The Mermaid Project

“The Mermaid Project” is a multimedia, immersive, theatrical installation, where the audience is invited to experience, witness and be complicit in a surreal, fantastical exploration of merfolk myths. An experiment in tensing and loosening, in bringing in and out of focus aiming to test our desire for linear narratives, by leaning in to the pleasure and danger of the hypnotic, of the feminine, of the waterbound, of the ancient and the sacred. Centering the space where analog and virtual/digital technologies meet. We ask, for example: What happens when we project on a screen with an overhead projector from the back, and a digital projector from the front? How can we manipulate the light to create textures or images using our bodies or objects or fabrics? Using simple narratives, forms and images to create space for complex meanings and symbolism to emerge, we will invite the audience to weave the images and sound together to build a mermaid of their own. We want to question what we find watchable, and whether process can be performative. How long will people watch while a static image is being built, versus when there is a dance being performed to live Taiko drumming? What do bystanders find hypnotic? And Why?

October 21, 2021 at 8:00 PM
October 23, 2021 at 8:00 PM

About the artist

Ximena Huizi is a Venezuelan, non-binary theatre and perfomance artist, actor and director. Their work roots in the intersections between translation, image, movement and devised creation. In 2018/2019 they traveled to South America and Europe to attend various workshops, encounters and residencies with the support of The Canada Council for the Arts. They are the recipient of the Summerworks Award for an emerging artist (2015), and have presented work as a director in The Rhubarb festival, Summerworks and The Riser Project. Their most recent performing credits include Four Sisters by Sussana Fournier presented by Luminato 2019, and Remembering the Winnipeg General, by Thomas Mckechnie. Ximena is committed to developing and participating in work that is intersectionaly feminist and in the service of our water, our mother earth and the recovery of the wisdom of her original caretakers across turtle island.

Aria Evans (she/they/he) is a queer, Toronto-based, award winning interdisciplinary artist who’s practice spans dance; creation, performance and film. Aria draws on their experiences with Afro-Indigenous + settler heritage as well as their BFA (2012) to capture meaningful social and cultural themes through their interactive art. With a large-scale vision, collaboration is the departure point to the work that Aria creates under their company POLITICAL MOVEMENT. Advocating for inclusion and the representation of diversity, Aria uses their artistic practice to question the ways we can coexist together. www.politicalmovement.ca

Wy Joung Kou is a queer, chronically ill, multi-disciplinary artist based in Toronto. As a performer, their experience spans from spoken word, to dance, movement, sound and taiko. As a mosaic artist, they are a poet turned visual-tactile storyteller. Their stories are ones told in languages of colour, texture, grit, and feeling. Grounded in a disability justice framework centering accessibility, community and interdependence, their artistic practice is interwoven with personal narratives of grief, diaspora, care, and intimacy. Kou’s educational trajectory as a professional artist has followed a path combining mentorship and community-models of learning, skill exchange, and collaborative process.wyjoungkou.com

A Blaine is a multiply disabled, multilingual and multimodal (music) theatre creator and a current student at Randolph College for the Performing Arts. Recently, Asaph also wrote the libretto for Fugue State, an experimental opera in collaboration with University of Toronto student composer Ricardo Ferro. The opera was scheduled to run on April 2nd, 2020, in a festival of new student work produced by the Green Room Sound Collective. Asaph is also the dramaturg-director for a new musical titled NeverWonder, written by Jess L. Callaghan, now scheduled to run at the Toronto Fringe in 2021.

Kristine White is a multi-disciplinary, queer, Toronto-based artist who has been working as a puppeteer, theatre designer and visual artist since 2011, with a focus on work that is physical and created for site-specific, public spaces. Kristine’s practise focuses on tactile, live performance modalities, centering the analog, the ordinary, and the overlooked. Her primary mediums currently include shadow puppetry/projection, costume design, and sculpture. Having come to the arts through a winding path that did not include formal arts education, Kristine is committed to creating and holding space in the arts for people who would hesitate to call themselves artists. She has worked with such companies as Clay and Paper Theatre, Volcano Theatre, Bread and Puppet Theatre, and Jumblies, among others. Kristine has apprenticed and performed around Ontario, Quebec, Vermont and Colorado, as well as in Palestine, Greece, Cyprus, and West Bengal.

ASL interpretation:

Freyja Rogue Benjamin graduated from the UC Drama Program at U of T in 2011. After, they went on to study ASL-English Interpretation at George Brown College. Since Freyja graduated in 2016, they have spent their time focusing on performance based interpreting. They are forever thankful for the support of their friends, family and the Deaf community.

Rogue Benjamin

Amy Lawsone