Everything

Choreography and Performance: Lee Su-Feh

Costume: Hajnalka Mandula

Length: around 45-60 minutes

To watch the version at 2018’s Queer Arts Festival in Vancouver, BC, go here

Everything is one immigrant’s way of acknowledging the indigenous territory on which she dances.

In this solo work, the dance comes out of a negotiation between what the dancer carries and the surface on which she dances. Using Daoist ritual objects such as I-ching sticks, incense and spirit paper, the dancer creates a chance-operated environment that offers obstacles and openings around which she moves. Surrendering to the inherent nature of each object - the weight, the energy and the tasks attached to each of the objects - the body is called into a dance that connects the human body to the elements.

Embedded in the piece is both a personal as well as a public ritual of acknowledgement – of who we are and where we are.

On each piece of spirit paper is written:

To my ancestors

And to the ancestors of 

The Skwxwú7mesh*

The Tsleil-waututh* and 

The xʷməθkʷəy̓əm*

On whose territory I dance

This is a durational work which includes cigarette smoke and the burning of incense and paper; and should be performed outdoors. The only tech requirement is that I be allowed to burn paper, incense and to smoke a cigarette. 

*The Squamish, The Tsleil-waututh and The Musquem are the Coast Salish people on whose traditional unceded territory Vancouver (where Lee is based) is situated. As this work travels to different parts of the world, the message will change according to the circumstance – where we are, what we are, when we are – but will always call attention to our connection to the history we carry in our bodies and the history carried in the land.