As part of its 2026 season, DanceWorks is thrilled to present Sweet Ephemera, a double bill featuring Peel Me by Eilish 미정 Shin-Culhane and pahinga ka muna by Jose Miguel “Miggy” Esteban. Exploring queer intimacy, cultural memory, and diasporic experience, the program runs June 18 to 20, 2026, at The Theatre Centre and brings together two compelling new contemporary dance works by emerging Toronto-based artists.

Sweet Ephemera asks what it means to carry culture, identity and grief in the body, and what happens when we allow others to witness that weight. Across two works, performers use food, ritual, improvisation, and sensory experience to move between tenderness and release, memory and mourning, control and care.

“Sweet Ephemera brings together two artists with very distinct voices and practices, creating an evening that feels personal, thoughtful, and rooted in human experience. I think the work invites audiences into something that is both deeply felt and creatively expansive. We’re excited to be able to share this work with Toronto audience,” says Jennifer Robichaud, Artistic Director of DanceWorks

The evening opens with Peel Me by Eiilish 미정 Shin Culhane, an experimental contemporary dance work that asks audiences to consider what lies beneath the surface. Through a series of vivid vignettes, performers eat and destroy grapefruits and fortune cookies, using mess and sensation as a path to emotional release.

The evening continues with pahinga ka muna by Jose Miguel “Miggy” Esteban, an improvisational ritual of mourning and rest rooted in Filipinx diasporic experience, disability, crip, and mad arts practice of access. Weaving together poetic audio description, movement, and memory, the work invites audiences into an evolving performance of care, where no two evenings are alike.

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SWEET EPHEMERA

Dates: June 18 to 20 at 8:00 pm

Venue: The Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen St W, Toronto, ON

Tickets: $18 to $40

Visit www.danceworks.ca