Enemy Lines

The Firehall Arts Centre concludes its ELBOWS UP – Made in Canada season, an inspiring and successful celebration of bold Canadian voices and storytelling, with Mayumi Lashbrook’s Enemy Lines from Wednesday, May 6 to Saturday, May 9, 2026. Enemy Lines is a live dance performance that looks at how a climate of fear led to the incarceration of Japanese Canadians. Held by curiosity, choreographer Mayumi Lashbrook looks back at the actions taken against her family during World War II. Suddenly deemed a threat after the Pearl Harbour attack in 1941, over 22,000 Canadians of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from the coastline of British Columbia – their lives forever altered. Lashbrook seeks to understand these events in Canadian history and the hold it has had on her life. Her work illuminates the cycles of fear-based oppression and intolerant thinking that still afflicts us today. In Enemy Lines, she elucidates our hardwired need for each other, and the way that disconnection can hinder our growth. Enemy Lines is a tender reminder of the fractures of our collective past and the possibilities for our shared future. “A Must-See Performance for All Canadians” – The Nikkei Voice