Events › Rice & Beans Theatre Presents: Hymn of the Weaver Birds

Join us for a workshop presentation of a new multilingual theatre work by Johnny Wu and Jocelyn Yuchia Chang, followed by a moderated community discussion.

Working with regional Mandarin and English, Hymn of the Weaver Birds follows the ventures of a group of unidentified strangers, who serendipitously occupy the same address-less abandoned Japanese bathhouse. When the village leader discovers their convert living arrangement, their peace is disrupted and they must band together to turn the bathhouse into a money-making establishment. During the process of re-imagining the bathhouse, they expose each other’s inner vulnerability and unsettled anxiety alongside the bathhouse’s past.

This event is part of rice & beans theatre’s DBLSPK Program, which supports the development and celebration of new, multilingual work. Learn more here. 

DBLSPK is funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage, Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, Province of BC, City of Vancouver and the Mclean Foundation.

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Johnny Wu is a bilingual Taiwanese-Canadian interdisciplinary artist. Having graduated from Simon Fraser University with a double major in Theatre Performance and Criminology, his work seeks to investigate humanity through story-telling with social consciousness. Unvarnished, audacious, and intimate, Johnny's practice references East Asian-inspired aesthetics, Taiwanese nostalgia and queer culture. Johnny's Theatre credits include The Pink Line: Pain Held Tight (2016) presented at the Queer Arts Festival; these Violent Delights (2017) presented at the Summerworks Performance Festival; Movement Consulting for Animus Anima//Anima Animus (2019) presented at The Public Theatre in New York City; Creative consulting for Portrait of my DNA (2020) presented at PuSh international festival; For Now (2023) presented by Green Thumb Theatre. Johnny also ventures into the world of film and television. You can catch Johnny as Xing Xing aka Jinderella88 in “Joy Ride” directed by Adele Lim and written by Teresa Hsiao and Cherry Chevapravatdumrong. The film stars Ashley Park, Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu.

Jocelyn Yuchia Chang is the artistic director of ESP-I Performing Arts Group and a founding member of World Wide Lab, Jocelyn is one of the few Taiwanese playwright and director who expertise span across theatre, music and dance. Her notable achievements include receiving Sino-American Asian Cultural Foundation Award in 2009; receiving Taiwan Ministry Of Culture Grant Award for an artist residency at The Watermill Center in Water Mill in 2011; and, the served as the rehearsal assistant for world-renowned theatre director and visual artist, Robert Wilson. Jocelyn’s practice include directing in traditional theatre as well as devising theatre in unconventional performance spaces. She specializes in drama, musical theatre, site-specific theatre, immersive theatre and dance theatre. Her recent works explore fusing multimedia and techno music to the stage. Daringly clashing traditional Chinese theatre’s stylized characteristics with Western theatre forms, she clever transforms the performer’s stream of consciousness into tangible performances. Her work boldly questions the innermost dilemmas of humanity.