Uploaded March 2021 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Toronto-based choreographer Sashar Zarif’s upcoming virtual performance for the Aga Khan Museum is an unabashed celebration of spring — and a bold expression of hope for a better post-COVID-19 future.
Featuring breathtaking imagery by Zarif and hybrid-media designer Luke Garwood, Re/turning is a ritual dance story inspired by the journey toward rebirth, from winter to spring, regeneration to awakening. It is an intimate and revealing journey that turns and returns, honouring devotion as a path to prosperity, to wisdom, to purity through love, to peace and serenity into transcendence: a new beginning.
Re/turning’s debut on the evening of March 19, 2021 comes just hours before the start of Nowruz, the traditional festival marking the spring equinox and the beginning of the Iranian new year. In the piece, Zarif playfully honours well-loved rituals associated with Nowruz, including the Half-Seen table, the centrepiece of so many millions of family celebrations across West Asia and beyond. Each of the seven foodstuffs on the Half-Seen table symbolizes a wish for the new year — for health, for love, for strength, just to name a few.
Re/turning’s themes of reinvention and rebirth beam through in how it has been presented. Prohibited from rehearsing and performing together with his team, Zarif enables his dancers to engage with each other virtually and ritually in dance-based conversation. As with the millions of families celebrating Nowruz during the COVID-19 era, they have found novel ways to create, connect, and keep traditions alive, inspiring us to look forward to better days ahead.
Bios
Sashar Zarif is an internationally renowned multi-disciplinary performing artist, educator, and researcher whose artistic practice invites a convergence of creative and cultural perspectives. His interests are identity, globalization, and cross-cultural collaborations. His practice is steeped in the artistry and history of traditional, ritualistic, and contemporary dance and music of the Near Eastern and Central Asian regions.
Luke Garwood makes hybrid media works, dances, and choreography. Garwood has performed professionally with companies such as Toronto Dance Theatre, Human Body Expression, Alias Dance Projects, Adelheid Dance Projects, Tiger Princess Dance Projects, and Citadel + Company.
Mateo Galindo Torres is a Colombian-born multidisciplinary dance artist based in Toronto. He started his dance training in Bogota at an early age, and deepened his studies in the USA, Cuba, and Canada. His work is highly influenced by his Latinx American background, often politically charged, and inspired by social subject matters.
Yiming Cai is a dancer based in Toronto. Originally from Singapore, he grew up competing in Wushu and started dancing while completing his bachelor's degree in Communication Studies at the Nanyang Technological University. Cai went on to dance in The Human Expression Second Company and moved to Canada in 2016 to study at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre.
Sebastian Oreamuno is a Chilean-born, Toronto-based artist, educator, and researcher whose artistic and academic interests include the connection between movement and memory, (im)migration and diaspora, the participatory body, popular culture, men and pointe, and multi-media practices. Sebastian holds a BA in Psychology from Simon Fraser University and an MA in Dance from York University, and he is currently working on a PhD in Dance Studies at York.
Production credits
– Concept, Creation, and Direction: Sashar Zarif
– Video Design: Sashar Zarif and Luke Garwood
– Performance: Yiming Cai, Mateo Galindo Torres, Luke Garwood, Sebastian Oreamuno
– Sound Design: Eric Cadesky
– Music: Eric Cadesky, Sashar Zarif, Pirouz Yousefian, Laurel Macdonald
– Creative Facilitation: Katherine Duncanson
– Dramaturgy consultation: Elizabeth Langley
The research and exploration of Re/turning was generously founded by Canada Council of the Arts, Ontario Art Council, and the Toronto Arts Council. Presented with support from the Government of Ontario.
Bringing online Museum experiences to you is part of our mission to connect cultures and promote understanding between peoples. To learn more about how you can support the Museum by making a donation or becoming a Friend or Patron, please visit:
agakhanmuseum.org/support
Toronto-based choreographer Sashar Zarif’s upcoming virtual performance for the Aga Khan Museum is an unabashed celebration of spring — and a bold expression of hope for a better post-COVID-19 future.
Featuring breathtaking imagery by Zarif and hybrid-media designer Luke Garwood, Re/turning is a ritual dance story inspired by the journey toward rebirth, from winter to spring, regeneration to awakening. It is an intimate and revealing journey that turns and returns, honouring devotion as a path to prosperity, to wisdom, to purity through love, to peace and serenity into transcendence: a new beginning.
Re/turning’s debut on the evening of March 19, 2021 comes just hours before the start of Nowruz, the traditional festival marking the spring equinox and the beginning of the Iranian new year. In the piece, Zarif playfully honours well-loved rituals associated with Nowruz, including the Half-Seen table, the centrepiece of so many millions of family celebrations across West Asia and beyond. Each of the seven foodstuffs on the Half-Seen table symbolizes a wish for the new year — for health, for love, for strength, just to name a few.
Re/turning’s themes of reinvention and rebirth beam through in how it has been presented. Prohibited from rehearsing and performing together with his team, Zarif enables his dancers to engage with each other virtually and ritually in dance-based conversation. As with the millions of families celebrating Nowruz during the COVID-19 era, they have found novel ways to create, connect, and keep traditions alive, inspiring us to look forward to better days ahead.
Bios
Sashar Zarif is an internationally renowned multi-disciplinary performing artist, educator, and researcher whose artistic practice invites a convergence of creative and cultural perspectives. His interests are identity, globalization, and cross-cultural collaborations. His practice is steeped in the artistry and history of traditional, ritualistic, and contemporary dance and music of the Near Eastern and Central Asian regions.
Luke Garwood makes hybrid media works, dances, and choreography. Garwood has performed professionally with companies such as Toronto Dance Theatre, Human Body Expression, Alias Dance Projects, Adelheid Dance Projects, Tiger Princess Dance Projects, and Citadel + Company.
Mateo Galindo Torres is a Colombian-born multidisciplinary dance artist based in Toronto. He started his dance training in Bogota at an early age, and deepened his studies in the USA, Cuba, and Canada. His work is highly influenced by his Latinx American background, often politically charged, and inspired by social subject matters.
Yiming Cai is a dancer based in Toronto. Originally from Singapore, he grew up competing in Wushu and started dancing while completing his bachelor's degree in Communication Studies at the Nanyang Technological University. Cai went on to dance in The Human Expression Second Company and moved to Canada in 2016 to study at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre.
Sebastian Oreamuno is a Chilean-born, Toronto-based artist, educator, and researcher whose artistic and academic interests include the connection between movement and memory, (im)migration and diaspora, the participatory body, popular culture, men and pointe, and multi-media practices. Sebastian holds a BA in Psychology from Simon Fraser University and an MA in Dance from York University, and he is currently working on a PhD in Dance Studies at York.
Production credits
– Concept, Creation, and Direction: Sashar Zarif
– Video Design: Sashar Zarif and Luke Garwood
– Performance: Yiming Cai, Mateo Galindo Torres, Luke Garwood, Sebastian Oreamuno
– Sound Design: Eric Cadesky
– Music: Eric Cadesky, Sashar Zarif, Pirouz Yousefian, Laurel Macdonald
– Creative Facilitation: Katherine Duncanson
– Dramaturgy consultation: Elizabeth Langley
The research and exploration of Re/turning was generously founded by Canada Council of the Arts, Ontario Art Council, and the Toronto Arts Council. Presented with support from the Government of Ontario.
Bringing online Museum experiences to you is part of our mission to connect cultures and promote understanding between peoples. To learn more about how you can support the Museum by making a donation or becoming a Friend or Patron, please visit:
agakhanmuseum.org/support
