vActory | September 20-21

We’re proud to present vActory on September 20-21 at What Lab (202-1814 Pandora Street)!

The vActory Series is a short-form, cabaret-style presentation series. In the program’s second season, 3 Asian Canadian artists are invited to create a 15- to 20-minute long performance.

Click here to RSVP.

Featuring:

Grantwriting l0l facilitated by Gloria Fukomachi
by June Fukumura

Grant Writing l0l is a part of Staged Revolution’s annual professional development series. Facilitated by Staged Revolution’s Artistic Director, Gloria Fukōmachi, this introductory workshop will offer a delicious taste of how to dream, conceive, and achieve your next successful grant. This workshop will offer a critical lens on best practices for emerging artists and tricks to elevate your career to the next level…

Written in Water

by Mermaid Li

Content note: Written in Water has body movements that depict intense themes such as attempted suicide, war, death, sword fighting, forced marriage, and murder. This piece will use incense.

Written in Water: Ending the Story Differently invites 3-5 dancers to creatively reinterpret characters from traditional cultural tales and histories. Often shaped by hetero-patriarchal and colonial perspectives, these narratives will undergo transformation, allowing each dancer to craft new endings that reflect personal visions and contemporary experiences. Incorporating Waacking, Punking, and traditional dances from their heritage, this project empowers Asian dancers to challenge outdated paradigms and reclaim narratives that resonate with present-day identities.

Rainbow Glaze Tile

by Shervin Zarkalam

Rainbow Glaze Tile is a sonic/audio-visual lecture performance that delves into the lost formula of a glaze used in Islamic Architecture in western Asia. The performance investigates archival audio, literature, and Arabic-Persian miniatures from the Middle East to uncover the glaze’s connection to the repression of queer culture in Iran and Arabia. Treating the glaze as a historical entity, it links its disappearance to the suppression of homosexuality in the region. The performance employs No-input mixers, live audio processing, and Super 8mm projections to explore Iranian Miniature, Western Asian art history, and alchemy. It narrates a tale of a substance trapped in time, partly transformed into petrol, which became a tool of oppression and colonial resource. This experimental piece uses sound and visual media to highlight an overlooked queer culture silenced by censorship.

About vActory

vActory is a mini-performance series designed to catalyze innovative creation and foster artistic exchange. Encouraging participants to celebrate the spirit of artistic wanderlust within the format, the vActory series is a new-works incubator for Asian artists to explore performance modalities and experiment with techniques, culminating in a public presentation of three short new works.