Movement + Calligraphy Workshop is a community outreach project that brings together the traditional art form of Japanese calligraphy with improvised dance, where participants embody the brushstrokes of a calligraphy piece they create. Derived from Shion’s own choreographic practice integrating calligraphy, the workshop provides a fun, welcoming learning experience that generates community connection, sharing of ancestral knowledge, discussions of cultural traditions and experiences, and taking intentional time to connect the mind and body.
During the creation of her short dance film The Kiln Project on Galiano Island in 2021, Shion realized the buried history of Japanese Canadian communities that existed on Galiano and the surrounding Gulf Islands. Diving deeper into this history through developing the Movement + Calligraphy Workshop, the community friendships and camaraderie that existed between Japanese and Indigenous communities, and their shared fishing culture, also came to the surface. These histories and human relationships are important, and cannot be forgotten; the goal of this workshop is to cultivate an experience of artistic exploration and expression through movement, while commemorating these histories and reconnecting to them through contemporary methods. The hope is to spark the participants’ curiosities in Japanese art and culture, like calligraphy, and encourage youth to discover the Japanese and Indigenous histories of the islands they live on while reconnecting to their own lineage and personal experiences.
This open-level workshop invites participants of all backgrounds, particularly encouraging IBPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ youth and adults to participate. The intention is to bring this Movement + Calligraphy Workshop to rural locations, where folks may live in smaller communities which often have fewer interdisciplinary arts programming compared to larger cities. In particular, the Gulf Islands off the coast of Vancouver, BC and the Lower Mainland are of interest, with the history of Japanese Canadian communities that flourished there prior to the internment of Japanese Canadians by the Canadian government in 1942. The following locations, which have historical sites connected to Japanese Canadian history, would be great locations to carry out this workshop:
Traditional territories of the Tsawwassen, Quw’utsun, Semiahmoo, Coast Salish, Penelakut, Hwlitsum, and other Hul’qumi’num-speaking peoples
Galiano Island, BC
Salt Spring Island, BC
Mayne Island, BC
Traditional territories of the Lekwungen/Songhees people, and the Snuneymuxw people
Victoria, BC
Nanaimo, BC
This workshop encourages youth ages 12+, up to adults, to participate in the event. The workshop would be free for participants (funding dependent), and the calligraphy and movement elements are inclusive of varying mobile abilities: all activities can be done standing, sitting, in mobility vehicles etc. (would need to secure venues with mobile accessibility).
