Diana Tso is a performer, playwright,
poet, storyteller & artist in education. She’s a graduate of the University
of Toronto in English Literature & of Ecole Internationale de Theatre de
Jacques Lecoq in France. She’s worked
with diverse theatres internationally for 18 years. As artistic director of www.redsnowcollective.ca
her theatre vision merges east & west storytelling art forms through music,
movement & text.
Upcoming: as a playwright, her the
production of her new play, Comfort, premieres 2016; as an actor, she’ll be performing in Chimerica,
directed by Chris Abraham at the Royal Manitoba Centre & at Canadian Stage
in their 2016/2017 seasons. Diana is
grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council & Toronto
Arts Council for supporting her playwriting, developments & productions.
Diana Tso’s Comfort, a new drama
play, honoring the resilience of women in war and inspired by the comfort women
of WWII in Asia, will have a free public reading this Thursday August 20th at
OISE auditorium of University of Toronto @ 7pm at 252 Bloor St. West (by St.
George subway).
It is directed by William Yong with music
composed by Constantine Caravassilis. This
event is part of ALPHA Education’s one-week “Remembering Resilience: History +
Art = Peace" series, commemorating of the 70th anniversary of
the end of World War Two.
Comfort is the love story of two youths from
Nanjing, brought together through their passion for the music of the opera, “Butterfly
Lovers”. Separated by their differences
in social classes, they elope to Shanghai to stay together, only to be
separated again by the horrors of a comfort house where they survive until the
end of the war through the power of love and the transformative power of music.
Comfort is a sequel to Diana’s other
drama play, Red Snow, inspired by the survivors of the Rape of Nanking,
which was produced in 2012 with critical acclaim in Toronto and continued on
its international premiere in China at the ACT Shanghai International
Contemporary Theatre Festival in that same year.
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| Diana Tso |
Diana discovered this part of WWII history
while watching a documentary film by Nancy Tong, “In the Name of the Emperor” in 1997. It awakened her to the lopsided manner in
which history is taught in Canada. For someone who was raised in Canada and
went to school here, she learnt about World War II; “but it was all European
history; the Asian history and stories of the ‘World War’ were excluded.”
As an artist, whose stage is her public
platform to speak creatively, it was imperative for her to write Red
Snow to give voice to a forgotten holocaust in WWII. Diana struggled with her research on this
subject because there was no history written about it and when she approached
people in the community they did not want to dig up and relive the horrors of
the past.
However, her research was furthered in
that same year when she met Iris Chang who was touring across Canada launching the
first North American book about this history, The Rape Nanking, the forgotten holocaust of World War Two.
Reading Chang’s account of the harrowing experiences of Chinese women who
were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese army (the women were
euphemistically termed comfort women), further ignited Diana to write Red Snow – that encapsulates the tragedy
of what happened in Nanking, as experienced across three generations in a
family.
It is about one Canadian woman’s
recurring nightmare, which drives her on a quest to dig through her family’s
buried history in China. When she meets a Japanese man, she must confront
historical forces that threaten her own personal journey towards love. The play brings the message of collective
healing and global peace.
In 2007 while sitting in the dentist office
Diana came across a magazine with an article about ALPHA (Association for
Preserving & Learning the History of WWII in Asia). She contacted the executive director, Flora
Chong and gave her a copy of Red Snow. Ms. Chong was deeply moved by Diana’s play
and helped her arrange contacts in Nanjing to interview a couple of survivors
in 2008. Then in the following year
Diana participated in ALPHA’s Peace and Reconciliation for educators to tour
China and Korean to meet the survivors of WWII and to see the historical sites
while learning more about the WWII in Asia.
This was a life-changing experience that
heightened Diana’s writing and continues to do so in her current play, Comfort.
Diana’s further research on the comfort
women was furthered by the recent publication of a compilation of 12 survivors’
testimonies, which were enslaved as comfort women. Chinese Comfort Women – Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves, edited by Peipei Qui with Su Zhiliang and Chen
Lifei, and was published in 2013 by the University of British Columbia press.
The book describes the experiences in the
Japanese military “comfort stations” and their continued suffering after the
war. These women are: Chen Yabian, Huang Youliang, Lei Guiying, Li Lianchun,
Lin Yajin, Lu Xiuzhen, Tan Yuhua, Yin Yulin, Yuan Zhulin, Wan Aihua, Zhou
Fenying, and Zhu Qiaomei. This book will
be available for purchase at the public reading of Comfort on August 20,
OISE U of T, 252 Bloor St. W auditorium.
Find out more at www.alphaeducation.org
Remembering Resilience part of
the "History + Art = Peace" series of events commemorating the 70th
anniversary of the end of WWII
Other “Comfort” related events
in the peace celebrations:
Saturday
August 15 @ 7pm
“Remembering Resilience
Commemorative Ceremony”
Join us for a candle light vigil and an evening of music, performance art, film, and special guest speakers. This commemorative ceremony is held to remember the courage and strength of those that suffered during the Asia-Pacific War. Performances include a song from Diana Tso' play, "Comfort” (music composed by Constantine Caravassilis; musicians: Patty Chan -erhu/Chinese violin, Marjolaine Fournier- double bass, Phoebe Hu-Chinese flute) and a performance piece showcasing Comfort's costume designer, Erika Chong’s 2015 collection, inspired by the comfort women.
School of Management, Theatre Hall - TRS1-067 @ 55 Dundas Street West
This event is free and is co-sponsored by Unifor Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy, Ryerson University. Seats are limited! Please RSVP here: http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/remembering-resilience-commemorative-ceremony-for-the-70th-anniversary-of-the-end-of-wwii-tickets-16905306226
Friday August 21 @ 1:15pm, 3:15pm & 5:15pm
Birds of a Feather Storytelling Event with Diana Tso, Rubena Sinha & other storytellers. Join us at the gazebo in Mel Lastman Square 5100 Yonge (at North York Centre subway stop) We welcome the community to share their stories of peace & reconciliation, remembrance & love.
The post below is Lei Guiying’s narrative of her life in the comfort station.
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