轴/軸/Axis:

This piece is about the term “home” and the ways we may bridge the distances between our homes- spaces that we can identify as encompassing safety. It’s a brief telling of our bodies’ histories on this unceded land and lands we may long for. Allowing comfort and discomfort within us to navigate our lives, without ruling us. Noticing it’s presence, while allowing ourselves to also be present for loss. Through movement, words, and each other we can be representations of the fragments of our homes. 轴/軸/Axis has lived many lives since its inception. It was created for Vines Art Festival 2020 by Shana Wolfe and Rosemary Xinhe Hu. Vines 2020 was an online screening type format performance festival that was pre-recorded because of the pandemic. The entire festival took place in sacred parks around Vancouver. It was then transformed to a short stage performance for The Happening Dance Studio for another online showing which was shown live. This shortened version of 轴/軸/Axis is a combination of those two showings. I, Shana, am a first generation Japanese-Canadian dance artist and Xinhe is a first generation immigrant Chinese-Canadian poet so we drew inspiration from the movement and poetry from our lived experiences as Asian-Canadians.