Same Difference: when audiences perform

David Mesiha and Gavan Cheema discuss the fluid boundary between witnessing and participating in performance. Same Difference runs Jan 24th-28th at PuSh Festival.

Show Notes

Gabrielle Martin chats with project lead David Mesiha and dramaturg Gavan Cheema about their show, Same Difference. They speak to a wide range of topics, including how audiences can best experience this mixed-media performance installation, and whether the fracture of identity can be a positive in art.

Gabrielle, David and Gavan speak to a wide range of questions, including:

• How is form questioned in the visual, interactive and performing arts, and how does this change between them?
• How does this particular show experiment with form and audience participation?
• How can audiences best experience this piece and others like it?
• Why does this piece not require live actors?
• How does this piece handle identity and questions of self?
• Can the fracture of identity be a positive in art?
• How does coming to a new place really change someone at different ages?
• How do we remember particular things in our lives? How do we choose to share different information about ourselves?

About David Mesiha

David Mesiha is a, Toronto and Vancouver based, award-winning music composer, interactive designer, sound/video designer and co-artistic director of Theatre Conspiracy in Vancouver. David's practice centres around examining questions of form in interactive and performance arts. He is intrigued by the relationships between form and medium. His work utilizes multi channel immersive audio, interactive design and Digital Performance.

He has worked on shows such as Project (X) by Leaky Heaven, Terminus by Pi Theatre, Foreign Radical by Theatre Conspiracy, and You Should Have Stayed Home by Spiderweb Show. He has been nominated and won Jessie Richardson Awards in multiple categories and has received a Dora award nomination for his sound design work on Oraltorio by IFT theatre.

David's music has spans multiple mediums and formats such as video games, film, theatre and interactive media. David's Same Difference by Theatre Conspiracy [An immersive performance installation] premiered in Vancouver in April 2022 and will be presented at The Theatre Center in Toronto Winter 2023. David is currently working with Milton Lim and Patrick Blenkarn on asses.masses, a video game performance and with Adelheid and Heidi Strauss on You Are Swimming Here, an AR mixed-Media piece.

Chosen credits: Theatre: Sound designer for The Humans (Arts Club Theatre), Antigone (YPT), Sound of the Beast (Theatre Passe Muraille), You Should Have Stayed Home (VR Performance, SpiderWebShow), asses.masses (video game performance), 15 Dogs (Crow's Theatre) and Szepty (Rumble/Pi Theatre).

About Gavan Cheema

Gavan Cheema is a director, writer, producer, dramaturg and co-Artistic Director of Theatre Conspiracy. She is based out of Vancouver: the traditional, unceded, and occupied territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She is a first generation Canadian, with roots coming from the five rivers of Punjab. She is a recent recipient of the Sam Payne Award for Most Promising Emerging Artist at the Jessie Richardson Awards.

Gavan's play Himmat premiered in Vancouver at The Cultch in May 2022 and will be presented at the Surrey Civic Theatres in Spring 2024. She holds a double major from the University of British Columbia in Theatre and History, as well as a high school teaching certification. She has created work and directed for various local, national and international stages and has extensive experience in youth engagement, theatre education and workshop facilitation.

Select directing credits: Conspiracy Now (Theatre Conspiracy), Rishi & d Douen (Carousel Theatre), Danceboy (Tremors Festival/ Vancouver Art Gallery Fuse), Burqa Boutique (Revolver Festival), Marie's Letters (Shift Festival), da' kink in my hair and You Used to Call Me Marie (Envision Festival), The [Organization] (Unladylike co.), Disgraced (UBC Players Club). Assistant direction: Clean/Espejos (Neworld), Foreign Radical (UK tour), The Orchard [after Chekhov] (Arts Club), Victim Impact (Theatre Conspiracy), Men in White (Arts Club) and Bombay Black (Vancouver Fringe Festival). Select dramaturgy credits: Same Difference by David Mesiha, Isolation Suite by Tim Carlson, Danceboy by Munish Sharma. Upcoming directing: Catfished (May 2023, Alley Theatre), The Dynamics (Oct 2024, Theatre Conspiracy), SWIM (Feb 2025, Theatre Conspiracy & Pandemic Theatre).

Land Acknowledgement

Gavan joins the podcast from Surrey, BC, the traditional territory of the Semiahmoo, Katzie and Kwantlen First Nations.

David joins from Toronto, Ontario, which is the traditional territories of many First Peoples, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and subject to Treaty 13.

Gabrielle hosts from the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Show Transcript

Gabrielle [00:00:02] Hello and welcome to PuSh Play, a PuSh Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I'm Gabrielle Martin. PuSh's Director of Programming. And today's episode highlights multimedia experiments in immersive form. I'm speaking with David Mesiha, responsible for concept projection design, sound design and also the project lead on Same Difference and Gavan Cheema, responsible for dramaturgy and co development. Same Difference will be presented at PuSh Festival January 18th to 20th 2024. As an immersive mixed media installation and digital performance, Same Difference invites audiences to wander through a beautiful, ever shifting environment of mirrors, music and video imagery where you might encounter the other and the self in new ways. David's practice centres around examining questions of form in interactive and performance arts. His interdisciplinary works integrate VR, AR and video game design in imagining new creative spaces that open dialogue between visual arts traditions and those of the performing arts. Gavan created work and directed for various local, national and international stages and has extensive experience in youth engagement, theatre education and workshop facilitation. Her play Himmat premiered in Vancouver at The Cultch in May 2022 and will be presented at the Surrey Civic Theatres in April 2024. I'm thrilled to share this discussion on a work that invites us to encounter ourselves in a whole new way. Here's my conversation with David and Gavan.

Gabrielle [00:01:35] Hello, I'm Gabrielle and I'm the director of programming with the PuSh Festival. And I'm here in conversation today with David Mesiha and Gavan Chema. And we're talking about Same Difference and a bit about the practice, your practice in general as collaborators and co-artistic directors of Theatre Conspiracy. So David, as the concept, production design and sound design and project lead behind Same Difference and Gavan is is dramaturgy and co-development on the project. And also just a little note that, David, you're involved in quite a few PuSh projects this year. So your work will be while it's really centred with Same Difference, you're also you've created the original music and sound design for asses.masses, and you're also the music composer and sound designer on Sound of the Beast. So it's a little bit of a David Mesiha spotlight at PuSh 2024. Anyways, very excited to be in conversation with you today.

David [00:02:36] Thank you. Grateful for it.

Gabrielle [00:02:38] I just want to start out by saying by just acknowledging the land that I'm on today and where I'm having this conversation with you from. I'm on the unceded, the stolen ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh). And I know that I think Gavan you are in Surrey... Colonially known as Surrey?

Gavan [00:03:02] Yeah. So I'm on the Katzie, Semiahmoo, and Kwantlen First Nation land, which is also colonially known as Surrey. So I've been here, I've been you know a first generation kid, born and raised on these lands and always kind of thinking about my relationship to the Coast Salish people.

David [00:03:18] And I'm calling in from colonially known as Toronto, Tkaronto, which is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnaabe, the Chippewa, the Haundenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and subject to the Treaty 13.

Gabrielle [00:03:43] Thank you. Thank you for providing that context. And I want to jump right in. So, David, as a music composer, interactive designer, sound and video designer, your practice centres the questioning or the questioning of form and interactive and performing arts. And so I'm curious, how are you experimented with form in Same Difference?

David [00:04:06] Yeah, thanks for the question. Same Difference sort of builds on a number of previous pieces, such as a long term investigation of of form and performance and centring design as an equal part of of development and presentation of the work and not just something that is quote unquote 'supporting' a narrative. It's an integral part of the narrative. So in Same Dif