PTC is pleased to announce this year’s Artists in residence:

June Fukumura with Heidi Taylor developing studip AND
danielle Mackenzie Long with Erika Mitsuhashi developing A Suspension of Electical Silk

These dramaturgically driven investigations will be taking place in the Spring, in partnership with Presentation House Theatre.

More about the teams and their projects:

studip by June Fukumura and dramaturgy by Heidi Taylor

June Fukumura is a multidisciplinary, nisei (second-generation) Japanese-Canadian theatre artist living on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, colonially known as Vancouver. Her artistic practice includes acting for theatre/film/tv/voice over, clowning/neo-bouffon, puppeteering, directing, dramaturgy, devising, and writing. She has worked with several theatre companies across Canada including The Stratford Festival, Theatre Calgary, Arts Club Theatre, Theatre Replacement, Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, Playwrights Theatre Centre, The Chop Theatre, Little Onion Puppet Co., The Biting School, and Hong Kong Exile.  As a dyslexic artist, she works as a speaker, advocate, and educator. studip is her first full-length, autoethnographic work and she is thrilled to be a part of the 2026 WrightSpace cohort. June holds a BFA in Theatre Performance and a Certificate in Sustainable Community Development from Simon Fraser University.

Heidi Taylor is a dramaturg, theatre maker, and arts leader based on the traditional stolen and occupied territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and Səl̓ílwətaɬ Nations. She thinks a lot about process design, developing performances from first idea through production for sited, text-based, community-engaged and solo works. She has been a fan of June Fukumura’s for over 15 years and is excited to support her dyslexia-driven dramaturgy for studip.
At Playwrights Theatre Centre from 2005-2024, she dramaturged the world premieres of Pedro Chamale’s Peace Country, Derek Chan’sHappy Valley, yellow objects, andChicken Girl, Carmen Aguirre’s Anywhere But Here, Tetsuro Shigetmatsu’s Empire of the Son, 1 Hour Photo, and Kuroko, amongst many others. She is currently the Academy Manager for Glitch Theatre, and dramaturg for Leslie Lum’s Geomancer, which has a public reading at the rEvolver Festival on May 30.

studip — referencing a common dyslexic disorientation of flipping the letters “d” and “p” — is a new experimental solo comedy currently in early stages of research and development. studip is inspired by my lived experience with dyslexia and my relationship to words, particularly from my vantage point as a playwright. Combining personal storytelling, verbatim interview text, comedy, and devised experimental theatre, studip explores the world of words through a dyslexic lens. Word games like Scrabble, crossword puzzles, and word searches will act as dramaturgical frameworks to ask: “How can play and failure with words unsettle our allegiance to legibility?” and “How do cultural norms shape our unconscious biases about perceived intelligence?” studip invites audiences to reexamine the word “stupid” and, in turn, the English language itself, illuminating both the fallibility of words and the creative potential of illegibility in postdramatic theatre.

studip was commissioned by Glitch Theatre, courtesy of the James Brown Memorial Creativity Fund.

---

A Suspension of Electrical Silk by danielle Mackenzie Long with movement dramaturgy by Erika Mitsuhashi

danielle Mackenzie Long uses performance, new media and film to liberate gender non-conforming dance artists to create work that surpasses gendered bodies through visual experimentation and expanded audience access. Their work highlights alternative forms of embodiment beyond traditional stages, spatially resisting preconceived understandings of how bodies and movement can be perceived. They hold gratitude to the stewards of the land that they currently reside on; the stolen and unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm nations. 

They have performed in works by Action at a Distance/Vanessa Goodman, Shion Skye Carter, and self checkout/Lamont among others. Their film works have been shown at TIFF, GRRL HAUS CINEMA, XINEMA, FAVA, FORM and Cinevolution, and live performance works presented through Boombox and New Works. As Co-Artistic Director of FORM, they support Youth and Emerging artists exploring themes tied to “recorded movement.” In 2026 their upcoming residencies include Vector Festival (Toronto), PTC (Vancouver), and Studio 303 (Montreal).

Erika Mitsuhashi is a dance artist living on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Səl̓ílwətaɬ, and Skwxwú7mesh Nations. Her practice spans performance, installation, scenography, and projection design. She is ever delighted by contending with the materiality of the present and using the body as the site for conceptual, existential and tender curiosity. She holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University and is a danceWEB recipient (2025). Locally, she collaborates with Alexa Mardon (Mardon + Mitsuhashi), Francesca Frewer, and is part of the producing team behind Boombox.

Unclassifiable creatures bearing resemblances to jellyfish and spiders work to establish a queer household. Shifting physical and social biologies, a reimagined persona of motherhood is unveiled. Wires, webs and electricity intertwine. A temporary home is built over multiple hours. Through retro-future home videos and chores, domestic and digital labour lies at the centre of it all, awaiting to be witnessed and responded to during this durational performance. Drawing from symbols and theories of queerness, monstrosity, and femininity A Suspension of Electrical Silk considers the entanglements of caretaking from alternative current networks.