Crossing Waters is a cultural re-imagination showcasing first-generation Filipino-Canadian dancers performing contemporized Philippine dance at the Scarborough Bluffs. The film depicts Pangalay, the fingernail dance performed by communities in the Sulu Archipelago in the southern Philippines. The movements are slow and meditative, imitating the Sulu Sea combined with modern hip hop music and street dance styles.
Candace Kumar is a Filipino/Indo-Fijian dance artist based in Toronto/Mississauga. Her work aims to contemporize cultural dance forms to reimagine traditional culture from the diasporas. She believes traditional dance is not an art form of the past, but can guide us through the future as we navigate life on land that is not our ancestral home. She shares her experience as a mixed-Asian Canadian artist in hopes of inspiring other artists to explore their relationship to their culture through dance.
