ESHI by Esie Mensah Creations
World Premiere
Presented by Fall for Dance North in association with Canada’s National Ballet School
Performed by the dancers of Esie Mensah Creations and the Company Life Program students at Canada’s National Ballet School, ESHI (from the Ewe language, meaning “water”) is a new dance work that navigates the quiet violence and unexpected grace of grief.
Developed through Esie Mensah’s signature Afrofusion movement language, the piece flows like water between rupture and release, tension and surrender. Grief is portrayed as a force that arrives in waves—sometimes small and navigable, other times overwhelming—stealing breath and destabilizing ground.
At its core, ESHI is a meditation on surrender and resilience. It asks what it means to be guided by something beyond our control, and how healing can emerge even when we are unsure of the path. The body becomes a vessel, water becomes a guide, and grief becomes a choreography of survival, memory, and release.
Born as a 5-minute micro-commission for Canada’s National Ballet School’s Company Life program, ESHI first came to life on stage in Cannes, France. The work has since grown into a 20-minute piece, premiered in May with NBS’s graduating class. This fall, ESHI continues its journey at Fall for Dance North, performed by Esie Mensah Creations in collaboration with the Company Life program.
Showtimes & Tickets
Oct 15 at 7:30PM | Oct 16 at 7:30PM* | Oct 17 at 7:30PM | Oct 18 at 2:00PM
