SHED | knowing each other as different and the same, Pam Tzeng. Photography by Michael Vincent Tan.
SHED | knowing each other as different and the same
Pam Tzeng
April 27, 2022 – May 14, 2022
OPENING RECEPTION / April 23rd, 2022 at 6PM – 9PM
MOVEMENT WORKSHOP WITH PAM TZENG / Postponed. To register, follow the link here.
SHED | PICNIC WITH MOVEMENT, POETRY AND ARTIST TALK / May 25, 2022 from 4 PM to 8:30 PM. See the link to the Facebook event for more details and the full timeline of the evening.
PLEASE NOTE: The New Gallery is still strongly recommending masks for the safety of our community, artists and staff.
TNG will be open to the public Thursday through Saturday from 10AM to 6PM. Fridays, TNG will be open from 2PM to 7:30PM. Wednesdays, the gallery will be open for folks to visit the space to see the ephemera of the performances. Tickets for performances and to visit the gallery are available through the link here. All are welcome and this event is free.
If you don’t feel comfortable visiting TNG in person, we are happy to offer free digital tours via Zoom. If you’d like to organize a tour please contact , our Communications & Outreach Coordinator, at alexa@thenewgallery.org and we will reach out to you with a meeting link.
SHED | knowing each other as different and the same (TRAILER) from Pam Tzeng on Vimeo.
Exhibition Description/
Under the bright yellow glow of SHED, time suspends for an alchemy of movement, sound, animate costumes and light. Featuring a collection of time-based moving portraits, SHED | knowing each other as different and the same holds space for the multiplicity and humanity of bodies of culture1. The immersive performance installation invites pause. A slowing down and an enlivening into presence for an otherworldly experience.
a seeing
a feeling
a being with
a sensorial unravelling
a conjuring of ancestral love and grief
a shedding of what holds us from knowing each other as different and the same.
SHED is an invitation to notice the subtle ways our bodies perceive, receive and relate to an “other”. To witness the assumptions and imaginings that consciously and/or unconsciously colour our experience of difference. To remember that every body inhabits an internal life as vivid and complex as our own.
The collection of choreographies by Tzeng includes a duet created and performed with experimental musician FOONYAP, and five solo portraits created for, with and danced by Cindy Ansah, Cory Beaver, Kara Bullock, Alèn Martel and Mpoe Mogale. Sound, costumes and light manifest as energetic extensions of the body, spirit and land. The design elements of each work emerged from tender and nurturing exchanges with sound designers FOONYAP, Jiajia Li, Num and Darren Young, costume collaborator Alison Yanota, sodium light designer Nicolas Brunet-Beaulieu and lighting designer Jonathan Kim.
Each portrait draws from the intimate and vast inner landscapes of the performers’ embodied values, memories and lived experiences. Each exists as a testimony of the beauty and resilience of bodies of culture.
Footnote:
- From Pam: I replace the language and idea of “People of colour” with “Bodies of Culture” as reclamation of the inherent wisdom of the body and the pieces of the experiences of racialized people that have been stolen, stripped away, and invisibilized by white body supremacy. Bodies of Culture comes from my practice in Somatic Abolition guided by the work of author, therapist and racialized trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem.
SHED is made possible with the support of Dancers’ Studio West Artist in Residence Program, The New Gallery 2022 Main Space Program, Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Calgary Arts Development, Calgary Animated Objects Society.
Bio/
Pam Tzeng (曾小桐) is a second-generation Taiwanese-Canadian choreographer, interdisciplinary performance maker, movement educator and arts worker based in Moh’kíns’tsis Treaty 7 Territory. Pam takes pleasure in extremes to craft honest, visceral and animated performances about the politics of the body with objects and costumes. Her practice and aesthetic imagination is coloured by her training in contemporary dance, mask, clown, puppetry. Led by her embodied curiosities, she graciously traverses charged thematic territories to reveal and empower unseen truths.
Her solo and ensemble works have been presented across Canada and through the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Past works include: “A Meditation on the End” Jo-Lee, “SHE and he…” By Jo-Lee, That ch*nk in y/our armour commissioned by CanAsian Dance KickStart Festival 2018 (Tkaronto) and Cheers & Tears: A Journey Into Whiteness commissioned by Good Women Dance Collective (Amiskwacîwâskahikan).
CREDITS
To see the creative team of SHED’s bios, follow the link here.
Ideation and Choreography
Pam Tzeng
Portraits created for and with performers
Cindy Ansah
Cory Beaver
Kara Bullock
Alèn Martel
Mpoe Mogale
Pam Tzeng
FOONYAP
Sodium Light Design
Nicolas Brunet-Beaulieu
Lighting Design and Technical Direction
Jono Kim
Costume Design Collaboration
Alison Yanota
Pam Tzeng
Sound Design
FOONYAP
NUM (Milad Bagheri Torbehbar and Maryam Sirvan)
Darren Young
Music Mastering
Krzysztof Sujata
Technical Stage Management
Tauran Wood
Exhibition Text
Jordan Baylon
Co-Production
Dancers’ Studio West Artist in Residence Program (2019-2022)
The New Gallery 2022 Main Space Program
Made possible with the support of
Canada Council for the Arts
Calgary Animated Objects Society
Calgary Arts Development
Alberta Foundation for the Arts
Mile Zero Dance 2022 Dance Crush Series
Plastic Orchid Factory 2022 adaptives series
Project Management Team
Pam Tzeng
Bianca Guimaraes de Manuel
Kris Vanessa Teo
Special thanks to:
Melissa Avila
Loretta D’Antuono
Sylvie Moquin
Jamie Tea Tognizzini
Thomas Geddes
Katie Green
Sasha Ivanochko
Ping Tzeng
Michael Vincent Tan
The Old Trouts Puppet Workshop
Inside Out Theatre
Theatre Encounter