Bonus: A Ricepaper Magazine subscription is included with every dinner ticket purchase!

Upon entering its 15 year anniversary, Gung Haggis  is shaping into another memorable event! The event will be hosted by Tetsuro Shigematsu and Toddish McWong, and will feature many performers in celebration of Gung Haggis (coupled with some tasty treats!).

From the website:

In 1998, “Toddish McWong” held a small private dinner for 16 friends with food, haggis, poetry and songs – from both Scottish and Chinese cultures and thus was born – Gung Haggis Fat Choy  Now it is a dinner for 400 people!

More than  a traditional dinner with music and poetry.  Gung Haggis Fat Choy re-imagines a traditional Robert Burns Dinner format, within a BC or Canadian historical context that puts Scottish-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian pioneers on an inclusive and equal platform, while acknowledging historical racism and how we move beyond it. This event has grown to also  celebrate contemporary Scottish-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian artists and poets and their innovations to create something uniquely Canadian.

This event is gaining quite the attention as featured in the  Globe and Mail:

At this very moment, I bet you’re not thinking about deep-fried haggis wonton for dinner. But then, you’re not Toddish McWong. That’s the famous persona of Todd Wong, a 51-year-old Chinese-Canadian who works as a library assistant in Vancouver. His annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner marks its 15th year next Sunday. An amalgam of traditions for Chinese New Year and Robbie Burns Night, the dinner is a celebration of Canadian multiculturalism that has grown in popularity every year. (There’s a spin-off Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner in Seattle and ambitions to roll them out across Canada.)

The event will host some amazing performances:

• Fred Wah – Parliamentary Poet Laureate
• Jan Walls – Chinese clapper tales and Chinese scholar
• Harry McGrath – Robbie Burns Immortal Memory
• Black Bear Rebels Celtic Ceilidh ensemble
• Gung Haggis Fat Choy Pipes & Drums
• Lots of dragons + surprises!

As mentioned, a Ricepaper Magazine subscription is included with every purchased dinner ticket! Come and enjoy some haggis wontons!

When: Wednesday, November 30. Doors 7:30pm, readings 8pm.
Where: VIVO Media Arts, 1965 Main Street, Vancouver, BC
Who: Janey Lew, Rita Wong, Ray Hsu, Valerie Sing Turner plus other guests TBA!
Includes food and refreshments, with a cash bar.
$10-$15 entrance; $15 comes with a 1-year subscription!
RSVP on our Facebook event page

Diversity and hybridity take the stage in our new issue with excerpts of C.E. Gatchalian’s play Falling in Time (currently playing at the Performance Works on Granville Island until November 12), winning haiku from the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival 2011 Haiku Invitational, and a photo gallery “Mixed Races, Mixed Faces” with photos of our readers and their thoughts on hybrid identity. As well, original fiction and cultural commentary revolving around how “cultural heritage intersects with other social and political realities” (in the words of Ricepaper‘s editor Eury Chang). Read the Editor’s Letter to learn more about this issue.

Also, read our call for submissions for our upcoming issue, the 16.4 Faith and Philosophy issue.

Whatever you think (or don’t think) about philosophy, Ricepaper is interested in learning more from its contributors. If you have a story, a poem, a comment, or picture that can foster a deeper appreciation for the relationship between ART, CULTURE, and PHILOSOPHY, we would love to hear from you!

For submission guidelines and inspirations on our theme, read through our 16.4 Faith and Philosophy call for submissions and contact Editor Eury Chang at editor@ricepapermagazine.ca.

The UBC Faculty of Arts and the Departments of Theatre and Film, Asian Studies, and English are co-sponsoring a staged reading at UBC of  Thunderstorm, which was written by one of most renowned contemporary playwrights, Cao Yu. Cao Yu was known as the “Shakespeare of the Orient,” and Thunderstorm remains one of his best known works – a tale of fatalism, retribution, and incest.

Date: November 5 and 6, 2010
Location: The Vancouver Playhouse, as part of DanceHouse series

Photo credit: Carlos de las Piedras

It was truly an occasion to witness world-renowned Sankai Juku in their touring work, entitled Tobari: As if in an Inexhaustible Flux. DanceHouse, in co-production with Theatre de la Ville (Paris, France), Kitakyushu Performing Arts Centre (Fukuoka, Japan) and Sankai Juku (Tokyo, Japan), together proved that there is a growing appetite for avant-garde performance in Vancouver. Known as the vanguard of second-generation butoh companies, Sankai Juku was founded in 1975 by Ushio Amagatsu, who continues to lead the company as Director, Designer and Choreographer 36 years later. For two nights in late November of 2010, West Coast audiences became privy to the reasons why Amagatsu was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Cultural Ministry, and the Geijutu Sensho Prize from the Japanese government.

A large black oval platform sits in the middle of the stage. The lone figure atop the circular set piece is covered in thick white rice powder, a dressing commonly used by butoh dancers. He is reaching out to space as if grabbing for the apple of life—an homage to the sky gods. He is a metaphoric, powerful, and potent character presented before our eyes, soon joined by other dancers dressed in translucent white robes. Together they look like a gathering of monks. Everyone in the show has their place and everything is considered, with no excess. The execution of every hand gesture and foot step is measured, methodical, and flawless. As the sequences of choreography unfolds before our eyes, we see dancers moving across the stage in side profile. Their arms are raised with a 45 degree bend at the elbows like Greek bas-relief statues come to life; of course, we know they’re human to the naked eye but they exude a quality that makes them seem otherworldly and enchanting, unlike mere mortals. Like Japanese minimalism in design, the impact of these characters is achieved with seemingly little effort. In another scene, a lone figure wears a chiffon-like sarong. He too, chalked in white powder, looks like a statue of moving clay, coming to life and sensing the space around him with a zen-like fashion. Looking up to the ceiling, there are 1,000 twinkling lights, a galaxy beyond the playing space. Now, four men circle around the stage like primal beasts. The dancers’ bodies—in the absence of any excessive staging or props—become the focal point. Somehow, the men of Sankai Juku exude confidence without being overly expressive. There is a definite abstraction to the themes of gravity, space, and time. We get to experience the world that the dancers have breathed into existence and created for us—tonight, there’s no suspension of disbelief.

In one solo scene, Amagatsu is standing centre stage facing the audience. He opens an imaginary door, looking out to the audience for an answer. He retreats and closes the door, only to open it again. Simultaneously, his pained face reveals curiosity, shock, and courage. The expressiveness in butoh is paramount, and Ushio Amagatsu is a master at revealing his soul. His dance becomes a vehicle to transform the inner life into outer, more visible manifestations—a sharing of human sorrow, pleasure, feeling. This is never an easy task, but watching the company dancers onstage reveals the ways in which the expressiveness of the body can surpass words. In the final scene, the lights turn blue while dancers transform from a band of creatures into a blossoming lotus flower. After that, they become more animated, pointing to something beyond the horizon. Up, down, all around—the focus shifts from one place to another. For the closing scene, the dancers lay on their backs in the middle of the stage, like overgrown babies, the bodies float and melt into space as arms and legs drift ever so gently off the ground. The pace is haunting and surreal and delicate all at once—a moving closure to an epic dance creation.

Leaving the theatre, I can’t help but reflect on how Sankai Juku has taken a dance form that developed (post WWII)—a reaction and alternative to traditional Noh theatre and the current of Western artistic traditions—and transformed its culturally specific and socially-charged roots into a highly universal tapestry. People expecting to find grotesque bodies or contorted facial features will probably not be content with a show like Tobari: As if in an Inexhaustible Flux, simply because the dance has been crafted and polished for the proscenium stage. Despite the aesthetic of Sankai Juku being a far cry from that of butoh-founder Hijikata’s earliest works like Kinjiki (Forbidden Colours), there is no doubt that the company, as a global trailblazer, continues to satisfy audiences who seek contemporary dance grounded in resonant images and themes.

Show: Under the Skin
Companies: Wen Wei Dance and Beijing Modern Dance Company
Date: March 11 and 12, 2011

Photo credit: Donald Lee

Presented as part of Vancouver’s large-scale DanceHouse series, Under the Skin was met with great anticipation and curiosity. The evening was essentially comprised of two related works: Journey to the East, choreographed by Gao Yanjinzi, Artistic Director of the Beijing Modern Dance Company (aka BMDC); and In Transition, choreographed by Wen Wei Wang, Artistic Director of Vancouver-based Wen Wei Dance. Under the leadership of Gao Yanjinzi, BMDC has slowly become one of China’s signature cultural ambassadors. Gao herself worked intensively with Vancouver dancers in her hometown of Beijing, China and also in Alberta at The Banff Centre. For Vancouver dancers Jung-Ah Chung, Josh Martin, Scott Augustine, Karissa Barry, Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond, and Beijing dancers Chaoke, Gu Jiani, Lai Weiyi, Liu Mingda, Sharina, and Xu Zhi, the whole project was an intense experience in cross-cultural and artistic collaboration. In the studio, the architect of the project, Wen Wei Wang, had to act as translator, literally showing and describing Gao’s choreographic style and intentions to his Vancouver-based dancers. Similarly, the dancers of the Beijing Modern Dance Company had to be encouraged, even cajoled, to find their own voices within the choreographic structures developed by Wang.

PART ONE

At first, we see semi-naked bodies behind screens. The Beijing dancers look outwards, facing the audience, across what seems to be a wide expanse of time, distance, and space. The Vancouver dancers have their backs to the audience, completing the image of a mirrored reflection of humanity. The result is a simple but effective scenario: us watching Beijing dancers, who in turn, are watching Vancouver dancers. At times, the dancers place their feet carefully; other times, the legs seem unsure of themselves, like those of scurvy-laden sailors. Dancers become characters—weathered travellers bound by hope and faith. Sounds of wind and water echo through the theatre. The water and blood that runs through the veins creates visible ripples on the flesh: a nuanced ebb and flow of physical sequences. Is the shore near? Are we crossing the ocean on a boat, surrounded by fish and birds? The duet between Josh Martin and Jung-Ah Chung seems to represent this possibility; the duet is simply sublime, intimate and arresting. Like a seaweed floating on the ocean’s surface, Chung changes shape while Martin carries his companion’s weight; the contemporary pas de deux reveals a crouching tiger on man’s shoulder, a splitting scissor as legs part, sinewy stretchy muscle, and paddling arms. Scott Augustine is also a major contribution to the evening’s work; even his relatively compact frame provides us with controlled bursts of energy and elegant lines normally associated with long-limbed dancers.

The musical by Dou Wei is almost haunting; in addition to sounds of animals and wind and waves, the syncopated drum rhythms create a monstrous energy, one that conjures images of opening heavenly gates and impending demise or change. The dancers roll on the ground in rage, swaying side-to-side in unison. Chimes and gongs are heard. As a climax, all 12 dancers are onstage, distinguished and separated only by different clothing. Their arms are outstretched like tree branches, a metaphor for wanting to connect and walk in someone else’s shoes. At the end of the work, the Vancouver dancers are behind the screen, watching the audience across the expanse of time, distance and space. They have arrived on the other side of the river, now face to face with another culture.

PART TWO

After the intermission, the dancers of the BMDC perform in a work entitled In Transition, choreographed by Wen Wei Wang. Sitting in the theatre, audience members are like old friends waiting for a reunion to happen; the anticipation and curiosity in the theatre is palpable. The work begins with a short film, created by David Raymond, a dancer with Wen Wei Dance. Shown on the screen above the stage are two white ducks waddling through the streets of China; they are interacting with their human counterparts. A few seconds later, we see an image of a man cutting a roast duck, carefully slicing the crispy skin off the top of the piece of meat. Then, images of the two white ducks in the street appear again, only to be juxtaposed with images of the same butcher cutting a piece of juicy, roast duck. Audience members accustomed to seeing barbeque meat hanging in Chinatown butcher shops are privy to the inside joke. The film is part reflection and part commentary on cultural habits, but in the context of the show, also provides a remotely crude metaphor for the “cutting-up” of identity in today’s trans-national world.

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Issue 16.1′s cover featured a portion of a larger art piece, “Forest Romp”, by Howie Tsui. Zoë Chan reviews his Horror Fables exhibition below. You can check out more of Tsui’s work on his website.

Howie Tsui's art on the cover of 16.1

With a trajectory that reads like a poster boy for today’s global citizen, the Ottawa-based artist Howie Tsui was born in Hong Kong, before moving to Nigeria and then Canada. Unsurprisingly, his art practice is as cosmopolitan in its sources of inspiration as his background, resulting in a playful yet critical intermeshing of diverse aesthetics and mediums. His early career started out heavily informed by North American youth scenes and styles—band posters, graffiti, and street art, as well as aspects of Japanese visual culture—erotica, manga, and anime. More recent work, though still marked by these early pop culture influences, draws heavily from older artistic traditions ranging from the visual iconography of Buddhist hell scrolls to Ming Dynasty figure and landscape painting. Through the lens of his fascination with the supernatural and the surreal, Tsui creates extravagantly strange worlds that seamlessly meld fact and fiction. His artworks are testament not only to his far-reaching imagination and curiosity, but also his personal interest in and engagement with questions surrounding diasporic experience and identity.

Tsui’s hybridized approach to art-making is more than manifest in Horror Fables which evokes ghost stories, family anecdotes, bestiaries, and vampire films. This series, previously presented at the Carleton University Art Gallery and the MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels), will head to Vancouver’s Centre A this summer. Employing formal techniques borrowed from Ming Dynasty scroll painting, Tsui created drawings rendered in ink, paint, and pigment on rectangles of delicate mulberry paper. While his early works may have had a more cartoon-like sensibility with a kid’s rainbow palette, these are delicately drawn with the muted though no less rich colours of century-old works.

Horror Fables is rife with chaotic scenarios situated in a mythical place where mortals and monsters intermingle. A ship afloat on a sea swarming with skeletons and sea creatures. A figure bent over a stream finds his reflection to be a hideous monster. A gruesome creature stirs a boiling pot writhing with creatures within. A man hangs from a tree by a rope around his neck, tongue lolling, while above him a naked woman clings in desperation to a branch using both her teeth and limbs. These uncanny tableaux are operatically epic in scope, teeming with scenes of blood and guts, terror and tragedy. Tsui ups the ante by providing them with an eerie soundtrack made up of re-mixed sounds culled from Hong Kong horror movies. Moreover, he presents these works on paper alongside spectral “portraits” rendered directly on to gallery walls using the residue traces of smoke from matches. Ghostly visages—recalling Edvard Munch’s iconic The Scream—surface from the darkly lit walls; only the burned-out matches left scattered on the floor remind us of their material source.

While stimulating the viewer’s sense of sight and sound within the somewhat sinister atmosphere evoked by Horror Fables, Tsui explores horror through its various facets: as recurring nightmares concocted by our subconscious; as prominent themes in film and folktales; as cautionary tales told to instill good behavior; as generation-old stories bonding families; as strategies to demonize the “Other” within conservative rhetoric; as the traumatically violent events that happen to us or are witnessed on the news; as the tragedies that make up our collective histories, be they natural or man-made, past or present. Yet, as dark as this all sounds, Tsui’s works feel imbibed with the enjoyment he finds in mastering old painting techniques and translating these tangled-up stories onto paper.

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Eury Chang interviews David Yee, a founding member of fu-Gen, a theatre organization aimed at promoting the works of Asian Canadian playwrights.

Photo credit: Bob Gundu

Last year, fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company (fu-GEN) hosted the first ever Asian Canadian Theatre Conference in May of 2010. As one of the Vancouver panelists, I participated in a week-long gathering full of discussions, papers, and debates which coincided with the 2010 Potluck Festival—a showcase of new work by Canadians of Asian descent. During this time, I also met with members of the fu-GEN team, who were undoubtedly some of the most gracious and hospitable people I’ve ever come across. A few days into the conference, during our lunch break, I met David Yee—one of fu-GEN’s founding members—for the very first time. Even on that sunny day, Yee was wearing a black overcoat, smoking cigarettes while emitting a rather ominous presence. He is probably what one may expect from a guy who integrates trademark satire, black comedy, and witty cultural commentary into his every play. Make no mistake; David Yee is not just a personality—he is the consummate actors’ playwright.

Almost a year later, I take the opportunity to reconnect with David Yee over the phone. He has taken over as the new Artistic Director of fu-GEN ever since his close colleague Nina Lee Aquino (former fu-GEN Artistic Director) went over to Cahoots Theatre to become Artistic Director. The two colleagues now sit at the helm of Toronto’s leading independent theatre companies and not surprisingly, the artists keep close ties with each other. In fact, while this article was being written, Cahoots just launched the premiere of Yee’s latest play, entitled paper SERIES. I ask him to characterize his dramatic writing and without hesitation the playwright obliges, “I think fluid is the word I’m looking for. I wish you could see paper SERIES—my latest play with six monologues strung together. Everyone has their time to shine, and everyone is used in everything else. The work doesn’t look like traditional theatre plays; rather, the work is a living and breathing organism that has ever-changing features.” Yee adds, “Our work is full of life and surprise and energy and when it hits that kinetic phase, it makes you sit up in your seat and say… What the fuck? That’s awesome!”

I chuckle and smile to myself because Yee’s seeming lack of self-censorship and raw nature is refreshing, and because I believe the trait belies a man of immense wit and curiosity. Take for example his “signature” project to date, a play called lady in the red dress. In 2006, Yee came to Vancouver for a week to participate in the inaugural colony at Playwrights Theatre Centre. With the help of Don Hannah, the play began to take shape. In the years to follow, he would receive additional guidance from other key collaborators. Yee admits, “After that, I worked with Guillermo Verdecchia as my dramaturg, who helped me clarify the play’s new direction. He has a deeper understanding of theatre and the world than I do so that was a lucky thing.”

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Illustration of women in sarees

Amrita Bhua’s servant carried the tray of water glasses around the crowded room with the grace of a cat. He was Nepalese and lived with his parents and grandmother in Amrita Bhua’s kitchen; my father assured me this was par for the course in Bombay. The young servant’s eyes were emerald green and he wore short linen trousers and leather sandals. He was beautiful. The party guests plucked their glasses off his tray without paying him a second glance. He stopped in front of me and I claimed a glass, mumbled out my single word of Hindi—shukriyah, the rich and caramel word for “thank you”—and cast a shy smile in his direction. I had no experience with beautiful boys. He seemed baffled by my discomfort and darted towards the kitchen. Again I was alone in the crowd.

The gathering was a loud and raucous feast for us, the visiting Canadians. It was my first trip to India, and my extended family had pulled out all the stops: musicians; fragrant garlands of orange and white flowers; an intimidating buffet of spicy food. That same afternoon I’d perused tall stacks of sarees in a cramped boutique. The portly shopkeeper had asked me in broken English if I was Brahmin caste but I’d not known what he’d meant. “She looks like that because she’s half white,” Amrita Bhua had replied disinterestedly; the storekeeper had peered deeply into my face as if it held the answers to the mysteries of life. My cheeks had burned crimson but I’d kept mum. His loaded gaze was nothing new.

Now among my numerous aunts and uncles and cousins, my new saree was an ill-fitting costume. And as I waited breathlessly for the beautiful boy to re-emerge from the kitchen with his heavy load, I saw the truth of my whole life: no matter where I go in the world, I’ll always be diluted. I drained the glass with one swallow. I am alone here and everywhere. I took some pleasure in my wallowing.

Amrita Bhua appeared by my side. “Where did you get that glass?”

Immediately I was rattled by the edge to her voice. “Oh. I got it from … the boy with the tray.”

“Oh, no!” Amrita Bhua cried out in horror. “It’s tap water. I told him to serve Bisleri right from the bottle, but he forgot. You Canadians can’t handle the Bombay water.” She placed her right hand on my forehead. “Are you feeling alright? Does your tummy ache?”

“I feel great,” I replied while doubting my own ability to gauge how I felt.

Soon I knew the wrath of the Bombay water. Hours later, as I wretched over the toilet bowl in the hotel bathroom, I wrestled with the knowledge that I’d failed the beautiful boy, himself an outsider in the land where my ancestors had once tread.

I’d tattled on him, however inadvertently. Perhaps Amrita Bhua would discipline him. The subservience of his life—and the outrageous punishments I imagined—left me deeply ashamed, until it dawned on me that, with that profound sense of shame, I finally belonged somewhere. My shame anchored me to my ancestors, my culture, and this faraway land. I would never see the beautiful boy again, but to this day I see his emerald eyes whenever I close my own.