Kaylie Kreatrix’s piece is the best mixture of circus and theatre that I’ve ever seen, and I felt like I was finally seeing the melding of these two genres that I’ve been waiting for in Fringe for a long time. Kimiko is taken largely from Kreatrix’s own story of growing up knowing that she had Japanese heritage but feeling distanced from it, both because she is of mixed ancestry, but also because her Japanese relatives had learned from their time being held in prison camps during World War II that their safety hinged on how well they were able to blend in and assimilate to the dominant white culture. Separate from her knowledge of her heritage Kaylie in the piece leaves home and moves next to a circus performer whose work she find fascinating. She is especially drawn to the s-staff or buugeng and the art of object manipulation. We see her using these. They remind me of the way that the jewels move inside those vintage kaleidoscopes, except Kreatrix is moving them just with her hands.

Kreatrix felt drawn to the buugeng, and to the fan dancing and parasol jugging, before she even knew that they had their roots, like her, in Japan. She has learned to manipulate the parasols, spinning them and balancing them on various parts of her body to incredible effect. She is also able to juggle a ball atop the parasols, balance a teapot and cup atop a long thin pole on various parts of her body, and she can also swallow a sword. Swallow a sword. Inter-spliced in between these incredible visual feats is a beautiful story of how circus was the thing that allowed her to reconnect with her cultural and heritage, and how meaningful that is as a descendant of people who were wrongfully imprisoned and accused of being spies during World War II. Her ancestors, as all the Japanese Canadians were, were loyal citizens. Her grandparents were born here. The Japanese Canadians had built a life and community in Canada, and they had their business and their home stolen from them by the government. After surviving humiliation, degradation, racism, and squalor these families were forced to start their lives over from scratch after the end of the war- an end that left two cities in Japan devastated beyond even modern comprehension. Read more at the link!