Soraya Lee Wo | Creative Process Blog

Dancing With Silence 

Hello, and thanks for being here. 

My name is Soraya Lee Wo (she/her), and I am honoured to be part of prospects: Here&Now to present my work, Dancing Through Migration. 

This work started in October 2023, after I viewed the Prospects Show, so this performance feels full circle. This dance is part of my Honours Undergraduate thesis with the Arts and Science Department at McMaster University, and the project would not have been possible without the expert supervision of my supervisor, Dr. Yana Stainova. With my paternal grandfather’s passing in June, I felt more impetus than ever to begin the “reclaiming.” For me, reclaiming my family’s historical accounts and the different stories within them is a means to reclaiming parts of my identity. 

This process of reclaiming was far from simple and linear. It proved much more complicated than revealing stories and histories I didn’t know and creating a dance about them. Along the road, the most significant hurdle I faced was that there wasn’t much more information to gather. My parents didn’t know much more information than I did, so it felt like there was a lot of "nothingness." I then used "silence" and "absence" to describe the lack of information. In addition to feeling like my project lacked substance, I was reading things that made me think a lot about ethical co-authorship and the ethics of my project. This work by Dr. Aytak Dibavar particularly struck me. The context of the lives of my ancestors and people in my familial lineage was significantly different than my own, being born and raised in Canada. I didn’t want to fill in the gaps of their stories with what I think happened or what could’ve possibly happened. I was also thinking about what part of their life they would or would not want shared with others and the importance of honouring that. These are their stories and lives. I felt like it wasn't my place to.

So, I asked myself: What do I do with these silences? How do I honour them, and where do they leave me? 

These are the four gestures that appear most frequently in the work. The gestures offer context and guide audience members through the work. 

These realizations led to a pivot in the project. The dance became a reflection of my process and experience of doing this work, of the internal turmoil and tensions that I was facing. Dance became the nonverbal medium to respond to stories without words. Every iteration of this work is different as I continue to reflect on what this work and process mean to me. I’m so pleased to be sharing this work as part of prospects: Here&Now.

This Curiosities blog was made by Soraya Lee Wo, who is presenting her work “Dancing Through Migration” in Aeris Körper’s 2025 Here&Now festival. Tickets can be purchased here.