David Mesiha’s new mixed-media art installation Same Difference is just too novel to capture in words. It must be experienced.
Billed as an intimate and immersive experience, the installation takes place from February 15 – 25, 2023 at The Theatre Centre in Toronto, where it is produced by Vancouver-based Theatre Conspiracy. The 45-minute experiential work utilizes mirrors, immersive projection and surround sound to bathe, and sometimes plunge, audiences into ever-shifting cognitive and spatial perspectives.
Same Difference evolved through Mesiha’s pursuit to understand how we evolve our sense of self and belonging. As an immigrant, he wondered if identity is essentially characterized by difference. This led to the larger question, “How much sameness and difference do we need, to feel like we belong?”. To find their own answers, audiences are encouraged to move through Same Difference, where they will experience signs and sounds that continually alter their perspective. The installation, which draws on the experiences of immigrants and refugees, is an invitation to deconstruct our perceptions of identity and to explore the tensions within individuality.
Mesiha is an award-winning music composer, interactive designer and sound/video designer. He’s also co-artistic director of Theatre Conspiracy in Vancouver. Dividing his time between Toronto and Vancouver, he centers his practice around examining questions of form in interactive and performance arts. His work utilizes multi-channel immersive audio, interactive design and Digital Performance. Mesiha 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 also been nominated and won Jessie Richardson Awards in multiple categories, and is a Dora-Award nominee for his sound design work on IFT theatre’s Oraltorio.
Ahead of the opening of Same Difference, SesayArts caught up with Mesiha to discuss the path that led to his pursuit of music and theatre, the inspiration for Same Difference, and how the experiential work provides a unique experience to every participant.
SM: Let’s start with you. Tell us a bit about you and what inspired you to pursue a career in the arts.
DM: My name is David Mesiha. I came to Canada on my own when I was 16 years old, first on a scholarship to an international school (Lester B. Pearson College) outside of Victoria, BC. I was there for two years. After graduating from the IB program, I went to Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.
The plan was to pursue medical school, and so I enrolled in Biochemistry in a pre-med program. However, three years into that degree I was completely unhappy. So despite my family’s expectations, I quit university and took a break.
Since my childhood, music had been a major part of my life, but I had always been told that it could only be a hobby and nothing more. However, upon returning to university I decided to pursue a degree in music composition and supplement it with Philosophy. While still studying music composition, I fell into theatre by accident, at first as a sound designer.
I had also developed interest in experimental design, such as projection mapping and interactive design techniques, and come to view the theatre as a space that provides an excellent opportunity for interdisciplinary work to be developed.
SM: Same Difference has a unique premise. How did you get the inspiration for it, and what has the developmental journey been like?
DM: As a child I often spent time staring at myself in the mirror, imitating myself, imitating myself. I never quite trusted that what I was seeing in the mirror was, in fact, me.
As a young immigrant in Canada, I eventually became aware that I was suspended in an in-between state between two cultures, languages and contexts, never feeling whole in one or the other.
This realization prompted me to question what identity and belonging are. How do we develop a sense of self, and how do we know who we are? So I set off interviewing other immigrants to understand from their stories how they relate to questions of identity and belonging. I was keen to develop a piece that would allow audiences to experience the complexities and nuances inherent in these types of questions and not to be prescriptive or reductive about it. I was fortunate to be joined by a team of incredibly talented collaborators. The design language that we developed in Same Difference was built on work I did with a co-designer in 2011 on a piece called Project (X) where we used mirrors and immersive projection techniques as the main driver of the audience’s experience.
It also builds on our work at Theatre Conspiracy on Foreign Radical (an immersive and interactive theatre piece examining issues of cyber surveillance). The lessons learned during development of Foreign Radical were foundational in the manner in which we developed dramaturgical tools in Same Difference that encourage audiences to physically move within the space to experience radically different perspectives that construct divergent and emergent narratives.
I had a long list of valuable collaborators on this piece to whom I’m deeply grateful, in particular my co-projection designer and co-developer Milton Lim, my co-artistic directors Tim Carlson and Gavan Cheema for their dramaturgical insights and support throughout the development process, and our collaborator Aryo Khakpour for his performances as well as dramaturgical development.
SM: I know that the notion of belonging is a key theme of the installation. What would you like the audience to know about this theme as well as other themes of Same Difference?
DM: I’m really excited for audiences to explore for themselves what these questions mean to them prompted by experience of the piece.
Audiences will have an opportunity to listen to stories from immigrants of widely diverse cultural and generational demographics as they reflect upon their sense of identity and belonging. I hope that through hearing the stories in the piece and having an opportunity to encounter the self as well as the other within Same Difference, that audiences will find spaces for comfort and belonging.
While we may experience a fracturing as we navigate our evolving and transforming identities, I think we can recognize opportunity within the fracture and beauty within Difference.
SM: What will audiences experience at the show? (I can’t envision it, which is likely a good thing, so I’m intrigued to learn more!)
DM: The space is bisected by two walls of 2-way mirrors and surrounded by 8 hyper directional speakers each in its own spotlight.
Audiences are free to roam the space, sit or lay down. What they are able to see and experience will be quite different based on their chosen vantage point. Projection on the mirrors creates transformative light effects for the whole space, and so the perception of the space itself is constantly changing.
At any point audiences may choose to stand by any of the hyper directional speakers where they can listen to an interview with one of the immigrants and be on the parameter of the action rather than in its midst.
Ultimately, the experience is quite immersive and uniquely playful, there is lots of space for each audience to curate their own experience and level of involvement.
SM: What aspect of presenting the show excites you most? Any nervousness at all?
DM: I’m always incredibly excited to see how different audiences collectively transform the space and the experience, so each show, in a way, is quite different. It is also always incredibly rewarding to witness the playfulness with which audiences approach the space and witness them in reaction to the themes and images presented.
As creators, we always to want to feel confident that we are providing a safe space for audiences to engage with complex and nuanced subject matter.
SM: The final word is yours. What question do you wish I had asked you that I didn’t (and what is the answer)?
DM: I’d like to finish by acknowledging that this type of project requires years of development processes that would not be possible without the support of our funding bodies such as Canada Council For The Arts, British Columbia Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council.
We are also thrilled to be presented by The Theatre Centre in Toronto. It is an institution that uniquely supports innovative and boundary-pushing artistic work with unparalleled commitment to the artists themselves.
Finally, I would like to thank and acknowledge the team that participated in early development stages of the piece, including Ashley Bodiguel, Jivesh Parasram, Parjad Sharifi, performers Celia Aloma and Ilana Zackon.
Reserve tickets to Same Difference on theatredirect.org.
© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2023
