The Theatre Centre Announces SAME DIFFERENCES, An Immersive Mixed Media Installation

The Theatre Centre announces SAME DIFFERENCE, a mixed-media installation and digital performance produced by Theatre Conspiracy (Vancouver) by multi-disciplinary artist David Mesiha. This intimate and immersive experience takes place from February 15-25, 2023 at The Theatre Centre.

This boundary-pushing piece utilizes mirrors, immersive projection and surround sound to bathe, and sometimes plunge, audiences into ever-shifting cognitive and spatial perspectives. Audiences are encouraged to move through this dynamic installation to witness a variety of signs and sounds that continually alter the participant's experience. Drawing on the experiences of immigrants and refugees, the piece invites audiences to deconstruct perceptions of identities and to explore the tensions between individuality. How much sameness and difference do we need to feel like we belong?

"As an immigrant I have often been aware that I perpetually exist in-between worlds, cultures, languages and spaces never fully belonging to or feeling whole within one space or another," says David Mesiha, Director. "I wondered if identity is essentially characterized in difference. Same Difference evolved through my pursuit to understand how we evolve our sense of self and belonging. The experience is a meditation on a sense of fracturing that emerges when we exist in-between spaces."

Artistic Director Aislinn Rose says, "The Theatre Centre has a long history of supporting hybrid performance works, and of working with artists exploring the edges of a practice in particular. Our audiences have come to expect performances that explore incredibly personal stories, and to meet those stories in inventive ways. Same Difference begs us to deeply question our own stories by immersing us within the perspectives of others. I can't wait to experience the community response to this show."

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 centers around examining questions of form in interactive and performance arts. 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.

The production credits include David Mesiha (Concept, Projection Design, Sound Design and Composition, and Text), Milton Lim (Projection Co-Design, Co-Development), Tim Carlson and Gavan Cheema (Dramaturgy, and Co-Development), and Aryo Khakpour (Dramaturgy, Performance and Co-Development).

The Theatre Centre is a nationally recognized live-arts incubator that serves as a research and development hub for the cultural sector. They are a public space, open and accessible to the people of their community, where citizens can imagine, debate, celebrate, protest, unite and be responsible for inventing the future.

The Theatre Centre's mission is to nurture artists, invest in ideas and champion new work and new ways of working. The company fosters a culture of innovation by embracing risk and questioning traditional notions of failure and success.

TICKETS: PWYC Sliding Scale: $15/$30/$45/$60 | Performances are at THE THEATRE CENTRE, 1115 Queen St. West, Toronto, Ontario.

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