DBLSPK hosts up to three multilingual artists per year and highlights the linguistic and cultural diversity of our theatre community.

By collaborating with artists who work with elements of translation and/or multilingual creation, we examine the relationship between language and culture within performance. During DBLSPK, resident artists have the opportunity to work in the studio with a team of collaborators and then present excerpts of their new multilingual/translated work at a workshop-setting public performance. The artist then engages with the audience in a conversation post-show, taking a deep dive into the research topics related to their project.

Since its inception, DBLSPK has featured 17 languages, such as Cantonese, Spanish, Punjabi, Hungarian and more!

Do you have an idea for DBLSPK? Let us know!

Are you a multilingual artist interested in doing a DBLSPK residency? Click here.

UPCOMING DBLSPK: TOMBOY (CHŁOPCZYCA)

Join us for an in-development showing of Tomboy (Chłopczyca) by Anais West, featuring Polish and English, followed by an artist/audience discussion!

Queer vampires and Slavic folklore converge in Tomboy (Chłopczyca), a kinetic dance-theatre performance exploring gender, memory and cultural belonging. This new interdisciplinary work is a trans coming-of-age story with a dark, supernatural twist.

After learning that as a teen, their best friend was attacked by a boy from their Polish immigrant community, a non-binary historian remembers their shared adolescence. But with each recollection, the sequence of events becomes more ambiguous, the choreography of memory more complex. Through repetition, they unravel the narrative they’ve constructed of themself, the boy, and their predatory bond. Were his actions his own, or was he cursed by a monstrous and mythic inheritance? By exploding cultural dance and genre conventions, Tomboy redefines horror, eroticism and masculinity.

July 18th at 7pm
Progress Lab, 1422 William St, Vancouver