Theatre Passe Muraille is bringing back the BeyondTO Series for a four iteration. The Series connects Toronto audiences with international works that have been lauded by critics, and push the envelope when it comes to the nature of live performance and cultural storytelling.
The 2026 edition features two works — Wayqeycuna by Tiziano Cruz (Argentina) that will take the stage from January 24 to 25, and Mark of a Woman by Chisato Minamimura (United Kingdom), on stage from May 22 to 23, 2026. Both artists are returning to the BeyondTO festival.
Both productions offer audiences radically different perspectives on storytelling in works that examine identity, heritage, memory, and the human body itself. Here’s a look at Wayqeycuna and Mark of a Woman.
Wayqueycuna by Tiziano Cruz
January 24 & 25, 2026 — Two Performances
Free workshop January 22, 2026
A Theatre Passe Muraille production of a ULMUS & ROSA Studio Production
In Spanish with English surtitles
The quipu is an ancient device that comes from the Inca heritage, and consists of knotting threads and ropes of different colours as a means of recording information. Andean women continue this tradition as a means of creating living memorials. It’s the inspiration for Argentine Tiziano Cruz — an artist who left his community for years before returning — as he reaches out to reconnect with his ancestry and home. He draws from both archival research and his own personal history as a gay man who felt pressure from a society that, in precolonial times, once celebrated the two-spirited, but under colonialism, and more recently, neoliberalism, looked to erase that heritage and substitute a version of what we call Western culture.
Wayqueycuna premiered at the renowned Avignon Festival of contemporary performing arts, and concludes Cruz’s acclaimed trilogy titled Tres Maneras de Cantarle a una Montaña (Three Ways to Sing to a Mountain). The trilogy as a whole is both poetic and political in nature, and examines the intersections of memory, class, and the global art market. His Soliloquio was part of #BeyondTO 2024.
On January 22, Tiziano will be facilitating a free community workshop titled Bread for the World. The workshop will bring together notions of art and territory through making loaves of bread in a celebration of our dead forebears who now inhabit the ancestral plane.
It’s an exercise in collectivity and collaboration, and storytelling that goes beyond passive reception to sharing an experience. Before the conquistadors brought Catholic saints to replace them, the people of the Argentine Andes carried their dead on their shoulders to the mountaintops, to preserve the bodies until the Day of the Dead, when they ascend to the ancestral plane. Bread is offered to help them reincarnate, a practice that extends across Latin America. Death, even though it may be painful to those who remain, is not considered through the same tragic lens as it is in Western societies.
Tiziano Cruz
Interdisciplinary Argentine artist Tiziano Cruz produces works that combine visual art, theatre, and performance in the public sphere. His public interventions and multimedia storytelling works span both the personal and political realms. He founded Ulmus in 2016, an art management platform that revolves around training, research, and creating contemporary arts from the Northern Argentina, and connecting artists throughout Latin America.
Cruz’s work has toured South America, Europe, and North America, and garnered multiple accolades, among them the Bienal de Arte Joven (2019) and Finland’s ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art (2023) for Soliloquio, which the jury described as “a powerful and poetic oration that reflects on the local and regional relation and the cultural traditions of his ancestry.”.
Mark of a Woman by Chisato Minamimura
May 22 & 23, 2026 — Three Performances
A Theatre Passe Muraille presentation of a Chisato Minamimura Production
Mark of a Woman is a live performance project that uses personal histories and accounts to examine the often hidden relationships between women and tattooing culture. The work uses Visual Vernacular, digital animation, kinetic projection and Woojer™ technology (a form of haptic technology which employs patented Oscillating Frame Actuators to create a sense of touch via vibration, bringing digital and physical experiences together).
The work references everything from colonialism and sexual assault to cancer treatment and mastectomy surgery in an exploration of how women’s bodies can express art, identity, and resistance.
Chisato Minamimura
Deaf performance artist, choreographer and BSL art guide Chisato Minamimura is a native of Japan, and is now based in London. She is currently a Work Place Artist at The Place in London, an initiative that supports professional choreographers for a five year period through a program that is customized for each artist. Her groundbreaking work blends physical theatre, dance, and accessibility, and often revolves around themes of communication, identity, and human connection.
Previous work includes creating aerial performances with Graeae Theatre Company, London’s 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony, and Rio’s 2016 Paralympic Cultural Olympiad. Her approach to choreography and performance comes from the perspective of a Deaf artist, and Minamimura experiments with visualizing sound and music.
Toronto audiences previously experienced Minamimura’s award winning work Scored in Silence at TPM’s very first #BeyondTO Series in 2022.
Performance Details
Wayqeycuna by Tiziano Cruz is on stage January 24 & 25, 2026 at Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Ave.
In Spanish with English surtitles
Performed in a Relaxed Environment
Mark of a Woman by Chisato Minamimura is on stage May 22 & 23, 2026 at Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Ave.
Performed in a Relaxed Environment
Performed in Visual Vernacular and American Sign Language with alternate Access through a mix of Voice Over and Captions.
- Tickets are available on a Pay-What-You-Can-Afford sliding scale [HERE].
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