Carried by the River, a New Original Play by Diana Tso + Directed by William Yong, is Coming to Tarragon
March 8-23, 2025
Tarragon Extraspace
Notes by Fête Chinoise Editorial Team (Deirdre Kelly)
Poster image photographed by Jason George
Carried by the River, a deeply moving play by Diana Tso, is directed by William Yong. Set against the backdrop of China’s one-child policy, it follows Kai, a young woman raised in Canada, as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery after her mother’s passing. Infused with magic realism, the narrative unfolds in a world where spirit animals offer guidance, and the living and the dead are bound by unseen threads.
Featuring an all-female cast spanning generations, the production celebrates resilience, identity and the bonds that connect us across time and place. Yong’s expressive direction shapes evocative movement throughout, complemented by multimedia elements and shadow play. Brought to life by the Red Snow Collective, this play sparkles as it carries stories “on the river,” and into our hearts. — Deirdre Kelly
Honey Pham, Brenda Kamino, Shiong-En Chan, Tai Wei Foo, Michelle Wang. Photography: Dahlia Katz.
Carried by the River, an original play by Diana Tso 曹楓, is a transformative journey about Kai, a young Asian woman raised in Canada, who uncovers a life-altering truth after her mother’s passing and embarks on a trip to China. The production, which touches on themes of memory and and identity, features performances by Shiong-en Chan, emerging dancer Tai Wei Foo 符岱微, and music by Alice Ping Yee Ho 何冰頤. Directed and choreographed by William Yong 楊漢源, the play is now running at Tarragon Extraspace from March 8 to 23, 2025.
Honey Pham and Michelle Wang. Photography: Dahlia Katz.
Synopsis
“A journey to uncover roots where truths ripple like a river.”
Carried by the River is a poignant and visually stunning original play by Diana Tso, directed by William Yong. Kai, a young Asian woman raised in Canada, discovers a life-altering truth on her nineteenth birthday when her mother passes away—she was adopted. Haunted by the fables of forests and rivers her mother once shared, Kai embarks on a transformative journey to China. Through this journey, Kai navigates grief, relationships and life’s deeper truths. This lyrical tale intertwines myth, memory, and identity, inviting audiences into an evocative world where the lines between reality and the imagined blur.
Presented by Red Snow Collective
Preview Performances: March 8–9, 2025
Opening Night: March 11, 2025
Matinees & Evening Performances: March 12–23, 2025
Post-Show Talkbacks on Sundays (excluding Previews) and Thursdays
Poster image photography: Jason George
Cast & Creative
Cast: Shiong-En Chan, Tai Wei Foo 符岱微, Brenda Kamino, Honey Pham, Michelle Wang
Director: William Yong 楊漢源
Playwright: Diana Tso 曹楓
Composer: Alice Ping Yee Ho 何冰頤
Lighting Designer: Andre du Toit
Scenic and Costume Designer: Ting-Huan 挺歡, Christine Urquhart
Choreographer: William Yong 楊漢源
Stage Manager: Sabrina Weinstein
Production Manager/Technical Director: Barney Bayliss
Shiong-En Chan and Honey Pham. Photography: Dahlia Katz.
Director William Yong 楊漢源
William Yong is a multi-faceted artist and an award-winning choreographer, performer and director for dance, theatre and film. Artistic Director of Zata Omm and W Zento Productions, William has dedicated over two decades to breaking new ground by collaborating with artists, scientists, and engineers in visionary, technology-driven performance projects. William’s artistic journey began with music as a member of the Hong Kong Children’s Choir and as the lead singer and songwriter for the band Fundamental in Asia. Trained at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and London Contemporary Dance School in UK. He worked with some of the world’s most influential choreographers including Wayne McGregor and Matthew Bourne. His passion for the arts expanded into an illustrious 30-year career. William has created over 150 acclaimed dance, theatre and film works. In 2024, he became the first Asian choreographer commissioned by the National Ballet of Canada for UtopiVerse, performed at Toronto’s prestigious Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
Director’s Note
Stories have the power to illuminate, to resonate, and to transform. Carried by the River is more than a play—it is a journey through memory, identity, and self-discovery. At its heart, this story is about a young woman seeking her roots, yet it unfolds into something far greater: an odyssey of loss, resilience, and the profound realization that home is not always a place, but a truth we carry within us.
Tai Wei Foo. Photography: Dahlia Katz.
Bringing this complex and layered narrative to life has been both a challenge and a privilege. The story moves between worlds—between past and present, between the tangible and the mythical. As a director, I have sought to honour these fluid transitions, crafting a theatrical experience that immerses the audience in Kai’s emotional and spiritual voyage. The five female characters who propel this narrative are not just participants in the story; they are forces of agency, each reclaiming their destiny in a world that often seeks to define them. Their voices, their choices, and their courage make this piece a vital act of empowerment.
As an Asian director and artist I recognize the importance of representation on stage—not just as visibility, but as an assertion of our narratives, our histories, and our complexity. This play written by Diana Tso is a testament to the strength of Asian voices in theatre, a reminder that our stories, too, belong in the spotlight. It has been an honour to shape this production alongside an incredible cast, creative team and production team who have poured their hearts into bringing this world to life.
Like a river, this story carries us forward—toward understanding, toward healing, and toward the recognition that, even in our search for where we come from, we are always in the process of becoming.
Playwright Diana Tso 曹楓
Diana Tso is a theatre artist, playwright, storyteller, and Dora award winning actor. She graduated from the University of Toronto in English Literature and of Ecole Internationale de Théâtre de Jacques Lecoq in France. She’s worked with diverse theatres internationally for over 25 years. Performances include: Modern Times Stage Company’s The Cherry Orchard, Theatre Smith-Gilmour’s Les Misérables and at the 2017 Stratford Festival in Bakkhai and The Komagata Maru Incident. Upcoming 2026: performing in Theatre Smith-Gilmour’s ensemble of Pu Songling: strange stories from a Chinese Studio.
As an artistic director of Red Snow Collective, her productions focus on empowering the voices of women. Her plays, Red Snow (2012) and Comfort (2016) bring to light the resilience of women in war and her Monkey Queen stories re-imagine mythologies from the female perspective.
Playwright’s Note
Michelle Wang. Photography: Dahlia KAtz.
I am deeply grateful to William Yong for his beautiful vision, leadership and love in guiding and collaborating with me and a phenomenal team to realize Carried by the River’s multi-layered landscape of storytelling.
When faced with the loss of my mother, her presence of unconditional love and home, I searched for ways to hold onto my roots, navigating a path of forgetting and remembering and affirming who I am. As a writer and artist, my stories shine light on women and their resilience. The themes of mother-daughter relationships, China’s one-child policy and lost daughters connected me with the voices that needed to be heard. Women are the carriers of our ancestry. Women shape our future.
I began learning qigong, a movement art form of my Chinese heritage, to balance and heal amidst a global pandemic at the same time having the honour of caring for my mother during her illness from Parkinson's and her passing. I returned to China in 2019 searching for a spiritual space to anchor my feelings of uprootedness as I continued the research for my play. Carried by the River is about the marvellous ways we are all connected by our emotional and spiritual quests through myth and memory that empowers who we are.
When the ground beneath your feet disappears, you can fall or you can fly.
Carried by the River, is dedicated to my mother, Alice Koon Hing Tso 盧 冠 卿.
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More from Fête Chiniose
In the rarefied realm of Canadian dance, few artists have forged as unconventional and boundary-obliterating a path as William Yong. The award-winning Chinese-Canadian choreographer and multimedia artist, who immigrated from Hong Kong to Toronto in the 1990s to reunite with his family after a decade in London, has melded his multicultural roots with an unbridled creative spirit, pioneering daringly innovative, interdisciplinary works that shatter artistic conventions. From his early experimental films and productions merging dance with technology to touring the world as an in-demand performer, Yong has continually pushed the limits of dance expression.