rhymes with rain

In this duet co-authored and performed by Ziyian Kwan and Shion Skye Carter, two bodies slipstitch between rupture and repair. The artists share select stories and memories through the weft and warp of images, text, and dance. They thread together the singularity of their artistic approaches to explore content that is at once frayed and tidily knit. What emerges is a reflection on mending through the gentle and persistent work of collaboration - in art and in life.

Ziyian Kwan
(she/they) is a first generation Chinese Filipina settler who works as a dance artist on the unceded, ancestral and occupied territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Since 1988, she has performed over 100 original works by an eclectic range of choreographers on international stages. In 2017, she received The Dance Centre’s Isadora Award for excellence in performance and in 2026 was honored with The Lola Award for her choreographic work. Ziyian’s creations, which have been performed across Canada and in Europe, are collages of imagery, movement, and language. Ziyian is the founding Artistic Director of Odd Meridian Arts, with which she visions and stewards creative adventures in collaboration with artists from across disciplines. With Odd Meridian, Ziyian spearheaded Morrow, a cultural space that supports a growing community of artists. Energy at play, in bodies in worlds.

Shion Skye Carter
Shion Skye Carter (they/she) is a dance artist originally from Gifu, Japan, based in Vancouver, BC on the unceded, traditional lands of the Coast Salish peoples. Through a movement language of sensitive intensity, hybridizing choreography with heritage forms like calligraphy, and interweaving materiality into performance, Shion’s artistic practice peels apart layers of identity and reflects on the complex human experience. Recent presentations of their work include VIDF (BC), Tangente (QC), Live Art Dance (NS), Art Gallery of Ontario (ON), b12 free radicals (Berlin), and L’AiR Arts Atelier 11 (Paris). Shion's choreography has been recognized through the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award (2021), the Chrystal Dance Prize (2023), and most recently, their solo Cobalt was shortlisted for the Bloom International Dance Prize at Sadler’s Wells, London, UK (2027 edition).

Jessica Han
Jessica Han (she/her) is a Taiwanese-Canadian lighting designer, technical director, production/ stage manager, and filmmaker who is currently splitting her time between Taipei, Taiwan, and the traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations (also known as Vancouver, BC). She has been working, collaborating, touring nationally and internationally with local dance & theatre artists and companies since 2011.

Ronnie Cheng
Ronnie Cheng is a queer Hong Konger interdisciplinary artist (lens-based art, animation, new media art, creative writing), whose main interest is in the creation of multimedia experiences that are in conversation with physical spaces and objects, through installation art or projection mapping. Ronnie is also an emerging animator/projection designer for live performance, having supported projects such as: it is for when you meet me — Anjela Magpantay, A Taste of Hong Kong — Pi Theatre, DBLSPK: Year of the Frog — rice & beans theatre. Ronnie’s interest in the arts stems from a love for people, and thus, from values of community care and radical kindness. Ronnie is grateful to work on the unceded and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations.