How the Dog
Strangling Vine
Got its Name

This stage-play was created as a community performance project for an amateur, multi-generational cast of Scarborough residents in Summer 2026. The project is designed to (i) teach residents about plants and animals in their neighbourhoods, (ii) explore non-human realities in Scarborough, and (iii) re-story the relationship between settler-colonial processes and Toronto ecologies. Centering local species and their behaviours, the play revisits key historical moments in Scarborough (such as homesteading and nuclear waste dumping) through a non-human lens.

The project also challenges dominant narratives of “invasive species” that blame plants and animals for simply trying to survive and thrive, while ignoring the violent processes that create and sustain ecological crises. 'How the Dog Strangling Vine Got its Name' offers a counter-narrative rooted in history, non-human agency, and a relational ethic aimed at ecological balance and deeper attention to non-human life.