Artists

Vibrating to the sounds of Hip Hop, Alexandra ‘Spicey’ Landé’s love for street dance began at a very young age.  For the past ten years, Hip Hop culture has been at the forefront of her work. Her first piece, Retrospek, co-produced by the M.A.I. (Montréal, arts interculturels), was well received by the public and her peers. In 2008 she participated in Vue sur la Relève and was the recipient of Les Entrées en scène Lotto Québec from Bourse Rideauallowing her to go on a tour across Montreal and Ottawa. In 2009, she created Renézance for Tangente, her second full-length piece presented a few times in Montreal. With her new creation Complexe R, she explores human obsession with physical appearance, social status and identity. The show premiered at the MAI in Montreal in November 2015. Spicey has long been concerned with creating a platform for Montreal street dancers to showcase their talent to the greater international dance community. To help with her mission she founded Bust A Move, the biggest street dance competition in Canada, which was presented at la Tohu every year in Montreal. Bust A Move Festival had become a leader in its genre in Canada and 2015 marks it’s 10th anniversary. She has been teaching Hip Hop dance for almost 20 years and is one of the most respected street dance choreographers in Canada. With Ebnflōh Dance Company, Spicey has built a language that reflects her vision of dance and she surrounds herself with peers who inspire her.

After performing her own work in New York, Alexandra Elliott and Hurricane Sandy came face to face. Physically demanding and emotionally charged, her work made it back to her hometown of Winnipeg and beyond. With over ten original works under her belt, her dances have been produced in New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Halifax. Alex thanks Tedd Robinson for his ecstasy charged commission Logarian Rhapsody. She is the co-founder of Art Holm, a semi-annual performance series that showcases artists of different disciplines. Alex shares the role of curator and producer with fellow artist Hilary Anne Crist.

A dance artist, creator, and producer, I was a principal artist with Ballet BC for 14 years, toured internationally, and subsequently have been a guest artist and Artist in Residence. Now independent and working in collaboration with my husband and creative partner, Sylvain Senez, I am Artist in Residence at Vancouver’s Chutzpah! Festival. I have been supported by Presentation House, Dancing on the Edge, InFrinGing Festival, New Works, BC Arts Council, Canada Council, Dance Victoria, and EDAM among others.

As producers, Sylvain and I create and curate an annual, outdoor, site-specific performance space and series called The Dance Deck.

Independently I have worked with Sidra Bell, James Gnam, Simone Orlando, Rob Kitsos, Wen Wei Wang, Vanessa Goodman, Ne. Sans Opera and Dance, Dance//Novella and zoe|juniper.

Lauren Cook is the Artistic Director of Alias Dance Project (founded in 2007), a choreographer, teacher, performer, and owner of The Cornerstone Studio. Lauren has been working diligently to make sustainable opportunities in dance for herself, her company and her community. She has self-produced several theatre and site-specific productions, and has showcased her work across Canada. Lauren has performed in work by many notable choreographers: Emanuel Jouthe, Julia Sasso, Kathleen Rea, Heidi Strauss, David Earle, Darryl Tracey, Apolonia Velasquez, Ofilio Portillo, Allen Kaeja, Troy Feldman, Susie Burpee, Valerie Calam, Emmanuelle Le Phan and more. Lauren is currently part-time faculty at Ryerson University, and an Artistic Mentor and Artist in Residence for the TDSB, and works to facilitate opportunities for professional and pre-professional artists to train in alternative contemporary techniques with national and international artists.

Troy Feldman is a Toronto based actor, dancer, parkour artist, acrobat and stuntman. Troy launched his professional career in the Dora Award winning production, Lord of the Rings (Mirvish Productions). His theatre credits include: The Forbidden Phoenix (Citadel Theatre/LKTYP), A Soldier’s Tale (Theatre Aquarius), Jesus Christ Superstar (Tivoli Theatre),The Walrus and the Carpenter (Rose Hill Theatre), and The Heart of Robin Hood (Mirvish Productions). Film/TV Credits include: White Collar Criminals, Stepping Up 2, Troymotion and Stuntman. Troy is known for his unique free style movement combining acrobatics, breaking, free running, contemporary and house. A self-taught dancer, Troy has been a part of various crews including Warehouse Jacks, Albino Zebras, Supernaturals, ABS Crew, Conscious Souls, and Gadfly Dance Company. Troy is a member of Alias Dance Project, and has been actively choreographing and performing with Alias since 2010 throughout Toronto, North Bay and The Yukon.

Britta B. is a spoken word poet, keynote speaker and arts educator. Originally from Kingston, ON, she now resides in Toronto’s Regent Park. Britta has performed on stages across North America and continues to collaborate with community organizations like UNITY Charity, RISE Edutainment, Leave Out Violence Ontario (LOVE) and The Stephen Lewis Foundation. This April, Britta was an Artist-In-Resident for the Spoken Word Residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. At the moment, Britta is a featured artist in the AGO’s Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood exhibition, running through to March 2018.

Allison Elizabeth Burns is a choreographer, performer, producer, and teacher. She has worked on dance, theatre, and multidisciplinary projects. Her choreography has been presented at the Alberta Dance Festival (2018), Dark Horse Dance Projects (2017), and in the Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa Fringe Festivals (2010-2019). She has choreographed for Odyssey and 9th Hour Theatre. She has performed in choreographic works by Riley Sims, Noémie Lafrance, Jérôme Bel, and Renata Soutter, and has toured North America. Burns graduated from Concordia University with a degree in Contemporary Dance with distinction (2010), and is the recipient of several awards for her artistic pursuits.

At age 13, Aly Keita began his artistic journey in Guinea, where he studied dance, circus arts, and music at the Keita Fodeba Acrobatic Art Center. In 2016, he came to Canada for a cultural exchange initiative between young Inuit and Guineans, which culminated in the production of the documentary “Circus Without Borders.” Since then, he has collaborated with various organizations, including Productions Kalabanté, Cirque Eloize, Cavalia, and Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata, MAPP_Montréal, Collectif White Wash, Jobel Art for Earth, etc. Starting from 2020, he created and presented his own production, “Djata: Conversations of the Manden”. He also participated in “Afro Canada,” a four-part documentary on 400 years of Afro-descendant history in Canada. He has extensive experience in teaching and cultural mediation.

Alyssa Martin is a surrealist contemporary choreographer. As the founder and Artistic Director of Rock Bottom Movement, she creates dance-theatre through a collaborative, anti-patriarchal approach. Her recent works include Big Time Miss, commissioned by Fall for Dance North, and Sex Dalmatian produced in collaboration with Citadel et Compagnie. As an independent choreographer, she has created new works for companies including The National Ballet of Canada (Desperate Drama of Red and Sugar Water) and Toronto Dance Theatre (Bin Chicken) as well as for independent artists Susie Burpee and Linnea Swan (PUS) and most recently Alberta Ballet. Her penchant for transdisciplinary exploration has inspired collaborations that span theatre, circus, film, musical theatre and opera. Her choreography has been recognized with multiple Dora Mavor Moore Awards and the Canadian Stage Award for Direction.

Andrew Tay is a hybrid performer, choreographer and dance curator based in Montreal. In 2005 he co-founded (with collaborator Sasha Kleinplatz) the company Wants&Needs danse.  Since then, the company has produced the wildly popular dance events Piss in the Pool and Short&Sweet which take place in non-traditional performance venues throughout the city.

Residencies have included Studio 303, Usine C(Montreal) and K3(Hamburg). He has worked as interpreter for well known European choreographers Doris Ulhich (Vienna) and Marten Spangberg (Stockholm)

In 2012 he was awarded the DanceWEB Scholarship (Impulstanz, Vienna) and was nominated for a Quebec Notables award in the Arts&Culture category. He was chosen to participate in the Rencontres internationales de jeunes créateurs (Montreal, Festival TransAmériques 2013)  and 8 Days, an annual intergenerational meeting of dance artists from across Canada organized by the company Public Recordings, He has also participated in The Copycat Academy (as part of the Luminato Festival Toronto) curated by Hannah Hurtzig (Berlin) for the past 2 editions and was commissioned to create work on the dancers of Toronto Dance Theatre as part of their new EVP project launched in Dec 2015.

He has served as board member of ELAN the English Language Artists Network in Quebec, and the RQD – le Regroupement québécois de la danse. Most recently, he received the Risk and Innovation Vanguard Award from the Summerworks Performance Festival for his latest work Fame Praver / Eating.

Originally from Germany, Angela obtainer her BFA in contemporary dance at The Laban Centre in London, UK, and her MFA in choreography at York University. Angela has self-produced numbers shows and presented her works at Dacematters, The Toronto Fringe Festival, Nuit Blanche, Dance2Danse, and the International Young Choreographers Project Taiwan. For the past four years, Angela has had the privilege of working with the composition department of U of T, which included collaborations with composition students, lectures for the composers form, and performance at the New Music Festival.

Following her academic training in Paris, New York and Montreal, Anne-Flore de Rochambeau is developing her practice as a performer and choreographer. In 2016, she finalizes a triptych inspired by the theory of fluid dynamics. Its different parts have been presented in Montreal (Quartiers Danses, Zone Homa, Tangente), in Toronto (Dance Matters) and in France (Auteurs de troubles). During the same period, she has co-created Alt-shift with the choreographer Liliane Moussa. This collective aims to develop in situ and immersive choreographic projects, including Entrelacs which has been successfully touring in different neighborhoods of Montreal. In 2017, Anne-Flore is developing the new work LORE and will be presenting the solo Fadeout at the d:mic/fac festival. Exploring the social nature of the individual, her works reflect unconscious mechanisms that characterize our interactions. Investing space with a refined aesthetic, she uses an organic and intuitive language to engage a sensory relationship with the audience.

I am a dancer and choreographer from Tehran and based in Vancouver. I am privileged to be a dance artist who has immigrated to the unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. In my work, I tend to invest in the nuances of prejudices in the body as a way of inviting the unconscious to the conscious, and as a doorway to confront unknown emotions. I see dance as a process of emotional and spiritual discovery and a mode of transformation. I co-founded The Biting School in 2013, which was the company-in-residence at PuSh Festival and The Dance Centre 2018-2020. I was the 2016 recipient of Dance Victoria’s Chrystal Dance Prize with Emmalena Fredriksson for the creation of You Touch Me.

Bryce Taylor (He/They) is a Dancer and Choreographer hailing originally from Yarker Ontario. While classically trained as a ballet, and contemporary dancer Bryce is also an accomplished breaker/breakdancer. They would begin work as a choreographer in the summer of 2018 after co-founding Winnipeg’s Summer Dance Collective with their colleague and friend Cameron Fraser-Monroe. For the past 4 seasons Bryce has worked as WSDC’s choreographer in residence, choosing to focus pieces on the mundane, small moments of life. Believing these moments to be truly special, and worth creating for, to express the subtle yet powerful beauty in the day to day.

Carleen Zouboules is a multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto. Since beginning her dance career in 2020, she had performed with Red Sky Performance, Côte Dansé, ProArteDanza, Citadel + Compagnie and Zata Omm Dance Projects. She has appeared in works by Lesley Telford, Chantelle Good, Guillaume Côte, Jera Wolfe, Anne Plamondon, Roberto Campanella and Robert Glumbeck. Carleen co-choreographed for Night Shift in 2022 and Toronto Metropolitan University with her collaborator Vania Dodoo-Beals. She has also assisted William Yong in Utopiverse for the National Ballet of Canada. Her work blends theatricality with the physicality of contemporary dance, focusing on body-to-body connection in partnering.

Cristina Bucci is a dance artist with over 20 years of experience in the arts in Canada. She co-founded OURO Collective in 2014, received the Women of Honor Award for her contributions to street dance in Vancouver in 2019 and was honoured with the 2023 Jacqueline Lemieux Prize. Her work has been commissioned by Lamondance (Canada), Yarita Yu Ballet (Japan), and KMA Orchestra (Japan), with performances at major festivals in the USA, Canada, and Japan. A passionate educator and holistic nutritionist, she continues to shape the next generation of artists while expanding her artistic voice. Looking ahead, Cristina is embarking on a new chapter in her career, focusing on developing her repertoire as an independent artist.

DA HOSKINS is a queer artist who explores dance through artistic exchange. Recipient of the Clifford E. Lee Award from the Banff Centre for the Arts, the KM Hunter Award and the Canadian Stage Award for Direction, Hoskins has created over 70 choreographic works. In 2008 he launched The Dietrich Group, a platform with which to facilitate collective explorations within his interdisciplinary dance work findings. Hoskins works for invested liberty in expression – exploring creative physical exchange through responsive and reflective immediacy. His work aims to engage the artist within a landscape of ownership and personal choice.

Danielle Baskerville works with many of Canada’s leading contemporary dance companies and creators. She is Artistic Associate of D.A. Hoskins’ The Dietrich Group and a senior member of Dancetheatre David Earle, and her upcoming independent projects include work with James Kudelka, Jonathan Osborn and Allison Cummings/Deborah Pearson. A Dora Award winner and recipient of the 2014 K.M. Hunter Award in Dance, Danielle recently completed an SSHRC-funded MA in Dance Studies at York University with an eye toward contributing to insightful discourse on Canadian contemporary dance. She is a contributor to The Dance Current and is a board member of the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists – Ontario.

DANIELLE BASKERVILLE, recipient of the 2014 K.M. Hunter Award for Dance and a 2015 Dora Mavor Moore Award, works with many of Canada’s leading contemporary dance companies and creators. Recently she has performed in a site-specific opera in Burgundy, France and hosted Canada’s first-ever Trisha Brown Dance Company Intensive. Along with performing, producing and teaching dance, she is a contributor to The Dance Current and is an Executive Board Member of the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists-Ontario.

Toronto-based emerging artist Derek Souvannavong is a 2022 graduate of the Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours Dance Program at York University, where his achievements in choreography and performance were recognized with the Spedding Memorial Scholarship and the Menaka Thakkar Award in World Dance. He has recently performed solo work this identity: woven created in collaboration with Peggy Baker through the RBC emerging Artists Program, as well as performed work through DaCo Lab hosted by Angela Blumberg. He is a former company member of Free Flow Dance Theatre where he has performed in numerous productions by guest artists Terrill Maguire, Danny Grossman, Edward Kastrau and Newton Moraes. Also Intrigued by traditional Lao dance forms, Souvannavong wishes to continue exploring relations between Lao dance forms and the western diaspora of contemporary dance.

Drew Berry is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Toronto with expertise in dance, photography, videography, and classical piano. As an active member of the dance community over the past decade, she has garnered recognition as a performer, notably with Rock Bottom Movement. Alongside her performance career, Drew has discovered a profound passion for dance photography and videography, offering a unique perspective as a dance artist herself. Having collaborated with various independent artists, dance companies and institutions, Drew’s fascination lies in documenting artistic processes and on-stage moments. Drew is a graduate from Quinte Ballet School of Canada’s post-graduate program and holds a BFA (Honours) from the Performance Dance program at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Born in Stockholm, co-founder of Tentacle Tribe, Elon Höglund developed a deep interest for Hiphop & martial arts and trained extensively in various forms: kung fu, capoeira and tae kwon do. Since 2001, Elon has performed and choreographed fusion-style contemporary works for theatre, dance and contemporary circus productions.Elon aka b-boy Wandering Spirit, is a member of Montreal’s Fresh Format crew and Stockholm’s Concrete Kingz. Elon is also a multidisciplinary artist who produces his own music, paints and creates film projects. At the moment Elon is working his own, new production, DIRT.

Emmalena Fredriksson is a contemporary dance artist living and working in Vancouver, as a guest on the ancestral unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples. Her practice is defined by choreography as a relational practice in the expanded fields of dance, often collaborating with artists of other disciplines, creating choreographic experiences and dance for social events, film, galleries and performance. Born in Sweden, she received her training at Balettakademien in Umeå and at SEAD in Austria. Emmalena has presented choreographic work, performed and taught internationally with Daghdha Dance Company (IE), Canaldanse (FR), Malta University (MT), Pact Zollverein (DE), and Falmouth University (UK) among others and have been based in Vancouver since 2013. Emmalena holds an MFA degree from Simon Fraser University and is currently a term lecturer on the SCA dance and theatre programs.

Québeco-vietnamese and raised in Ottawa, B-girl known as Cleopatra and co-founder of dance company Tentacle Tribe, Emmanuelle Lê Phan has forged a singular career path intermingling breaking and contemporary dance.Her dance’s virtuosity brought her to Cirque du Soleil (Beatles Show) and Cirque Éloize stages (ID) and dancing for Rubberbandance, Bboyizm and Out Innerspace.Now in Quebec City, Emmanuelle is committed to the development of street dancers by organizing battles, open practices and the Coro Casse Festival at the Grand Théâtre de Québec.B-girl Cleopatra reps Legendary Crew and is a certified WDSF judge for Breaking.

Born in the Czech Republic, Eva Kolarova studied at the National Dance Conservatory in the Czech Republic, the Béjart Ballet Lausannein Switzerland, and the Hoschule für Kunst und Musik in Germany. She went on to perform professionally internationally, receiving numerous awards for her choreography and interpretation while travelling the world. Her experience as a dancer includes work with major companies abroad and in Canada, such as Ballet du Rhin, Les Grands Ballets Canadian, Nord I Dans, and Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal. After having collaborated with a vast number of choreographers of both classical and contemporary styles, Kolarova felt ready to move towards independent, creative projects culminating in founding her Montréal-based dance company, Kolarova Danse, in 2015. She created several works for different festivals, dance schools, and has self-produced three shows at Place des Arts in Montréal.

About the work – Always evolving on the margins of mainstream dance, the work of Fila 13 Productions aims at maintaining a strong link between freely associating images and hyper stylized bodywork. Through imaginative choreographies and a detailed body language, its productions convey a surreal landscape in which intriguing codes of expression and movement quality design on stage an appealing fusion of styles. The dance is eloquent, characterized by an intricate articulation of the body, traveling sharply and fluidly through the body parts.

Montreal choreographer Lina Cruz – With a background in classical ballet as much as in modern and contemporary styles, Lina Cruz also takes interest in martial arts and various forms of stage expression. What she delivers is a versatile and theatrical dance, creating works with a very personal signature, considered different, inventive and, as a journalist once said, unclassifiable.

Parallel to her work with Fila 13, Lina Cruz also collaborates with theatre and opera projects, including productions with the Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal and Chants Libres, contemporary opera company directed by Pauline Vaillancourt. Through these projects, Cruz further nourishes her interest in actively integrating music/voice to movement.

Working with musicians – Before founding the company, Lina Cruz created various works which she performed mostly herself as solos. In the fall of 2000, the Canadian Electronic Ensemble, a Toronto music group directed by Jim Montgomery, commissioned her to choreograph two solos to be performed in concert with the musicians. This experience was a determining factor for Cruz’s following creations which since then have often been works with live music on stage.

Founding the company – After 15 years as an independent choreographer, Lina Cruz founded the company, Fila 13 Productions on August 13, 2003. Its mission statement is to support the artistic vision of the choreographer and the creation and production of dance and/or music performances. The company encourages the artistic exchange between artists of various disciplines, thus promoting research and artistic renewal in the creation of modern works of dance.

Dora Awards – Fila 13 and Cruz’s work have been warmly celebrated in Toronto, where Lina and her collaborators have been recipients and nominees of the the Dora Mavor Moore Awards on several occasions and in different categories. More info

Good Women Dance Collective (GWDC) is a creation-based company committed to supporting a vibrant and sustainable contemporary dance community in Edmonton since 2009. Current artistic members Ainsley Hillyard, Alison Kause, Alida Kendell and Kate Stashko have trained across Canada, the U.S. and Europe, and are passionate about making contemporary dance more accessible to the general public. GWDC produces several events each season, including the work-in- progress series What’s Cooking? and the annual showcase of Canadian contemporary dance, Convergence. Outside of the collective’s annual productions, GWDC has performed in numerous festivals and events across Alberta and Canada, including Dancefest @ Nextfest, the Edmonton Fringe Festival, the Expanse Movement Arts Festival, Skirts Afire, the Prairie Dance Circuit, The Mayors Celebration of the Arts Gala, A.I.R (presented by Dancers’ Studio West), Feats Festival of Dance, the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, Canada Dance Festival and the Toronto Fringe Festival.

Dora winner Hanna Kiel is from Seoul, South Korea, and moved to Vancouver in 1996. She has presented her work at 12 Minutes Max, PlanB Singles and solos Festival, Dancing on the Edge Festival and Pulse at the Scotiabank Dance Centre in Vancouver. In 2007, she collaborated with Yoko Ono as a dancer and choreographer at the Centre A. Moving to Toronto in 2008, Hanna has continued choreographing for: Rosedale Heights School of the Arts, Conteur Dance Academy, George Brown Dance, Ryerson Dances, School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Kenny Pearl’s Emerging Artist Intensive, IGNITE, ProArteDanza, Ballet Jörgen, Alias Dance Project, The National Ballet of Canada, Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, Toronto Dance Theatre, Dusk Dances and Decidedly Jazz Danceworks in Calgary. In 2012 she won Northwest Dance Project’s ‘Pretty Creatives’international choreographic competition and she was an E-choreographer in 2015 for Springboard Danse Montreal. Hanna is the artistic director of Human Body Expression and a resident choreographer at Canada’s Ballet Jorgen.

Dora nominee Hanna Kiel is from Seoul, South Korea, and moved to Vancouver in 1996. She has presented her work at 12 Minutes Max, PlanB Singles and solos Festival, Dancing on the Edge Festival and Pulse at the Scotiabank Dance Centre in Vancouver. In 2007, she collaborated with Yoko Ono as a dancer and choreographer at the Centre A. Moving to Toronto in 2008, Hanna has continued choreographing for: George Brown Dance, Ryerson Dances, School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Kenny Pearl’s Emerging Artist Intensive, IGNITE, ProArteDanza, Ballet Jörgen, Alias Dance Project, The National Ballet of Canada, Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre and Decidedly Jazz Danceworks in Calgary. In 2012 she won Northwest Dance Project’s ‘Pretty Creatives’ international choreographic competition. She was an E-choreographer in 2015 for Springboard Danse Montreal. She is one of the founders of “The Garage” dance development and exchange collective group.

Human Body Expression: Founded by choreographer Hanna Kiel, HBE strives to be a force of positivity and inspiration, fusing dance genres and using classical technique with non-traditional styles to showcase movement that is extremely physical and completely free. HBE seeks to tell stories and explore narratives that pulse from the very heart of human feeling; that are touching, arousing, disturbing, exciting and everything in between.

Toronto-based award-winning choreographer/dancer Jasmyn Fyffe is described as “ a young artist whose body of work is developing in a style all her own.”(Sway magazine – Anya Wassenberg). Winner of the 2013 Frankie Award (in Montreal) for most outstanding choreography/choreographer for her 50 min work “Pulse.” She is the director of “Jasmyn Fyffe Dance.” She also works independently and has performed/choreographed in Toronto, Brooklyn NY, Montreal QC, North Bay O, Sinop, Turkey, Pittsburgh, Seattle and Birmingham UK. Commissions include: Dance Ontario, Iona Secondary School, Early Haig Secondary School, Ballet Jorgen, Wish Opera and  K’aeja D’dance to name a few. Jasmyn recently worked on Fox Production’s “Rocky Horror Picture Show” winter/spring 2016. She was recently featured on CBC’s “HERstory in Black” honoring 150 Black Canadian women making a significant contribution in Canada. “Fyffe is an indisputably talented performer and dancemaker,” Kathleen Smith, The Dance Current.

Johnathan Morin is a 33-year-old Indigenous (Nehiyaw) tap dancer hailing from Treaty 6, Edmonton, Alberta. Now residing in Treaty 13, Toronto, Ontario, he is a force in the tap dance community and known across the country and around the world. A Dora Award nominee, Johnathan co-produces and co-directs Rhythm and Sound Dance Company alongside Cori Giannotta and also runs his own drop-in classes in Toronto. His passion for dance has taken him across the world, performing and teaching in Germany, as well as the USA. Some of his accolades include TD Toronto Jazz Festival, Sarah Reich’s Tap Music Project, Vancouver International Tap Festival, and the Toronto International Tap Festival. With his talent, dedication, and impressive list of accomplishments, Johnathan Morin is sure to continue making rhythmic waves in the world of Canadian tap dance for years to come.

Jolene Bailie is a choreographer, director, and producer of contemporary dance. Her work reflects on humanness, soul, and identity to express a deeply human experience that is honest, complex, and thorough. Jolene has presented multiple shows annually in Winnipeg since 2000, and toured her work to national and international acclaim. Past credits for d:mic/fac Mainstage, 2009 and 2013. As the Founding Artistic Director of Gearshifting Performance Works, she has created 39 original works, including ten full length works. She holds a MFA from The American Dance Festival/Hollins University and is the Artistic Director of Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers. Gearshifting.org.

Originally from Alberta, Josh Martin is a diversely trained dance artist now residing in Vancouver, on the traditional and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. He has worked with many creators such as Justine A. Chambers, Out Innerspace, Dana Gingras, Serge Bennathan, Vanessa Goodman, Wen Wei Wang, and as a member of Le Groupe Dance Lab (Ottawa). For over ten years, Josh Martin has been an Artistic Co-Director of Company 605, a Vancouver-based organization producing various dance projects, regularly creating and touring new collaborative works throughout Canada, and internationally in the USA, Central America, Europe, Japan and Australia.

After completing her dance studies in Quebec City in 1999, Karine Ledoyen performed in France and Quebec. In 2005, she created her company, Danse K par K. In 2006 she received the François Samson award for her significant contribution to the development of contemporary dance in Quebec City. She initiated the Osez! concept presented on harbourside piers in Quebec and in Europe between 2002 and 2010, and again in 2017. Innovative and poetic, Karine Ledoyen’s creations inject vibrant and valued energy into the contemporary dance landscape. Karine Ledoyen is currently reflecting on her artistic practice as part of a master’s degree at Laval University.

Kate Hilliard creates through movement, digital media, writing, and conversation. Her performances closely examine themes of transformation, and her process invites collaboration. Kate is the Artistic Director of Arts Orillia in Ontario, Canada, where she programs residencies and festivals to invite learning and community gatherings. She is faculty at Toronto Metropolitan University, teaching dance and acting students in the areas of creation and production. Hilliard’s work has been presented in North America and abroad. She studied Art History at the University of Toronto and holds an MFA in Creative Practice from the Transart Institute through Plymouth University in the UK. Kate lives with her family on the Black River in Washago.

Katia-Marie Germain is a Montréal-based choreographer and performer. She completed a BFA in Visual Arts (2007) and Dance (2010), as well as her MA in Dance at UQÀM (2017). Her works Y demeurer (2010), Aube (2012), FOLDS (2014) and Habiter (2017) were premiered in Tangente and performed in a reprise in various venues and festivals. She has received support from creation residencies in Montréal as well as international exchange programs in Belgium, Chile, France, and Italy. In November 2018, Katia-Marie was awarded the Montréal Prix DÉCOUVERTE de la danse in recognition for her singular interdisciplinary approach.

Kendra Epik is a Toronto based multidisciplinary artist. Kendra works independently as a dancer, filmmaker, photographer, and musician. Her training in dance began at Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre in Toronto, Canada. Kendra continued her dance studies at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA graduating with honors in 2016. Shortly after graduating Kendra began to further develop her love for filmmaking and photography. She is working as a freelance movement and portrait photographer in Toronto and continuously works towards producing films through the support of local commissions as well as independently. Kendra’s film “Sunglow Gecko” commissioned by Form Festival in 2020 was awarded the Youth Innovation Award and is a semifinalist for the Dumbo Film Festival. Kendra is working with Human Body Expressions, under the direction of Hanna Kiel, for her new work Again premiering on film in February 2021 and live in 2022. Kendra has worked as a guest choreographer at Earl Haig Secondary school for three consecutive years and continues to further develop and explore her own choreographic works in progress. While emerging into her professional course, Kendra is looking forward to continuing on with her creative growth and aims to challenge her potential and execute her work with integrity and authenticity.

Kiyo Asaoka fell in love with flamenco in 1998. Her career started as a company dancer first, then she started working individually with a variety of artists for her own creations. Along with her passion and dedication to the traditional style flamenco, Kiyo also has been active to work on the Japanese-influenced style flamenco. She has also been participating in the Toronto flamenco community as a flamenco dance teacher and also as the organizer of Tablao Flamenco Toronto, which produces monthly live flamenco performances. Flamenco has become her life. She continually strives with her strong commitment and passion for puro-flamenco.

Kylie Thompson Dance is the current base for Toronto choreographer Kylie Thompson.  A project-based company, Thompson and collaborating dancers fuse modern, contemporary, and hip hop forms. The company independently premiered their first stage work 33/33 in 2018, as well as the short film, Versus. 33/33 was also presented at the New Blue Festival of Emerging dance in 2018 after being granted the Creative Risk residency, mentored by Karen Kaeja. The short film, Versus, has been screened at festivals in Toronto, Yukon, Colorado, and California.

Established in 2014, LA TRESSE is a laterally arranged organization whereby the three founding members: Geneviève Boulet, Erin O’Loughlin, and Laura Toma, create, co-choreograph and perform physically driven works which embody a connection to pleasure and assert that we can be more ourselves by being together. Through the use of imagery and archetypal symbolism, they create worlds of contrast where the audience is transported to places both familiar and unknown. Their work includes trios, ensemble works, and commissions and has been presented at numerous festivals and venues winning them awards such as the Gibney/Springboard Emerge Award.

Based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), on the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Mi’kmaq people, Liliona is a dancer, choreographer, actor, singer, and facilitator. From Ghana and the Philippines, she has an eclectic background that has taken her through many performance styles on four different continents. She performs widely, creates original works as an independent artist, facilitates community programming, and is the Artistic Director of Kinetic. The scope of Liliona’s artistic work is broad, but is particularly focused on the relationship between art and social justice, on the body’s ability to carry ancestral memory, and on the role the performing arts can play in creating change. Liliona loves to work in collaboration and community, and is mom to two wonderful kids.

Louise Lecavalier worked with Édouard Lock and La La La Human Steps from 1981 to1999, a period of exceptional intensity studded with dance productions that became mythical –Oranges, Businessman in the Process of Becoming an Angel, Human Sex,New Demons, Infante, 2, andSalt–, along with spectacular collaborations with the likes of David Bowie and Frank Zappa. Her extreme dance, filled with a fiery energy, caught the imagination of a whole generation. Since 2016, when she founded her own company, Fou Glorieux, she has engaged in movement research that is emblematic of her career, emphasizing the surpassing of limits, risk-taking, and unstinting effort. Louise has used her artistic freedom to explore dance in partnerships with iconoclastic choreographers Tedd Robinson, Benoît Lachambre, Crystal Pite, Nigel Charnock, Fabien Prioville, Deborah Dunn, and Jakop Ahlbom, as well as artists in other disciplines such as musicians Mercan Dede, Hahn Rowe, Antoine Berthiaume, visual artist Laurent Goldring and lighting designer Alain Lortie. At the end of 2012, she created her first choreography,So Blue, which has toured internationally.The world premiere of her new work,Battleground, took place in Germany in February 2016.

Louise is an Officer of the Order of Canada, is the first Canadian to have received a Bessie Award (New York) and the first winner of the Prix de la danse de Montréal. Among her many distinctions, in March 2014, she won two prestigious awards almost back to back: the 29th Grand Prix du Conseil des arts de Montréal and the Governor General Performing Arts Award (GGPAA) for lifetime artistic achievement. Louise Lecavalier won the 2017 Denise-Pelletier Award, the most prestigious distinction given by the Quebec government in the field of performing arts. In December 2017, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Quebec in Montreal.

LUA SHAYENNE DANCE COMPANY (LSDC) presents contemporary dance and live music works rooted in the aesthetics and values of West African dance, rhythms and culture, with the aim to be a source of social good and spiritual progress.

LUA SHAYENNE DANCE COMPANY (LSDC) has been infusing the Canadian contemporary dance scene with the vibrant energy of its African heritage in all its rich diversity to the world stage.

LSDC blends dance, music and storytelling rooted in West African culture with contemporary art forms and social commentary.

LSDC produces original dance works, enriching educational programs, YENSA Festival – A biennial festival which highlights Black female dance artists; from the Canadian and international dance scene; in addition to offering professional and community workshops with local and international artists.

Led by the vision of Artistic Director, Lua Shayenne, LSDC’s artistic practice is also a spiritual practice in service to the wider community: “The process of creating something new can potentially increase our sense of spiritual connection to one another and transform the hearts of our audiences and participants.

Lucy Rupert is a freelance dancer, choreographer, teacher and the artistic director of Blue Ceiling dance (founded 2004). With Blue Ceiling dance, Lucy has created, produced, and commissioned over two-dozen contemporary dance and multi-disciplinary performance works and travelled with repertoire to Germany, Montreal, New York and throughout Ontario. Her choreography is noted for its quicksilver movement quality, the diversity of her intergenerational casts and the passion and intelligence the dancers bring to the embodiment of topics such as environmental threats, the physical nature of light, and the growth of cancer cells.

Freelancing, she has performed with Fujiwara Dance Inventions (2010-present), Theatre Rusticle (2001-2017), Chartier Danse, Anandam Dance Theatre, Little Pear Garden Collective, Theatre Passe-Muraille, Circus Orange and Sashar Zarif Dance, among others. She has also performed in several dance films and music videos, including the award-winning Sarah Slean video, “The Rose”, directed by CJ Wallis, and “Walls” choreographed by Denise Fujiwara for musician Annabelle Chvostek.

Lucy has a Joint Honours B.A. in Dance and Music from the University of Waterloo – the singular degree of this kind ever granted. She has an MA in History from the University of Toronto. A lifelong learner, Lucy writes about art and science and interviews scientists through blueceilingdance.blogspot.com.

Lucy has received such honours as the 2017 Audience Choice Award at dance: made in Canada festival, two nominations for the KM Hunter award in Dance, two Chalmers Fellowships, a finalist nominee for the inaugural Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Awards, and a place in the 2019 Choreographic Workshop at The National Ballet of Canada where she created a work for first soloist Tanya Howard.

Known for quietly carving her own path in the Toronto/Tkaronto dance scene, Lucy’s solo performances have been described as “an orchid among forget-me-nots” (Toronto Star), “virtuosic” (The Dance Current) and “otherworldly” (NOW magazine).

Lucy Rupert is a dance artist, theatre performer and artistic director of Blue Ceiling dance, known for her raw, vulnerable and articulate performances. As well as choreographing for her company, she has worked with artists and companies including: Theatre Rusticle, Fujiwara Dance Inventions, Nova Bhattacharya, Peter Quanz and Chartier Danse.

https://www.blueceilingdance.com/

Lukas Malkowski is a CODA (Child of Deaf Adult), performance maker and Aquarius based between Canada/Germany. He has performed in John Wick 4, CTM Festival(Berlin), the Rodeo Festival(Munich), Festival Trans Amérique(Montreal), and the Schrittmacher Festival(Holland). Lukas’s choreography & teaching is shaped by the embodiment of physics, voice, and Sign. He has choreographed ambient sets, music videos, and films for Sam Slater(Joker OST), LBT, and 7th Plain(Luke Slater). Flowmentum: his movement practice, is driven by social dialogue and physics embodiment. He has taught and performed at festivals, companies, and schools across North America and Europe.

Lydia Zimmer (BFA ’11, Boston Conservatory) is a Halifax-based dancer and choreographer. She has received support from the Canada Council for the Arts and Arts Nova Scotia and attended residencies in Iceland, Bulgaria, Banff Centre, and Ireland’s Síolta Residency. Her company, ZIMMERDANS, premiered The Devil’s Intervals to sold-out audiences in Live Art Dance’s 23/24 season. Recent works include Mercurials for Mocean Dance and Xenofauna for Atlantic Ballet Theatre’s ImpactFest. Recognized with the Emerging Artist Recognition Award from Creative Nova Scotia, Lydia recently performed Daughter of the Night at Kinetic Studio and is excited to present Extremophile at WYSIWYG!

Mairéad Filgate (Montreal/Toronto) had the privilege of performing many of Danny Grossman’s signature works as a member of the company from 2003-2008. She is a founding member of the collaborative trio Throwdown Collective, and in September 2022 premiered her first full-length, independent site-specific work on the grounds of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (Toronto). Mairéad has worked with a vast array of incredible artists, most recently: Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre, tiger princess dance projects, Roshanak Jaberi & Karen Kaeja, Chartier Danse, Sonia Gemmiti, Katie Ward & Compagnie, and Erin Flynn.  She is a Dora Mavor Moore Award winning performer and choreographer, and a K.M. Hunter and Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize nominee.

Marie France Forcier is a Canadian choreographer, performer, writer and pedagogue of contemporary dance forms. Through studio research, public performances, publications and community initiatives, she predominantly engages with the intersection between trauma studies, somatic practices and choreography. Over the past 15 years, her body of creative work has been presented on platforms spanning little-known urban sites to dance-dedicated proscenium spaces across North America, Europe and Asia.  In collaborative artistic capacities, she has performed in disciplines ranging from to family theatricals to contemporary dance, to performance art to aerial circus; touring extensively on four continents. Having received her conservatory training from the School of Toronto Dance Theatre and her Masters of Fine Arts from York University, she currently holds a full time faculty position at the University of Calgary in the School of Creative and Performing Arts. She splits her time between Toronto, Montréal and Calgary with her two young sons.

Marie Lambin-Gagnon is a visual artist, choreographer, and dancer whose practice merges dance, photography, textiles, and installation. She is currently studying textiles at Concordia University. Among her many projects, she collaborated with Sara Cwynar on Red Film, presented at the São Paulo Biennial (2018), MoMA, and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. In 2019, she was commissioned by Toronto Dance Theatre for Slow Dance, earning a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination. In 2020, she created Slow Death for the Art Gallery of Ontario, blending found objects, electronic music, textiles, and Baroque paintings. The work was later presented at the Furies Festival (2022). Recent commissions include Confluence for The Bentway and Body/Landscape for Toes for Dance and the Toronto Biennial of Art.

A multi-faceted artist, Marie-Josée Chartier moves easily between the worlds of dance, music, opera, and multi-media in her roles as choreographer, performer, director, vocalist, or teacher. Her choreographic works have been presented in festivals in Canada, Europe, and Latin America and have been featured on documentary films and national television. She is the recipient of the 2015 Jacqueline Lemieux Prize, the 2001 K.M. Hunter Artist Award. She has been nominated nine times for Dora Mavor Moore Awards, having won twice, for fifty-one pieces of silver and for And By the Way, Miss. In the world of music/contemporary opera Marie-Josée has collaborated with Queen of Puddings Music Theatre, The Gryphon Trio, Toca Loca, Tapestry Opera and, since 2005, l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal. She is a frequent guest teacher in modern dance, movement for singers and musicians, voice exploration and improvisation at major training institutions and universities in Canada and Latin America. In 2003, Marie-Josée founded Chartier Danse to support her creative activities. Acclaimed productions include petites danses versions 2014-2016, Stria (a full-length solo work), Red Brick celebrating composer Michael J. Baker with Arraymusic, Contes pour enfants pas sages with PPS Danse, Screaming Popes with the German company, fabrik Potsdam, and Bas-Reliefs with Danse-Cité

Marlowe Porter is a multidisciplinary artist, working with photography, dance and digital art. Her work explores bodies in motion and their relationship to space, often placing her focal point within the elements of water, wind and earth. Her work attempts to invite the viewer into a visceral world that is full of texture, colour and movement, breathing images to life off the page. Marlowe has had her work featured in various publications such as the Dance Current and the Toronto Star.

Meghann Michalsky is a dance artist working in Alberta. She is the co-creator of Project InTandem and YYC Contemporary Technique Training, two programs that offer opportunities to emerging artists in Canada. She was awarded the 2019 RBC Emerging Artist Award – she is the first Dancer/Choreographer in Alberta to receive this award.

Since completing her BA in Contemporary Dance, with a concentration in Choreography and Performance, at the University of Calgary. She has rigorously pursued her training in Canada, Europe, and Israel. As a dancer, you’ve seen her dance for an array of individual artists and companies, including Karissa Barry, Laja Feild of LajaMartin, Davida Monk, Linnea Swan, kloetzel&co, & Dancers’ Studio West to name a few.

Meryem Alaoui is a dancer-choreographer from Morocco, living in Toronto. She’s the founder of Jasad Dance Projects, a not-for-profit aiming at increasing the visibility and representation of dance artists from the MENA region. Influenced by her studies of Body-Mind Centering®, her work is often an invitation towards a softer, more sensorial and felt experience of dance.

A graduate of the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, she has danced for choreographers Amanda Acorn, Peggy Baker, Angela Blumberg and Antony Hamilton, among others.

Her choreography has been shown in Ontario, Quebec and Morocco. Her latest projects include ‘Ensemble’, a dance creation with collaborators from Morocco and Canada, and the beginning of new creation for 7 women from the MENA region, called “Sand Bodies”.

Meryem has received residency support nationally and internationally, and project funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario and Toronto Arts Councils.

Born and raised on Unama’ki/Cape Breton Island, Molly Johnson creates body-based performance works that offer alternative ways to exist inside a capitalist heteropatriarchal society. A Dora Award-winning performer, she has danced for many great humans, including Nova Bhattacharya, Susie Burpee, Marie France Forcier, Sabina Perry, Julia Sasso, Riley Sims, and Heidi Strauss. Other highlights include a decade of summers performing in public spaces with Dusk Dances, a long working relationship with Montréal’s Danièle Desnoyers/Le Carré des Lombes, and recent collective creations with Tina Fushell/Meredith Thompson. Based in Toronto, Johnson is a co-artistic director of hub14, licensed wedding officiant, and freelance writer in the space between.

Originally from Toronto, Naomi Brand spent 10 years working and dancing in Calgary, before relocating to Vancouver in 2013. She holds both a BA and an MFA from the University of Calgary and is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award. Naomi has cultivated a unique artistic practice as a dancer, choreographer, educator and writer that spans work with professional artists, to community-engaged practice with diverse populations. She has performed in the works of Tania Alvarado, Noam Gagnon, Helen Husak, Melanie Kloetzel (kloetzel&co), Sharon Moore, Davida Monk (M-Body) and Jason Stroh among others and is an Associate Artist with projet bk. Her choreography has been featured in numerous venues and festivals across Canada as well as in Poland, Italy and Uruguay. Naomi is the co-founder and director of All Bodies Dance Project, an inclusive project for dancers with and without disabilities and, is a contributing writer with The Dance Current.

Montréal-based PARTS+LABOUR_DANSE explores the absurdist conflicts of the human experience with physically charged work that charms and challenges. With co-creation and shared authorship at the core of their relationship, David Albert-Toth and Emily Gualtieri approach the creation of their works with curiosity, persistence, and a theatrical sensibility, prying open the more intricately folded corners of our humanity. The company has produced and toured its works throughout Canada since 2011, including The Calculated Risk Project (2011), In Mixed Company (2013), La chute (2013), Re:Pairing (2015), and La vie attend (2017). It is currently involved in several new creations that will premiere over the next two years.

Patricia (Trish) Beatty was born in Toronto in the month of May, 1936. She had a classical education at Havergal College, not much of which rubbed off on her except athletics for she was physical from the start. She studied ballet with a very spirited Gladys Forrester and Gweneth Lloyd, but it was Bennington College, a very progressive college in Vermont, from the years 1955-59, that set her on a creative and artistic path. Five years at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York City made her a serious modern dancer. She understood her mission in life to be a carrier of the Graham Technique of dancing in all its beauty and depth. She did this together with Peter Randazzo and David Earle for twenty-seven years with their company, the Toronto Dance Theatre. She choreographed twenty-five works for the company and taught endless young Canadian dancers. Her last piece of choreography, The High Heart, choreographed in 2009 for Danielle Baskerville, was her final feminist statement. Her creative life continued in the form of poetry. She has three books to date and a prose work on the art of making dances. Trish left us, still writing, in November of 2020.

RALPH ESCAMILLAN is a queer, Canadian-Filipinx performance artist, choreographer and teacher based in Vancouver, BC. Ralph started his training in street dance styles, and is a graduate of Modus Operandi—a Vancouver-based Contemporary Dance program. He has danced/toured/created with Vancouver-based companies, Film and TV as well as a beacon for the Vancouver Ballroom Scene since 2017, through his other nonprofit VanVogueJam. As the artistic director of FakeKnot, he develops collaborative performance works that have been presented both nationally and internationally. Having ancestral roots in the Philippines, he’s fascinated by inquiries into what it means to be North American, especially within the context of cultural traditions, dance, music and costume in an increasingly interconnected global community. The exploration of how culture is created through the accumulation of ideas and concepts is at the center of his work. He has found the body to be a powerful vessel through which these ideas can be investigated—incorporating music, costume and new media design.

Reequal Smith is a multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, and visionary cultural leader. As the Founder and Artistic Director of Oshun Dance Studios in Prince Edward Island, Reequal draws deeply from her Bahamian roots to create work that rhythmically and spiritually bridges Caribbean traditions with Canadian contemporary movement. Her artistic practice is one of celebration and reclamation—evoking the pulse of island life while building spaces that honour the lived experiences of Black and Caribbean communities.

An alumna of Holland College’s School of Performing Arts, Reequal has over a decade of performance and choreographic experience across theatre, film, festivals, and self-produced works such as Calypso Secrets, Elysium, Unfold, and Caribbean Flamingo (premiered at Coastal Currents 2024). Her body of work includes such credits as Neptune Theatre, River Clyde Pageant, Kemi Craig’s ”Bearing Witness”, Washington Black, Breaking Circus, Robert Hengeveld “Where Phantoms Meet” and collaborations with artists like Liliona Quarmyne and Charles Campbell.

Beyond the studio, Reequal serves as Program and Events Coordinator for the Black Cultural Society of PEI and Administrator/Outreach Coordinator for the Canadian Women of Colour Leadership Network in Ottawa. She actively champions equity and representation in the arts, holding board positions with the Island Fringe Festival, Fusion Charlottetown, and Kinetic Studio  in Halifax.

In 2025, Reequal was honoured with the Kerri Wynne MacLeod Women of Impact Award and the Diane Moore Creation Award by Live Art Dance for her commitment to equity, cultural celebration, and transformative storytelling through movement.

Rhonda Liane Baker was born in 1983. She is a Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award winner and Dora Award nominated artist living in Halifax, NS. She has performed for Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie, Mocean Dance, Rebecca Lazier, and Gallim Dance since graduating from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre in 2009. Rhonda is an improviser, creator, and performer. Over the 2016/17 season, she spent her creative time developing a project with Geneviève Boulet and Lydia Zimmer through the support of Kinetic Studio and Arts Nova Scotia. Rhonda is thrilled to be performing Live From The Flash Pan at d:mic/fac. She thanks Cory Bowles and Mocean for their ongoing guidance and support of her growing incarnation within this work.

Cory Bowles is a multidisciplinary artist from Nova Scotia. As an actor in a number of film, theatre radio, and television shows, he received a Gemini for his work in TRAILER PARK BOYS, which he serves as a director. As a musician he has scored film, appeared/recorded over a dozen releases and has composed for the Dance companies, SiNS, MOCEAN, and Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (DJD). He serves on the Boards of; Arts Nova Scotia, Screen Nova Scotia, and was Choreographer for CBC KIDS “THE MOBLEES”, director of the CBC’s STUDIO BLACK!. Most recently, he returned to DJD for an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. His work for stage and film reflects his fascination to racial, social and cultural structure.

Rumi Jeraj is an Ismailli muslim hailing from Sherwood Park Alberta (the world’s largest hamlet). A Graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University Rumi has worked for dance artists including Hanna Kiel, Daryl Tracy, Maxine Hepner, Heidi Strauss, and Eilish Shin-Culhane. He has presented his own work at Dusk Dances, the Hamilton Fringe Festival, Citadel Compagnie’s Night Shift and Interaccess Gallery. He aspires to create and be a part of work which mixes forms in order to better tell stories. He believes there is a perfect balance between words, music, and movement which can communicate intellectually, emotionally and viscerally all at once. He aspires to find this state on stage.

Ryan Lee(he/him) is a dance artist whose versatile roles encompass choreographer, performer, rehearsal director, educator, and mentor. Graduating from Toronto Metropolitan University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, he has been fortunate to have worked with such companies as Human Body Expression, ProArteDanza, Toronto Dance Theatre, Kaeja d’Dance, Anandam Dancetheatre, inDANCE, The Chimera Project, Frog in Hand and Transcendance Project. Ryan is the current Co-Rehearsal Director for Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre. He has been commissioned to make choreographic works by ProArteDanza, Anandam DanceTheatre, Toronto Metropolitan University, Dance Arts Institute, Centennial College, George Brown College, The Emerging Artist Intensive, Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, Etobicoke School for the Arts, Cawthra Park, and Rosedale School of the Performing Arts. Ryan’s work has been presented at festivals such as Dance Ontario Dance Weekend and SummerWorks Festival.

Samantha is an Indigenous contemporary dance artist, choreographer, and teacher based in Tkaronto. Her ancestry is Ktunaxa and Scottish/British Settler. She graduated from the Arts Umbrella Dance Diploma Program in 2018. She has worked with Ballet BC, Red Sky Performance, and is currently an Artistic Associate with O.Dela Arts. Samantha has presented her own solo works in the Matriarchs Uprising Festival by O.Dela Arts, the Paprika Festival, Sharing the Stage with the National Ballet of Canada, Night Shift, Common Ground Dance Festival, Weesageechak Begins to Dance, and at the National Arts Centre.

SaMel Tanz is a Toronto based dance collective established in 2015. Samantha Schleese (M.A, BFA) and Melissa Hart (BFA), both versatile and experienced dance artists, founded SaMel Tanz to share stories through a unique fusion of Contemporary movement and techniques with Street and Latin influences. Their full-length works address crucial social issues that are relevant to the times and society at large (identity, female empowerment and mental health) with hopes to motivate audiences to start conversations in their own communities. SaMel Tanz facilitates and adjudicates countless youth initiatives and continues to highlight the importance of community in all their endeavours. Notable productions: “Championess” (2019) Night Shift Series; “Mind-ful(l)” (2019), DanceWorks CoWorks Series, raised awareness about mental illness within the dance community; “that “F” word” (2018) The Next Stage Toronto Fringe Festival, received NNNN from NOW Magazine, 3 out 4 stars from the Globe and Mail; “Bossed Up” (2018) Toronto’s Breakin’ Convention,“The “F” Word” (2017), nominated for Outstanding Contemporary Production by My Entertainment World.

Sandy is an award-winning performer, choreographer, composer, producer, and internationally acclaimed pioneer of percussive dance. She draws from global percussive practices infusing themes with movement, vocal integration, theatre, and impeccable musicality. The result is a unique and powerful form of performance storytelling. After 30 years of performing and teaching around the world, Sandy started the MIGRATION DANCE FILM PROJECT with award-winning director Marlene Millar. Their dance-for-camera films have screened internationally and won numerous awards. Sandy has chosen artists from different artistic disciplines —dancers, singers and musicians — and brought communities together to move beyond traditional body percussion, expanding the depth of percussive dance vocabulary within an unconventional contemporary art form.

Sarah Chase is based on Hornby Island, in the Salish Sea. She is a performer and choreographer whose distinctive signature has garnered her an international reputation. Her work has been presented across Canada and Europe. She has performed and toured with Benôit Lachambre’s Dance par B. Lieux, and German choreographer Raimund Hoghe, and has created work for many Canadian artists including Peggy Baker, Toronto Dance Theatre,Andrea Nann,Theatre Replacement, Montreal Danse and Marc Boivin. Sarah is the recipient of the Jacqueline Lemieux Award for Excellence from the Canada Council for the Arts. She is an associate dance artist of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

Sasha Kleinplatz is a contemporary dance choreographer living and working in Montreal. Since finishing her B.F.A in contemporary dance at Concordia University, Sasha has presented her work at venues and festivals throughout Canada, and the United States. Her work has appeared in films, installations and multi media projects for companies such as Moment Factory, Royal Caribbean, and Bravo. In 2005, Sasha co-founded (with collaborator Andrew Tay) the company Wants&Needs Danse. Since then the company has curated and produced the popular dance events Piss in the Pool, Involved and Short & Sweet in Montreal, Guelph, Halifax and Oakland, California. In June 2012 the duo choreographed the Cirque du Soleil show Les Frontieres de Pixels and were nominated for a Quebec Notables award in the Arts & Culture category. In 2014 Sasha presented her work Chorus II at Place des Arts in Montreal, Quebec, and in 2015 she was an invited professor at UQAM where she taught the course Spectacle dirigé, and created the new work L’Échauffement.

Sashar Zarif is a multi-disciplinary artist, educator and researcher whose practice invites a convergence of creative and cultural perspectives, steeped in traditional, ritualistic, and contemporary dance and music of Western/Central Asia. He has toured in over 36 countries promoting cultural dialogue through fieldwork, residencies, performances, and creative collaborations. Zarif holds a Master of Dance Degree from York University, where he also directed courses in dance and performance studies from 2004 to 2012. He has been awarded the title of Master of Dance, as an honorary faculty member of Uzbekistan State Institute of Choreography. In 2012, Zarif received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Seeking Bridge is a collaborative effort between dance artists Emily Law, Jen Hum, Naishi Wang, and Sze-Yang Ade-Lam, with support from videographers Henry Mak and Sean Dunnigan. Their intention is to create something contemporary, thoughtful, and theatrical that is accentuated by images and sound, and rooted in movement.  

Emily Law is a contemporary dancer, street dancer, and choreographer. Law is a founding member of Mix Mix Dance Collective, Warehouse Jacks, and Parks N’ Wreck. She has had the pleasure of working with companies and artists such as Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, The Dietrich Group, The Chimera Project, and Alias Dance Project.

Sze-Yang Ade-Lam is a queer Asian dancer, martial artist, storyteller, and community developer. Ade-Lam shares stories through movement for self love, empowerment, and liberation as an independent artist, as part of ILL NANA/DiverseCity Dance Company and Mix Mix Dance Collective. Ade-Lam is an advocate for change in the dance world.

Born in Changchun, China, Naishi Wang received his professional dance training from the Jilin College of Art and with the Beijing Dance Academy. In 2004, he came to Canada to continue his dance studies at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre and has been a member of TDT since 2006.

A Toronto-based independent dancer and performer, Jen Hum has a multifaceted background that has touched on all forms of dance and stage performance. She has worked with a diverse collection of groups and individuals, including The Redsnow Collective, Polynomials Dance, J9 Dance Projects, Alias Dance Projects, and Anandam Dance Theatre.

Henry Mak and Sean Dunnigan are Primitive Replica, a filmmaking team operating in downtown Toronto. They thrive on collaboration and are proud to have worked on video projects with partners in the creative community, including the Toronto Fringe Festival, Next Stage Theatre Festival, No Porpoise Productions, and Litmus Theatre.

Suzanne Miller is a company director, choreographer, dancer, costume-set designer and teacher based in Montreal, Canada. Since 1985, her multi-ranged practice evolves through dialogue with people, place, and history. Her choreography draws from autobiographical resources that often confront social issues using dance as a form of knowledge – memory and making. Her current work borrows from language whereby the process of forming letters or characters in space, serve as visible signs of ideas in motion. In this way, language is used as a kind of interface between mind and body — where selected texts are physically translated into dance. In 2021, Oxford University Press published her written piece “Moshe, Moishe, Moses” that describes her language-based processes for creating dances.

Throwdown Collective is a dance company that supports the collaborative creative pursuits of Zhenya Cerneacov, Mairéad Filgate and Brodie Stevenson.

Action at a Distance Dance Society is a Vancouver-based contemporary dance company under the artistic direction of choreographer Vanessa Goodman. The priority of the company is to foster work that reflects the human condition, using dance to decode contemporary experience. Goodman holds a BFA from SFU and was the recipient of the 2013 Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award from the Scotiabank Dance Centre. She has been commissioned to create works for the Dancing on the Edge Festival, The Gwaii Trust, Lamon Dance, Modus Operandi, the SFU Dance Program and Vancouver Biennale. Most recently, the company’s work has been presented locally with The Chutzpah! Festival, The Scotiabank Dance Centre, The Firehall Arts Centre, Music on Main with Caroline Shaw, The Modulus Festival, PuSh Off, The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts (Burnaby) and Small Stage. Nationally and internationally, the company has been presented by; Northwest New Works (Seattle), Risk/Reward (Portland), Kinetic Studio (Halifax), Connection Dance Works (New Brunswick) and The Canada Dance Festival/Magnetic North Festival (Ottawa). As an interpreter, Goodman has performed works for Dancers Dancing, Wild Excursions Performance, Justine A. Chambers, Jennifer Clarke, dumb instrument dance, the plastic orchid factory, Restless Productions, Mascall Dance, Julia Sasso, Holly Small and Judith Marcuse.

Vania Dodoo-Beals is a Dancer and Choreographer based in Toronto. Selected credits include: Disney’s The Lion King, The National Ballet of Canada, Fall for Dance North, Dance: Made in Canada, ProArteDanza and Citadel + Compagnie. Notable choreographic collaborators are Peggy Baker, Siphesile November and Carleen Zouboules. Vania is thrilled to be returning to DMIC presenting ‘Fragments of Perception. Carleen Zouboules is a multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto. Since beginning her dance career in 2020, she had performed with Red Sky Performance, Côte Dansé, ProArteDanza, Citadel + Compagnie and Zata Omm Dance Projects. She has appeared in works by Lesley Telford, Chantelle Good, Guillaume Côte, Jera Wolfe, Anne Plamondon, Roberto Campanella and Robert Glumbeck. Carleen co-choreographed for Night Shift in 2022 and Toronto Metropolitan University with her collaborator Vania Dodoo-Beals. She has also assisted William Yong in Utopiverse for the National Ballet of Canada. Her work blends theatricality with the physicality of contemporary dance, focusing on body-to-body connection in partnering.

Yeonji Hong is an award-winning Korean dance artist who received her PhD from the Sejong University in Seoul, South Korea in 2017. She has performed across South Korea as part of the National Dance Company of Korea, and has performed internationally as part of numerous culture exchange initiatives in Japan, China and Oman to name a few. Dr. Hong was at the 28nd National University Dance Competition in 2010, she was awarded the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award for her solo work. Dr. Hong combines traditional dance vocabularies with a modern perspective to express the deepest emotion and essence of beauty in Korean dance aesthetic. Since her arrival in Canada in 2018, she has performed in different venues across Ontario including Ottawa City Hall, Carleton Place in Lanark County, and the City of Brockville. She has also been teaching both dancing and drumming at the Korean Cultural Centre in Ottawa since 2019.

Yvonne Coutts’ work has been presented and commissioned in Canada by the Brian Webb Dance Company, the Winnipeg Dance Festival, Tangente, Danceworks, Women in View, Dancemakers, Arraymusic, Four Chambers, and Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers.

Recipient of the 1994 Bonnie Bird Choreographic Award from the Laban Center in England, she received a commission, which toured through Europe, the United States, and Asia. In 1994, she also received an invitation from The Place in London to attend a dance/video forum and her solo work, Now. In Blue, commissioned by the Canada Dance Festival (CDF) and the CanDance Network, went on to a successful Canadian tour.

Her site-specific solo work, Perfect Nowhere, premiered at the 2002 CDF. In 2006, Yvonne received a second commission from the CDF to create a solo work for Natasha Bakht.

Yvonne was a company member of Le Groupe Dance Lab from 1988 to 1994 where she interpreted, choreographed, and worked with artists such as Paul-André Fortier, Sylvain Émard, Louis Bédard, Russel Maliphant, Wayne McGregor, Harold Rhéaume, Noam Gagnon, Claudia Moore, Carol Anderson, and Tedd Robinson. She became Artistic Associate at the Lab from 2003 to 2006. Yvonne danced independently with Sylvie Desrosiers and Helene Blackburn’s Cas Public. Yvonne has been nominated three times for the K.M. Hunter Artists Award through the Ontario Arts Council. She has been on faculty of The School of Dance since 2000, a sessional instructor at the University of Calgary, and guest artist at Grant MacEwan College, The School of Contemporary Dancers, and LADMMI. Since September 2010, Yvonne has been the Artistic Director of Ottawa Dance Directive /Centre de danse contemporaine (ODD) where she has choreographed six new works for Compagnie ODD. She was the 2015 recipient of the Ottawa Arts Council Mid-Career Artist Award.