DBLSPK hosts up to three multilingual artists per year and highlights the linguistic and cultural diversity of our theatre community.
By collaborating with artists who work with elements of translation and/or multilingual creation, we examine the relationship between language and culture within performance. During DBLSPK, resident artists have the opportunity to work in the studio with a team of collaborators and then present excerpts of their new multilingual/translated work at a workshop-setting public performance. The artist then engages with the audience in a conversation post-show, taking a deep dive into the research topics related to their project.
The series began in 2017 with Boca del Lupo and since then has featured many artists, playwrights, and translators who work with Cantonese, Mandarin, Farsi, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Punjabi, Spanish and more!
GENERAL CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Multilingual artist interested in doing a DBLSPK workshop? Click here.
MOST RECENT PROJECT: Hymn of the Weaver Birds
Created by Johnny Wu and Jocelyn Yuchia Chang
On December 11th 2023, there was a workshop presentation of a new multilingual theatre work by Johnny Wu and Jocelyn Yuchia Chang, followed by a moderated community discussion. It was held at the Vancouver Central Public Library.
—The Project—
Hymn of the Weaver Birds follows the ventures of a group of unidentified strangers, who serendipitously occupy the same address-less abandoned Japanese bathhouse. Cohabiting in their rundown haven, one is seeking a loved one, one ran away, one is ousted, while the other is simply trying to survive in the underbelly of society. When the village leader discovers their convert living arrangement, their peace is disrupted and they must band together to devise a ploy to turn the bathhouse into a money-making establishment. During the process of reimagining the bathhouse they gradually expose each other’s inner vulnerability and unsettled anxiety alongside the bathhouse’s past.
Hymn of the Weaver Birds is a script imagined using the Chinese philosophical concept of “Ying”, a Chinese stylized characteristic and aesthetic. The symbiotic relationship between the stage design, the characters, the music, the physicality and the multilingual dialogue meant that this is a play that is meant to be “embodied”.
—The Artists—
Johnny Wu
Johnny Wu is a bilingual Taiwanese-Canadian interdisciplinary artist. Having graduated from Simon Fraser University with a double major in Theatre Performance and Criminology, his work seeks to investigate humanity through story-telling with social consciousness. Unvarnished, audacious, and intimate, Johnny's practice references East Asian-inspired aesthetics, Taiwanese nostalgia and queer culture. Johnny's Theatre credits include The Pink Line: Pain Held Tight (2016) presented at the Queer Arts Festival; these Violent Delights (2017) presented at the Summerworks Performance Festival; Movement Consulting for Animus Anima//Anima Animus (2019) presented at The Public Theatre in New York City; Creative consulting for Portrait of my DNA (2020) presented at PuSh international festival; For Now (2023) presented by Green Thumb Theatre. Johnny also ventures into the world of film and television. You can catch Johnny as Xing Xing aka Jinderella88 in “Joy Ride” directed by Adele Lim and written by Teresa Hsiao and Cherry Chevapravatdumrong. The film stars Ashley Park, Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu.
Jocelyn Yuchia Chang
The artistic director of ESP-I Performing Arts Group and a founding member of World Wide Lab, Jocelyn is one of the few Taiwanese playwright and director who expertise span across theatre, music and dance. Her notable achievements include receiving Sino-American Asian Cultural Foundation Award in 2009; receiving Taiwan Ministry Of Culture Grant Award for an artist residency at The Watermill Center in Water Mill in 2011; and, the served as the rehearsal assistant for world-renowned theatre director and visual artist, Robert Wilson. Jocelyn’s practice include directing in traditional theatre as well as devising theatre in unconventional performance spaces. She specializes in drama, musical theatre, site-specific theatre, immersive theatre and dance theatre. Her recent works explore fusing multimedia and techno music to the stage. Daringly clashing traditional Chinese theatre’s stylized characteristics with Western theatre forms, she clever transforms the performer’s stream of consciousness into tangible performances. Her work boldly questions the innermost dilemmas of humanity.