The Hauntings

Who are what are you haunted by? Have you ever been ghosted? How do we carry the specters of relationships unresolved? These are just some of the questions that Mia has been contemplating as part of a growing repretoire of performance hauntings.

Hauntings >>> ritualized performances that play in the liminal, where memory becomes gesture, and grief takes the shape of ritual. Hauntings are a mode of expression, a choreography of return, a summoning of what’s been lost but never truly gone.

little phantoms on the prairie

Featured as part of the Young Lungs Dance Exchange 20th Anniversary Festival

June 27th, 2025 @ Pauline Boutal Amphitheater / Centre culturel franco-manitobain

Home is where the haunt is. I am thrilled to return to my hometown with work conjured through How to Raise a Ghost — a sprawling, tentacular project rooted in the ancient practice of memento mori (remember, you must die!). This special edition unfolds as a series of 4 hauntings: short, ritualized performances born of spooky amusements, ancestral longing, contemplations on finitude, and the aching afterglow of loss. Performed, of course, by a gaggle of ghosts!

Credits:

hauntings conceived + directed by: Mia S. van Leeuwen performed in collaboration with: Natasha Torres-Garner, Ming Hon, Brenda McLean, Charlene Van Buekenhout, Tanja Woloshen

musician + vocalist: Ashley Roch

projections + lighting: Jaymez

time lapse imagery: BioFilm Productions (Joel Penner + Anna Sigrithur)

costumes: Julia Wasilewski + Jaime Johnston

assistant + dresser: Zoë McKay

featuring music by Paris to Kyiv (remixed by Ken Grefory), The Pixies and Kathy Heideman

The Late Night Ghost Show

The Late Night Ghost Show was inspired by spooky amusements, memento mori, ongoing artistic collaborations & dialogues, Andrew Henderson, a global pandemic, and my own personal heartache with loss. Performed by and with a gaggle of ghosts! Those spectacular spectres, poltergeists of pain, giggling griefs, oh shapeshifters of my soul! The work in process was presented on October 20. 2023 as part of the Waking Death Arts & Culture Event Series with generous support from the University of Lethbridge, Allied Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and creation support from the Alberta Foundation of the Arts.

Conjured in collaboration with:

Stage Management: Em Carlson, Technical Direction: Xavier Michaud, Scenography: Julia Wasilewski, Costumes: Jaime Johnston & Julia Wasilewski, Coach & Clunic Consultant: John Turner, Timelapse Imagery: BioFilm Productions

GhostKeepers: Anastasia Siceac & Jaret Pack Ghost Director: Danielle Bernardin Ghost Choir: Danielle Bernardin, Katrina Violet, Jess Syratt, Maddie McKee, Lilianna Gaggero Pianist: Bente Hansen

Photography by Julia Wasilewski & Kort Woycheshin