Local IBPOC Artists Unite For Calgary Premiere Of Multi-Sensory Presentation 

An avant-garde multi-sensory experience, SHED | knowing each other as different and the same, is an immersive dance installation featuring a collection of moving portraits embodied by a roster of local IBPOC artists.

Choreographed by interdisciplinary artist Pam Tzeng, who is presenting a duet piece with acclaimed Calgary experimental musician FOONYAP, SHED is a new body of work that invites audience members to pause, delight in their senses and enjoy the slowing of space and time in this unique experience from April 27 - May 14 at The New Gallery in Calgary's Chinatown.

The presentation includes three 1-hour experiences, designed to be performed for an intimate audience of eight. Each features different time-based moving portraits that Tzeng created in collaboration with each of the five respected solo artists, and the duet between Tzeng and FOONYAP ground the entire collection - a 35-minute piece that speaks to their journeys of reconnecting to spirit and lineage as two women of the Chinese diaspora born and raised in Moh'kinst'sis.

"The duet is a true weaving together of our respective practices. The collaboration has been an invigorating process that has challenged us both. We were committed to diving into each other's worlds," said Pam Tzeng. "I contributed vocals and synth instrumentals to the soundtrack, and FOON takes her magnetic stage presence to new levels by learning and performing complex choreography."

Each of the five solos emerged from the intimate and vast inner landscape of the performer's embodied values, memories and lived experience. The portraits are testimony to the beauty, complexity, and resilience of our "bodies of culture." They are an invitation to get to know an "other" as different and the same. As her most ambitious project, Tzeng's creation specifically replaces the language and idea of "People of colour" with "Bodies of Culture," as a reclamation of the pieces that have been stolen and stripped away by the systems of oppression that we as a society are grappling with.

PERFORMERS: Cindy Ansah, Cory Beaver, Kara Bullock, FOONYAP, Alen Martel, Mpoe Mogale, Pam Tzeng

DESIGN COLLABORATORS: Nicolas Brunet-Beaulieu, Jonathan Kim, Jiajia Li, NUM, Krzysztof Sujata, Alison Yanota, Darren Young

BTS TEAM: Jordan Baylon, Bianca Guimarães, Linnea Swan, Krs Vanessa Teo Xin-En, Tauran Wood

https://www.pamtzeng.com/shed-team

Presented by TNG and co-produced by Dancers' Studio West, SHED's official debut runs from April 27 - May 14, 2022 and takes contemporary dance out of the theatre and into Moh'kinst'sis Chinatown at The New Gallery, an activist artist-run centre dedicated to fostering social and political art practices.

This is a free presentation, although patrons are encouraged to book their spots. Following its premiere in Calgary, SHED will go on to tour Edmonton and Vancouver later this summer. For more information, please visit https://www.pamtzeng.com/events.

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