippewa, and the Wendat Peoples.

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