Ximena Huizi

The Mermaid Project.

A group of artists meet at the intersection of their disciplines to dig their hands, bodies, and voices into the waters of the mermaid archetype.

In the wake of a climate crisis future where the sacred rock that houses our limited human bodies promises to be ravaged by fire and water, we set out to imagine how we can become merpeople. We look at the myths, at our bodies, at our relationships to power and access. We remember our experiences of water – what we love and fear about it.
We investigate the creation of a ritual to activate an emergency evolutionary pattern so we may begin to mutate into beings that can exist past the destruction of the human reign.
We call forth the mermaid.

The body/experience of “The Mermaid” is/will be made up of the physical, tangible creations that emerge when trying to reconcile urgency inside of care. Diving in to the mermaid archetype as a container for conversations around water, indigenous agency and wisdom, violence against women and gendered violence, the migrant identy, the trans identity, and the experience of the disabled, MAD and neurodiverse. We verbalize our commitment and interest in holding intentional space for the topics and the experiences listed above. And we honor that commitment by working with and centering artists in direct relationship to those experiences as a priority. We are conscious of the fact that we may not be able to touch directly on every single topic mentioned above, but we trust that by tapping into the subject of water, many of these topics and others not listed will bubble up by virtue of the bodies in the room.

The core ensemble’s approach to this exploration is anchored in their personal lived experiences and they may choose how much of that experience they offer (or don’t) into the creation process.

A process that investigates ways in which we can invite the personal and the individual to emerge. Ways to give it time and space so that it can expand and stretch and reach towards the communal-the collective- and then, to zoom in to the small intricate details of the collective to create focused images and in turn an experience in relationship to those images.

The mermaid project is an experiment in tensing and loosening, in bringing in and out of focus. It wants 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.—

Facilitated by: Ximena Huizi
Co-created by: Wy Joung Kou, Asaph Blaine, Aria Evans, Kristine White, Ximena Huizi
ASL interpreters: Rogue Benjamin and Amy Lawson

With support from: Red Dress production’s Inkling Festival, and the Ontario Arts Council Recommender Grant for Theatre Creators through Aluna Theatre.

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.

Creative Ensemble

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

Asaph 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.

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.

ASL interpretation:
Rogue Benjamin
Amy Lawsone