Get your ticket here
Tickets: Regular $31, Big Ticket $25, Big Ticket Plus $21 & Student $10
About the artist:
Kunji Ikeda aims to redefine narratives of the body and show how physical communication can lead to physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. Ikeda is the Artistic Director of Cloudsway Dance Theatre and has been recognized with multiple Betty Mitchell Award nominations for performance and choreography. Ikeda’s fearless political works have examined toxic masculinity, artistic political manipulation, and the Japanese Internment of WWII. In February 2020 Ikeda was invited into the rehearsal process of Akram Khan’s new work Creature with the English National Ballet. He was named an Artist in Residence at the Banff Centre 2019 and premiered a digital dance theatre adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
About Sansei: The Storyteller – Mark Kunji Ikeda
Through an engaging blend of dance, spoken word and loads of humour, Kunji Ikeda weaves a tale that is illuminating and profoundly personal.
On December 7, 1941, an attack on Pearl Harbour triggered events in Canada that may easily be described as among the darkest in our history – the internment and dispossession of tens of thousands of Japanese Canadians. Through an engaging blend of dance, spoken word and loads of humour, Kunji Ikeda weaves a tale that is illuminating and profoundly personal. Sansei: The Storyteller offers Ikeda’s observations about the internment, his own discovery of where he came from, and how Japanese Canadians found peace. A multi-award winning ‘masterpiece’ from a storyteller like no other. Audiences across the world have connected with the uplifting message of hope and perseverance.
It may seem as though a light-hearted look at the Japanese Internment isn’t possible until you understand: “If the Japanese Internment of WWII didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be alive.” Sansei: The Storyteller uses dance, theatre, and humour to tell the story of one of Canada’s darkest decisions and how the rampant racism of past generations affected the Japanese community today. Kunji Ikeda investigates the social climates and hardships when the Ikeda family was labelled enemy aliens. The silver lining? If not for the internment, Ikeda wouldn’t be alive to tell this story today…