Double Bill: a practise: Misinterpretation (a performance)/Melon Piece
Join us for an evening featuring performances from artists Tia Ashley Kushniruk 亚 女弟 and Arash Khakpour-The Biting School!
Double Bill:
a practise: Misinterpretation (a performance) | Tia Ashley Kushniruk 亚 女弟
Melon Piece | Arash Khakpour-The Biting School (Vancouver)
Through play and performance, these two pieces creatively confront abundance, identity, and time in unexpected and complex ways.
October 18 +19
7:30 PM
Price $30/$25 members
PERFORMANCE
a practise: Misinterpretation (a performance) | Tia Ashley Kushniruk 亚 女弟
An Absurdist duet involving two mixed race, androgynous and WILDLY SEXY artists practising and performing contemporary Whiteness for yours/theirs/GODS pleasure!
CREATIVE TEAM
Created by Tia Ashley Kushniruk 亚 女弟 and Philip Geller
Rehearsal Assistant: Jake W. Hastey
Sound Design: Philip Geller and Jon Kereliuk
Lighting Design and Stage Manager: Trent Crosby
Avant Premiere: Mile Zero 24/25, Edmonton AB
World Premiere: Fluid Festival 2024, Calgary AB
Special Thanks: Centre for Indigenous Theatre, Sweet Action Theatre, Nathaniel “Natty” Justanio, Clarke Blair, Joe Rogan, Jonathan Burrows, and SGSDance
Photo credit: Susannah Haight
PERFORMANCE
Melon Piece | Arash Khakpour-The Biting School (Vancouver)
Melon Piece is a symbolic portrayal of human dilemmas. It is a story about the primal and maturing self in constant transformation. It is a study of our contradictory desires—those we choose to act upon, and the ones we suppress and repress—through different stages of our lives.
The performer unearths embodied memories of love, joy and play to create a distracting playground of desire to drown in. Melon Piece is a living portrait of a man finding himself lost in a world of abundance.
You are born. There’s your brain. There, are your memories. It is red. It is a melon.
When life hands you melons… you take them… you…
Photo credit | Luciana D. Anunciacao
Featuring
Tia Ashley Kushniruk (亚 女弟)
Tia Ashley Kushniruk (亚 女弟) is a Chinese-Ukrainian Queer dance/theatre artist based in ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan) Treaty 6/Métis Territory of Edmonton AB. She has toured Nationally and Internationally with TDT and SK/RSA. Her creative work has been supported by the EAC, AFA and CCA since 2014. Undergoing MA in Drama Theatre and Performance Studies (University of Toronto)
Arash Khakpour (آرش خاکپور)
Arash Khakpour (آرش خاکپور) is a dancer and choreographer from Tehran and is privileged to be a dance artist based in the Coast Salish Territory (Vancouver). Arash has been practicing dance and performance for the past 15 years and has been a company member of the EDAM Contact Improvisation ensemble since 2017. He tends to invest in the nuances of prejudices in the body as a way of inviting the unconscious to the conscious, and as a doorway to confront unknown emotions. He sees dance as a process of physical, emotional and spiritual discovery and a mode of transformation. He works with dance as a language that researches the human condition through mythical, historical, social, political and existential interpretations. As a first-generation immigrant, he continuously considers what healing he can bring to the land and communities he works with. He is building a culture of relationality and reciprocity that celebrates the multiplicity of presences and approaches. Arash is the co-founder and artistic director of the dance-theatre-film company The Biting School (alongside his brother Aryo Khakpour).