Moving in Peace at the Heiwa Garden

September 18th from 5pm (until around 6:30pm)

The Heiwa Garden to inspire an improvised dance performance by Ontario dance duo: Suzanne Liska and Takako Segawa.

The Japanese Garden Society is very pleased to invite the community to join us at Heiwa Garden on Sunday, September 18th at 5:00pm for a special dance event featuring two accomplished dancers, Suzanne Liska and Takako Segawa.

We are fortunate to have Suzanne and Takako stopover on Salt Spring Island to dance following their participation in the 1st GEI Art Symposium of Japanese Canadian Artists in Victoria, BC. Suzanne is 3rd/4th and Takako is 1st generation Japanese.

The duo will perform an improvisational dance piece in response to and inspired by the Heiwa Garden in honour of the history of the island’s Japanese-Canadian pioneers. The duo will be accompanied by the sound of a shakuhachi played by Masa Ito from Vancouver. Suzanne will also guide an interactive movement weaving through the garden with members of the audience who wish to honour and experience the garden in a new way. Tetsu Aoyama will assist the sound for the performance.

The Heiwa Garden for peace and reconciliation was created by the Japanese Garden Society in 2009. It is to commemorate the island’s Japanese-Canadian pioneers and their internment and is located at the Peace Park across from Artspring in Ganges. 

Admission free. Everyone is welcome.

Dancers Bios

Suzanne Liska is a teacher, choreographer, dancer and researcher specializing in somatic practices, dance/theatre and contact and ensemble improvisation. Suzanne’s practices (contact and ensemble improvisation, dance-theatre, somatics, Taiko, and Butoh) are linked together through physical, collective, and cultural/social embodiment. Suzanne has choreographed and danced in works for CanAsian KickStart, DanceWorks CoWorks, Dusk Dances, and Dance Matters, receiving grants and awards through the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, York University and SSHRC (Canadian Graduate Scholarship). 
Suzanne has a B.A., B.Education, and MFA in Choreography and is a Certified Alexander Technique Teacher. She teaches professional dancers, actors, community dancers, and high school and elementary school students; workshops across Canada, the USA and Japan; and workshops in Toronto for Randolph College, Ryerson University, George Brown College and Humber College. She is contract Faculty in York University’s Dance department and part-time faculty in George Brown College’s Acting and Digital Media department. Suzanne is a Japanese Canadian Sansei/ Yonsei. www.suzanneliska.com

Takako Segawa is contemporary dancer, choreographer, and performer. Born in Kochi,Japan, she trained in both traditional arts and contemporary Japanese movement styles. Takako graduated from Nippon Sports Science University, and is a certified professional dancer from the London Contemporary Dance School.
Takako’s 20 year career includes performances throughout Europe—in London, Italy, Slovenia, and Greece—and throughout Asia—in Indonesia, China, Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan. From 1999 to 2009, Takako produced Contemporary Dance Arts Vol.1-5 in Kochi and Fukuoka, Japan.
Now based in Canada, Takako has worked with Tedd Robinson, Corpus, JAMII, Maxine Heppner, Michael Coldwell, the Xing Ban Fu Ballet, Susan Lee, Suzanne Liska, Limitless productions, and others. She has received numerous grants to create and mount her works, including from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ottawa Arts Funding, and the Kochi (Japan) Ministry of Performing Arts. Takako established her company, ‘Fluid Elements’ in 2015.

 

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