Workshop Presentation: Mejiro! Mejiro! Mejiro! by Cindy Mochizuki
Sat Nov 29, 2025 | 7–8 PM
Cindy Mochizuki, Mejiro! Mejiro! Mejiro!, 2025, paint on paper, digital, Courtesy of the Artist
Join us for a workshop presentation of Mejiro! Mejiro! Mejiro!, a live performance based on a forthcoming graphic novel and artist book by interdisciplinary artist Cindy Mochizuki.
Drawing from a selection of short stories in this new work-in-progress, actors bring to life a multi-verse world through voice, sound and animated projections. The narrative follows a young girl with clairvoyant abilities as she journeys through time, tracing the lives of four generations of Japanese Canadian children growing up across shifting geographies. Fragmented memories intertwine from pre-war Kyushu, Japan, to the islands of Hawai‘i, and finally to the west coast of British Columbia.
In Mochizuki’s signature style, the stories are infused with creatures, folklore, ghost tales and the enduring presence of ancestors—whose influence looms large in the recollection of histories.
The performance experiments with the aesthetic and conceptual elements of film telling, a style rooted in early Japanese silent cinema (1896–1939), where benshi, or film narrators, stood beside the screen to voice characters and provide context, adding emotional depth to silent images.
This evening’s presentation offers a sneak peek of a 35- to 40-minute excerpt developed collaboratively by performers and designers over a five-day creative residency in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Courtroom.
Ticket Prices:
- Free for Artist Circle Members
- $5 for Experiences Members
- $10 for Ideas Members
- $15 for Access Pass Holders and the general public
This performance is being presented in conjunction with the exhibition Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama and is an initiative of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Centre for Global Asias.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Cindy Mochizuki creates multi-media installation, animation, drawing, audio fiction, performance, public artworks, films and community-engaged projects. She has exhibited her work in Canada, the US, Australia and Japan. Her documentary film Between Pictures: The Lens of Tamio Wakayama is currently on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery as part of Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama. Recent exhibitions also include the Gibson Art Museum, ACT Gallery, Art Gallery at Evergreen, Kamloops Art Gallery, Prince Takamado Gallery and the Nanaimo Art Gallery. She has created illustration and animation design for theatre companies including the Arts Club Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Rumble Theatre, Theatre Replacement and Little Onion Puppet. She has received the Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award in New Media and Film (2015) and the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts VIVA Award (2020). cindymochizuki.com
PERFORMANCE CREDITS
Directed and Produced by
Cindy Mochizuki
Performed by
Yoshie Bancroft
Yayoi Hirano
Hiro Kanagawa
Yuki Kedoin
Projection Design
Candelario Andrade
Sound Design
Antoine Bédard
Sound Engineering & Technical Support
Alex Penney
Lighting Design
James Proudfoot
Production Coordination
Cherry Wen Wen Lu
Artistic Consultation
Stafford Arima
