Andrew Tay

Stephen Thompson

Make Banana Cry

Stephen Thompson and Andrew Tay’s “Make Banana Cry”

Photo: Richmond Lam

Join us for a post-performance Q&A with the artistic team on Saturday 15th April after the performance.

Please note, as part of this performance we will be asking audience members to wear scented shoe coverings. If you are sensitive to scented products, please let one of our staff know.

Both performances will be either filmed or photographed. If you are uncomfortable being caught on camera, please let one of our staff know.

Fr 14.4.2023, 20:00-21:00, MDT

Sa 15.4.2023, 20:00-21:00, MDT

In "Make Banana Cry" 6 artists confront western society’s perception of “Asianness” in a critical performance that reclaims, protests against and subverts clichés. Sitting in the tension between identity and stereotypes, the performers continuously deconstruct cultural codes using an arsenal of randomly selected objects in an attempt to shake off the weight of violent representation and fetishization.

"Make Banana Cry" is a continuous barrage of body politics, a durational parade which contemplates the problematics of “universal” western popular culture while drawing on the artistic background of each of the invited artists. Visual artist Dominique Petrin creates an immersive fake museum “exhibition” as the container for the work, encouraging the public to consider the history of colonization within cultural institutions and museums.

""Make Banana Cry" reminds us that we are both products and producers of the society we live in, carriers and transmitters of cultural identities. And that unlike the stereotypes we are bombarded with every day, contemporary identities are never fixed, never frozen and never one-dimensional.” -The Dance Current

Andrew Tay

Andrew Tay, 1977, Toronto Canada. Multi-hyphenate choreographer, performance curator, dancer and DJ, Andrew’s work seeks to trouble dominant perceptions of power informed by his lived experiences as a queer Filipino Canadian. His work Make Banana Cry (co-authored with Stephen Thompson) questions perceptions of “Asian-ness” in Western culture and has been presented at the Festival TransAmériques (Montreal), Kampnagel (Hamburg), Fierce Festival (UK) and continues to tour internationally. His other works Fame Prayer / EATING (created with Katarzyna Szugajew and François Lalumière), The Magic of Assembly (created with Whacking artist Ashley Colours Perez) and Odd-Sensual have received numerous accolades including the Risk and Innovation Award (Summerworks Toronto) and 5 Dora Mavor award nominations. 


Andrew is known for reimagining possibilities within historic dance institutions through his work as the inaugural Artistic Curator of the Centre de Creation O Vertigo (CCOV) Montreal and his current role as Artistic Director of Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT) one of Canada’s oldest contemporary dance companies. In 2022 Andrew was named on the list of “50 under 50 shaping tomorrow” by Concordia University. He actively thinks about community, irreverence and resistance in both his performance and curatorial practices.

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Stephen Thompson

Stephen Thompson, originally from Calgary, Alberta is an inter-disciplinary artist working between Canada, USA and Europe. Stephen’s introduction to movement and performing was through competitive figure skating. He received a Bachelor of Kinesiology (art and science of movement) and Dance from the University of Calgary. In 2015 at the World “Figure” Championships in Lake Placid, Stephen received the bronze medal. In 2016 he received a Victor Martin-Lynch award from the Canada Council for the Arts. Past choreographic work and collaborations: 2012 Bessie award winning Antigone Sr. (Large), The Ghost of Montpellier and the Samurai (2014) with Trajal Harell, Culture Administration & Trembling (2014), Les Etudes (2017), Chaud (2020); Jennifer Lacey, Antonija Livingstone, Dominique Pétrin, whatwearesaying (2014); Public Recordings (2 Dora Mavor awards Toronto), numerous projects with Benoit Lachambre, Relative Collider (2015); Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard, Service #5: Try to keep kids off naturalism and Kein Paradiso with Adam Linder recipient of the Mohn Prize at the L.A. Bienniale, Stitchomythia with Nadia Lauro and Zeena Parkins, Dramaturge for Such Sweet Thunder (2019) recipient of 8tensions Impulstanz, Compulsory Figures (2019) co-signed with French visual artist Xavier Veilhan.

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Visual Installation

Tour Technician and Lighting design

Supported by

Festival TransAmériques as part of the FTA Respirations, Canada Council for the Arts – CCA, MAI, UQAM, The Stable Creative Residency Centre de Création O Vertigo-CCOV

Thanks to

Véronique Hudon

,

Galerie de l’UQAM

,

Aaron Wright (Fierce Festival)

,

Dance 4 UK

,

Miriam Ginestier

,

Michael Toppings

,

Michel Lee and Andrea Davis Kronlund (Östasiatiska Museet)

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