Invitations. Greetings. Hospitality. A live performance of welcoming acts.

The Welcoming is a series of welcoming-acts observed, collected, and reshaped live by performance students. In questioning what makes a welcoming welcoming, we also looked beneath the mat, behind the door, for those acts and ways of being that we might call unwelcoming. What could we learn about hospitality by taking on the inhospitable? What’s revealed in our greetings when we play them rude, sticky, or foul? When we welcome others, feel welcomed, or unwelcomed, we typically start with some kind of acknowledgement of each other: “I see you, come inside”; or, “I don’t see you, you’re unwelcome here.” Through this dance of recognition, we experimented with perceptual modes for feeling out those forms of invitation and reception in our live art practices and everyday life.

February 24-26th, 2022. Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. Directed by Ryan Tacata.