-Los Angeles Times

Solo Performance Artist

Canyon Sam's nationally-acclaimed one-woman shows reflect themes and settings from her travels and activist work in Buddhist Asia, as well as contemporary life in urban America. Her multi-character performances, known for fluidity and grace, and for rich poetic lyricism are fueled by what one presenter calls "a strength and passion rare in commercial theater.”

Performance Highlights

Ms. Sam has graced stages throughout the United States and Canada, including performances at the Walker Art Center, Asia Society, Yale University, Columbia University, Smith College, University of New Mexico, Solo Mio Festival, Asian Art Museum, Cleveland Performance Art Festival, Edmonton Fringe Festival, Columbia College, Dell’Arte Theater, Highways, University of California at Santa Cruz, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and the White House Commission on Asian Pacific Islanders. She has also performed in Boston, with Bill T. Jones; Toronto, Vancouver, Santa Monica, and Washington, D.C.

Repertoire

THE DISSIDENT - Ms. Sam's moving and powerful tour-de-force centers around her travels in China and Tibet, and her human rights work with Buddhist nuns. Searching for ancestral wisdom in China, she is drawn to the Himalayan plateau where she meets a Buddhist nun with haunting accounts of post-Tiananmen Tibet.

TAXI KARMA - casts a wry look at the Tibetan-capital-in-exile of the Dalai Lama via a madcap taxi ride through town. Ms. Sam vividly recreates over a dozen characters from Hindi movie stars to Tibetan aristocrats, to the Dalai Lama himself.

CAPACITY TO ENTER - This serio-comic exploration of what happens when desire, politics, and spiritual commitments collide provokes modern day Zen koans about identity and change, and unleashes a cast of finely-drawn characters. Comedy and irony ensue after a Zen master, a bewildered Chinese American mother, a hip hop poet, a zestful Italian chef, and a 1970's radical lesbian separatist take the stage.

What Critics, Audiences and Presenters Say…

“Irresistable.”
  Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Examiner

“Moving and evocative…real, specific, and universally relevant. A master storyteller…one of the best of the next wave of Asian American performing artists…she pushes the elasticity of the performance art genre into a mold for her own voice.”
  The Village Voice

“Riveting...heartbreaking.”
   Boston Globe

“Conveys both the sorrow and beauty of a dispossessed culture. Truly a mesmerizing ‘theatre of conscience’ piece.”
  San Francisco Weekly

“A natural and winning performer.”
  San Jose Mercury News

“Her genius lies in her ability to inspire through storytelling.”
  Bay Area Reporter

“It’s as if Spalding Gray had made ‘Swimming to Cambodia’ without talking about himself as much….Personal journalism in dramatic form.”
  San Francisco Examiner

“I was impressed by the integrity of her work….A strength and passion rare in commercial theatre. This quality, allied with her complete professionalism, makes for exciting art. Audiences deserve the chance to see work of this originality and merit.”
  Kathleen Weiss, Artistic Director, Women in View Theatre Festival, Vancouver

Film

The Dissident

A film of the nationally acclaimed one-woman show written and performed by Canyon Sam, based on her travels and human rights work in Asia. A young Californian on a year-long solo backpack to her ancestral China finds her trip transformed into a journey of awakening after meeting a young Tibetan Buddhist nun freedom fighter in the Himalayas. Filmed by Howard Shack (National Geographic Explorer, Independent Lens) and edited by Veronica Selver (Brother Outsider, Regret to Inform).