Same Difference

Feb 2023 | Theatre Centre | TorontO

Jan 2024 | Round House - PuSH Festival | Vancouver | BUy Tickets Now

  • Same Difference is an immersive mixed-media installation and digital performance examining themes of identity and belonging. Led by David Mesiha, the piece utilizes mirrors, immersive projection and surround sound to bathe, and at times plunge, audiences into every shifting cognitive and spacial perspective.

    Drawing on the experiences of immigrants and refugees, the piece invites audiences to deconstruct perceptions of identities and to explore the tensions between individuality through difference and belonging through sameness. How much sameness and difference do we need to feel like we belong?

    Same Difference premiered April 19, 2022 at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts.

    Toronto | February 15-25 2023 at The Theatre Centre.

    Vancouver | PuSh Festival | Jan 24 - 28, 2024 | Buy Tickets Here

  • DOWNLOAD HERE

  • The piece continues development of projection techniques first developed by David Mesiha and Parjad Sharifi in Leaky Heaven’s 2011 Project (X).

    Development of the project took place at Theatre Conspiracy with contributions from a large team during early development phases.

    Early Development Contributors include Ashley Bodiguel, Jivesh Parasram, Gavan Cheema, Tim Carlson, Parjad Sharifi with performances by Celia Aloma and Ilana Zackon.

  • Concept, Projection Design, Sound Design and Project Lead: David Mesiha

    Projection Co-Design and Co-Development: Milton Lim

    Dramaturgy and Co-Development: Tim Carlson

    Dramaturgy and Co-Development: Gavan Cheema

    Dramaturgy, Performance and Co-Development: Aryo Khakpour

    Additional video performances by: Celia Aloma & Ilana Zackon

    Special thanks to early collaboration and development team Ashley Bodiguel, Jivesh Parasram, Parjad Sharifi, performers Celia Aloma, Ilana Zackon, and soprano Neema Bickersteth.

  • As a child I often spent time staring at myself in a mirror imitating myself, imitating myself. I never quite trusted that what I was seeing in the mirror was in fact me, so I moved frantically trying to trick the mirror into a momentary lapse that may allow me to peer through the fracture I could feel existed between us and glimpse the world as it is and not as it seems. My mother told me to stop it or I would lose my mind!

    Coming to Canada on my own as a 16 year old I was swept into a new existence predicated on a view of myself as a global citizen whose family; the friends made with other internationals and whose world view is one divorced of traditional allegiances. Eventually I became aware that I was suspended in an in-between state between two cultures, languages and contexts never feeling whole in one or the other.

    This realization prompted me to question what is identity and belonging. How do we develop a sense of self and how do we know who we are.

    In developing Same Difference I was privileged to interview a number of immigrants and humbled by their stories. The interviews can be heard in the companion podcast. [Stay Tuned]

    I will finish by sharing a quote from Gilles Deleuze that says

    “The self is only a threshold, a door, a becoming between two multiplicities”.

    Thank you!

    – David Mesiha, Project Lead