“AWAY With HOME” Cast (from left, Lucy Luo, Kevin Nguyen, Arjun Panesar, Lennox Johnston-Yu and Zefanya Hardhian).
By Tayvie Van Eeuwen
@tayvieeee
Canada, on average, welcomes upwards of 300,000 immigrants per year, but the lack of conversation on immigrant experience could be a cause for concern.
With millions fleeing their homes in search of a better life, folks have been forced to examine both their personal and political views.
This is where Vancouver youth program, MISCELLANEOUS Productions, comes in.
This year, the local theatre company has brought together five youth from immigrant families to examine their definitions of home, identity, and belonging. With the help of director Elaine Carol, the group has created a transdisciplinary performance of song, dance, music, and monologue named AWAY With HOME.
“We work in a flattened hierarchy with the youth, where we give them the tools to create the work and then we collaborate with them to ensure that it is of the highest quality and professional standard,” remarks Carol.
MISCELLANEOUS accomplishes this by means of “community engaged art,” a concept driven by local professionals guiding amateur art. The collective approach features A-list artists– including the likes of Amber Barton, Natasha Forrie, and Natasha Pheko–among others. With their direction, the youth group has learned contemporary and hip hop dance, neo soul and hip hop music, Taiko drumming, performance art and poetry.
Broadly, the youth program at MISCELLANEOUS Productions can only be described as full-circle. Each intake lasts two years, allowing time to form a “family connection” as explained by youth participant Lucy Luo. When the youth leave the program, they’ll have done a year of training, as well as performing and presenting workshops in the community.
For this year’s specific programming, the production company took on challenging conversations, with references to homeland, mental health, connection and more.
“This is artwork that deals with very personal issues for our youth, and so we were very sensitive in our approach,” explains Carol. “Because we are dealing with such tender issues, we wanted to make sure the youth were okay with going onstage and talking about this.”
For Luo, this meant the opportunity to explore not only the arts, but her own immigrant experience. After moving to Canada at 10 years old, Luo learned about her new home through difficult school experiences, cultural confusion and emotional turmoil.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m losing parts of what China meant for me. We don’t celebrate certain holidays we had a lot of value in back home and here my life is simply different, and I’m still trying to figure out how I fit in.”
To properly approach such deep-rooted emotions, the team at MISCELLANEOUS assembled a mental health “sector.” As Carol explains, her responsibility as a director is to ensure the youth are safe and secure, both emotionally and physically. In addition, a community support worker has been actively involved, and will be backstage for the entirety of their performance.
With this intake’s show on the horizon, the spirited piece inspired by immigration is open for the public to see.
As for what MISCELLANEOUS Productions hopes for AWAY With HOME, Carol says, “There’s all kinds of barriers. I think it’s about chipping away at notions of race, gender, homophobia, difference, connection and disconnection, and intergenerational communication.”
Watch ‘AWAY With HOME’ on September 27-28 at 8:00 PM at the Scotiabank Dance Centre’s Faris Family Studio Theatre. Find tickets here.
A self-declared witch, Tayvie spends her time with all things magic. Her circle is small, but her joy is large. She splits her time between over-thinking and visiting Disneyland. Read her articles to take a peek inside the world of mental illness and happy news, because it’s all about balance, right?
