Faculty

Professional Training Program

Teachers 2022-2023

AMANDA ACORN

Technique – Improvisation

MOHAMMADREZA AKRAMI

Technique – Contemporary

JOHANNA BERGFELT

Technique – Ballet

VALERIE CALAM

Technique – Contemporary

DEANNA CHOI

Music

KYMBERLEY FELTHAM

Dance History

MATEO GALINDO TORRES

Body Work
Technique – Partnering

SUSANNA HOOD

Music

CHRISTOPHER HOUSE

Composition/Creative Process

SASHA IVANOCHKO

Composition/Creative Process
Cultivating a Career/Career Paths
Pedagogy

ROSEMARY JAMES

Technique – Graham

BRENDAN JENSEN

Body Work

ALLEN KAEJA

Film for Dance

KAREN KAEJA

Technique – Contact Improvisation

BONNIE KIM

Technique – Contemporary

ADAM LAZARUS

Bouffon

ROBERT MCCOLLUM

Technique – Ballet

JEFF MORRIS

Elements of Production

MEGAN NADAIN

Technique – Contemporary
Rehearsal Director

JULIA SASSO

Technique – Improvisation
Repertory – Studio Practices

KATHERINE SEMCHUK

Technique – Contemporary
Rehearsal Director

MICHELLE SILAGY

Pedagogy

BRIAN SOLOMON

Repertory – Studio Practice

GEORGE STAMOS

Cultivating a Career/Career Paths
Technique – Improvisation
Rehearsal Director

PAMELA WONG SHOEBOTTOM

Anatomy
Body Work

Professional Training Program

Choreographers 2022-2023

AMANDA ACORN

MOHAMMADREZA AKRAMI

PEGGY BAKER

MARIE FRANCE FORCIER

SYREETA HECTOR

BENJAMIN KAMINO

RYAN LEE

SHARON MOORE

DAVID NORSWORTHY

TILMAN O'DONNELL

SASHAR ZARIF

Adult Recreational Classes

MEGAN NADAIN

Adult Contemporary Dance

Amanda Acorn is a choreographer and artist based in Tkaronto, Canada. Her practice includes somatic movement, improvisation, writing, and drawing as tools to explore the body as an empathetic and malleable system, wired for attunement. As a choreographer she creates intimate, sensorial encounters and responsive environments for shared, embodied exchange. Her latest project, no place (2022), explores the body in dialogue with the material world through emergent, relational practice and an evolving construction of space and place. She is a graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts (2000), the School of Toronto Dance Theatre's Professional Training Program (2008), and pursued independent studies in Vienna, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Genoa. Amanda danced and performed independently in Toronto, Montréal, and Calgary before joining Dancemakers as a company artist in 2012. Under the direction of Michael Trent, the company’s collaborative approach to creating deeply informed her processual, research-based, choreographic ethos. Her first group work multiform(s) (2015), received critical acclaim and was awarded the Canadian Stage Award for Direction at SummerWorks Performance Festival, before remounts were subsequently presented in Montréal at the Festival TransAmériques (2016), Hamilton and Toronto in collaboration with the Music Gallery, and Dancemakers (2018). Her solo and group works have included presentations and commissions shared in diverse venues in Toronto including Toronto Dance Theatre, Videofag, The Citadel, Luminato Festival, among others and across Canada at the Festival TransAmériques in Montréal, Workers Arts Heritage Centre in Hamilton, Festival of New Dance in St John’s, Dancer’s Studio West in Calgary, Push Festival, and Gold Saucer Studio in Vancouver. Amanda is a passionate facilitator of movement and works to build spaces for care through the intersections of her art practice and her work as a movement guide, teaching contemporary techniques, improvisation and Pilates to adults, professionals, and students. She is currently furthering her study of the dialogue between bodies as an MA candidate at York University, and the practice of Gestalt Psychotherapy through the Gestalt Institute of Toronto.

Mohammadreza Akrami is a dance artist born in Tehran and based in Montreal and Toronto. His eagerness toward episteme leads him to study physics, dramatic literature, contemporary dance, and practice martial arts such as Wing Chun, Escrima and Chi Qong. His experience in performing arts spans choreographing, dancing, acting, singing, and pure performances. He has worked on butoh, flying low, passing through, and rituals, and its music as roots of performing arts.

Johanna Bergfelt, a native of Sweden, graduated from The Royal Swedish Ballet School in 1989. She has an extensive performance background beginning with Östgötabaletten, where she worked for six years, and later joined Norrdans, and the Barents Dance Ensemble. Since coming to Canada in 2000, Johanna has worked with The Chimera Project, Kaeja d’Dance, Kathleen Rea, Santee Smith, Darcey Callison, Louis Laberge-Côté, Kate Alton, Holly Small, William Yong, Pro Arte Danza, Mairéad Filgate, Yvonne Ng, and the Toronto Dance Theatre, where she was a company dancer for six years. Johanna has been nominated four times for a Dora Mavor Moore Award.

As a teacher Johanna teaches regularly at In Studio, The Citadel, The Dance Institute, her own online classes, and company classes at Toronto Dance Theatre.

Valerie Calam is a Toronto-based, Gen-X, caregiving dance artist interested in finding pathways to refresh and support herself. She is a performer, teacher and choreographer, and uses sound and costuming to enhance her collaborations in dance. She was recently a guest dancer with Toronto Dance Theatre, Citadel & Cie, and Bad New Days Theatre. Valerie enjoys her arts admin role as Membership Coordinator and Operations Manager at CADA/East (Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists- East Chapter).

Valerie umbrellas much of her work under the name Company Vice Versa (www.companyviceversa.com) and is currently collaborating with fellow dance artist Allison Cummings and Vivine Scarlett on a solo performance entitled Bear, to be performed by Cummings. The work-in-progress was selected for the Orilla Centre for Arts and Culture’s Dance & Design Residency that took place in September 2022.

Valerie works as a costume designer and seamstress. She enjoys studying vintage sewing patterns and repurposing used clothing. She finds costume design and coordination to be a fruitful means of collaboration— a new way to support the creative process of other dance folks.

Over the past few years (under the AD of Andrew Tay), Valerie performed in Pilot Episodes Project (TDT 2020 & 2021) in processes by choreographers Miss Coco Murray, Ralph Escamillan, Tyra Temple-Smith, and Angela Schubot, the Co-Conspirators Project (TDT 2021) with Be Heintzman Hope, and Performance Clash (TDT 2022) with designer Angela Cabrera. Before this, Valerie worked with Toronto Dance Theatre under the AD of legendary Christopher House. Valerie toured and performed in numerous works of Christopher’s while being a company dancer from 1999-2009.

Valerie has been working with Bad New Days Theatre (Tkaronto) as a dancer/performer over the past few years. Under the AD of Adam Paolooza, Valerie will be a part of the upcoming performance run of A Last Landscape (the project born of Big Data) at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in March 2023. Valerie has been working as a performer in Citadel & Cie’s remount of Nuit by Jean-Pierre Perreault (choreographed in 1986) which will be presented at the Luminato Festival in 2023.

As a performer, Valerie collaborated on an experimental video game with filmmaker Franci Duran and Fantastical Realms through the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Valerie is a KM Hunter Award winner for Dance. She completed a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Choreography in 2014 from York University where she continued her research of state and imagination-based movement and composition.

Deanna Choi is a film & television composer and sound designer for live performance, including theatre, dance, musicals, and installations. Formerly a published researcher in behavioural neuroscience and a classically trained violinist, Deanna brings a multi-faceted perspective to her work. Deanna is an alumni of the Canadian Film Centre’s Slaight Music Residency, and in 2022 was named one of Necessary Angel Theatre Company’s artists in residence. She has scored the features LAST OF THE RIGHT WHALES (HitPlay/CBC), RELAX I’M FROM THE FUTURE (Wango/Universal), and has designed over 100 theatrical productions with companies across Turtle Island including the Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival, Soulpepper, and many others. She teaches sound design at the National Theatre School of Canada. She is the 2020 laureate of the Pauline McGibbon Award for Theatre Design, the second sound designer in the award’s history, and has been nominated for the Louis Applebaum Composer’s Award and two Merritt Awards. She is a member of the Associated Designers of Canada, Screen Composers’ Guild of Canada, and SOCAN.

(splitbrainsound.com)

Kymberley Feltham is an educator, arts administrator, performance critic, and community organizer living and working in Tkaronto, Canada. As a Performance Studies doctoral candidate, Kymberley is interested in the performance practices of South African contemporary dance and theatre makers, who create in the contexts of post-apartheid change and development. Her research focuses on these performance practices as agents of social change, specifically looking at how socio-political issues are embodied and disseminated through contemporary dance and theatre. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Contemporary Dance from Concordia University in Montreal in 2005, and a Master of Arts (MA) in Communication Studies from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo in 2009. Her PhD research was funded by the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at York University in Toronto. Kymberley is currently a working-group member of Mass Culture-Mobilisation Culturelle, an arts service organization working towards equitable mobilization of arts and culture research.

Christopher House is a choreographer, performer, director and educator. Born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland, he joined Toronto Dance Theatre as a dancer in 1979 and was named Resident Choreographer in 1981. He became the company’s Artistic Director in 1994, a position that he held for twenty-six seasons. He created more than sixty choreographies for TDT over a period of more than forty years, including a dozen full-length works, and has created choreography for many other organizations and individuals, including Portugal’s Ballet Gulbenkian, the National Ballet of Canada, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Cirque du Soleil, Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, and soloists Peggy Baker and Guillaume Côté. In 2004-2005 he directed two collaborations with indie band The Hidden Cameras. His works have been performed in nineteen countries worldwide; in 2018, his retrospective program House Mix was performed in fifteen Canadian cities coast to coast and in Bogotá and Medellin, Colombia. He left his position at TDT in August 2020 in order to focus on his own artistic practice and mentorship.

As a performer, Christopher House has appeared in new works by Sarah Chase, Peter Chin, David Earle, Mark Morris, James Kudelka and Peter Randazzo, among others. With Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in the 1980s, he performed the title role in Fokine’s Petrushka, and danced in Kudelka’s In Paradisum, Nijinska’s Les Noces and in his solo Schubert Dances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He has recently appeared in Ame Henderson’s RING, with Jordan Tannahill in their duet Marienbad, and in Deborah Hay’s Ten at Tanz im August in Berlin. His most recent solo performance work, New Tricks, premiered at The Citadel in March 2022.

Christopher House has taught technique and creative practice across Canada and in the USA, UK, and The Netherlands. Since 2006, his teaching and directing have been influenced by his work with post-modern icon Deborah Hay; his performance of Hay's I'll Crane For You was named as one of the top five dance events of 2015 in the Globe and Mail. In the last several years, he has expanded his practice as a mentor and facilitator, working with younger choreographers and leading workshops at the Banff Centre, the University of Calgary, and Studio 303 in Montreal. At TDT, he developed Creation Residency and Choreographic Research programs, and, in partnership with Ame Henderson, a biennial workshop for the development of choreographers called the Emerging Voices Project. In 2020-2021 he designed and led two iterations of Creative Practice for Contemporary Dance online for the Banff Centre, and co-led a Disability Informed Dance workshop with Debbie Patterson in Winnipeg.

Christopher House was named an Associate Dance Artist of Canada’s National Arts Centre in 2007, received the Muriel Sherrin Award for International Achievement in Dance in October 2009, was made an honorary doctor of letters by Memorial University in 2010, received the Silver Ticket Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts in 2012, and was cited for Outstanding Achievement in the 2021 York University Alumni Awards. He has been a proud member of the Order of Canada since 2018.

Rosemary James assumed the role of Rehearsal Director in 1992 after a successful career performing with Toronto Dance Theatre. Among many responsibilities, she was pivotal in remounting the choreography of Christopher House, former Artistic Director of TDT (1994-2020).

Since 1987, James has taught in the Professional Training Program at The School of TDT and was the Training and Performing Associate from 2009-2021, under the expert leadership of Patricia Fraser (1993-2021). She has taught modern dance courses at York University and is currently a contract lecturer at Toronto Metropolitan University. James is passionate about sharing the Martha Graham Technique with future generations of dancers. She is also teaching this valuable and foundational movement vocabulary at Performing Dance Arts.

In 2021, she initiated and interviewed former TDT colleagues for an audio series entitled, Reconnecting with Black Dancers from the 80’s and Early 90’s. In 2021, James collaborated with Mary Jane Warner to produce the film tribute, Celebrating Patricia Beatty: Artist, Choreographer, Teacher. In 2022, she was the rehearsal director for Christopher House's solo evening work entitled New Tricks, and the rehearsal director/dramaturge for 100 Years of Cinematic Solitude in 300 Moving Pieces for the Immer Collective. James holds a Bachelor and Master of Arts in dance from York University.

Allen Kaeja is a choreographer, film director, co-artistic director, performer, and teacher that holds an MA in Dance at York University. Allen is an award-winning director and choreographer, and entered the field of dance after 9 years of wrestling and Judo. Allen is co-artistic director of Kaeja d’Dance with his wife, Karen Kaeja. Allen’s film, Asylum of Spoons, co-directed with Mark Adam, was short-listed for Jury Prize as well as best direction for an art film at the Banff World Television Awards. Allen’s dance film Of the Heart a Canadian/USA collaboration with Doug Rosenberg, was nominated for the Jury Prize in both New York and Barcelona, and has recently screened at Sans Souci Festival. His film Zummel was part of a MUSÉES DE LA CIVILISATION exhibit Rebel Bodies and is being featured in an upcoming three year exhibit of the best Canadian Dance Films in the past century. He has received special ‘Jury Mentions’ from IMZ and American Dance Festival. Allen has also been nominated for Outstanding Choreography for the dance film Departure at the American Choreography Awards.

He is the author of “Transcending Media: Adapting the Dance Production Asylum of Spoons from Stage to Film”, a comprehensive book that details the process of creating a dance film from the treatment to shot list.

His films were presented at the MoMA in New York, and are in the permanent collections of Jewish Museum in New York and Yad Vashem in Israel. Allen and Karen have created and shot two new films: between sun and sand; between snow and sky. Allen received a Canada Council Digital Originals grant to shoot FALLOW, which has screened internationally. He also directed four dance films for 2021’s Porch View Dances.

Allen has been on the faculty at TMU University where he has taught Dance Film since 2008. In 2017, Allen completed “Xtraordinary TO Dances: Moments in Reel Time” (2017) for broadcasters BellMedia (Canada) and Marqueearts (UK), starring 22 Toronto-based dance artists with composers Phil Strong and Eric Cadesky, which premiered at Karen’s Solo Dance Xchange in 2018. XTOD featured 22 XTRAORDINARY Toronto Dance Artists representing the intergenerational, multi-practice and mosaic of our dance community, on location throughout Metropolitan Toronto. XTOD has been screened in the USA, Europe, and Japan, and was recently shortlisted for the Jury Prize: XTOD: Moments in Reel Time, Best Film Over 15 Minutes from IMZ.

Allen and Karen recently created Kitchen Dances Web Series with Moze Mossanen to be released in 2023, co-directed the short film Pulse with Olya Glotka for the City of Mississauga, which is the first film ever to be censored by a city government, and In Case of Emergency: celebrating eighteen dance artists in our community.

Allen integrated Augmented Reality and Digital Perspective in the TORQUE production I am the Child of…, on a shared program with Karen’s TouchX for their 31st Anniversary Shared Concert in November of 2022.

Karen Kaeja is an Ashkenazi, Tkaronto born, award-winning choreographer, project instigator, performer, and mentor. The heart of her research, creation, pedagogy, and writing, concentrates on the agency and challenges of touch. She is “the mastermind behind Porch View Dances” (PVD), as quoted by the Toronto Star. She develops platforms for collaborative relationships between dancers and everyday folk. Karen “paints portraits with moving bodies”, as quoted in the Toronto Star, and is in The Canadian Who’s Who and Theatre Dance in Canada encyclopedias. Her awards include TAPA’s 2022 George Luscombe Mentorship Award, Dance Ontario’s Lifetime Achievement, CDA “I Love Dance” Community, and Paul D. Fleck Fellowship for Innovation. A Finalist for the TAF Celebration of Cultural Life Award, TAF Muriel Sherrin Award for International achievement, CDA Innovation Award, twice for NOW’s Best Local Choreographer and Best Dance Company, and NOW top 10 dance artists. Karen has 7 Dora Mavor Moore nominations.

Screened in over 400 festivals worldwide, her films and feature roles have appeared in TV documentaries including Gemini nominated Old Country and Bravo! a freedom documentary series. Other films include XTOD: Moments in Real Time, 20 films for CBC, BRAVO! and Bravo! FACT, and collections at Yad Vashem, Israel, and the NYC Jewish Museum. Mika’s Alley toured South America and American Dance Festival. Her recent digital works include Fallow (NAC #CanadaPerforms), Laneway ARTery Dances (ArtworxTO), Clearing, Uneasy, WOFFF UK tour (‘Best Commended Award’), You Come Calling by songwriter Sue Smith, In Case of Emergency, and Slipping with Roshanak Jaberi premiered at Fall for Dance North (FFDN).

In Stratford Festival’s first movement dramaturg for Wendy and Peter Pan, Karen’s mentorship, dramaturgy, and artistic advisory relationships are a priority. She has been commissioned and presented by performance series around the world including Canada Dance Festival, FFDN, DanceWorks, Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, Judith Thompson’s Rare Theatre, Guelph Dance Festival, Springboard Dance, ODD, DanceWorks, DOTE, VIDF, Arangham Dance (India), EDge Dance Company (UK), Dusk Dances, Guetcha Guaritcha, MOCEAN, BoucharDanse, Ballet Jorgen Canada, Blue Ceiling Dance, and Annika Olund (Sweden). Projects have brought her to residencies and stages in Sweden, Israel, the UK, Portugal, India, Mexico, Venezuela, Spain, USA, Banff Centre (8X), and across Canada. She was the first artist in residence for both MUN/Dance NL and the Guelph Dance Festival. Karen is Co-Artistic Director of Kaeja d’Dance with Allen Kaeja, and the Artistic Director of PVD, featuring ‘Real People Dancing in Real Spaces’. Karen collaborates with many of Canada’s brilliant choreographers. Uniting 8 professional dancers with 30 everyday folk on stage, her upcoming TouchX as part of TORQUE International Contemporary Dance Festival at Harbourfront, aims to reveal the fragile implications of touch when humanity experiences its presence and absence. (www.kaeja.org)

Bonnie Kim has been a dance artist for more than 30 years, and is a multiple Dora Award nominee for choreography and performance. Bonnie was named one of “Toronto’s top five dancers” by Eye Weekly magazine. Bonnie’s upcoming and recent projects include a performer in Older & Reckless 20 Over 50, Peter Chin’s Trillionth I, and Hanna Kiel’s Again, a screenwriter/performer in Kiel’s What Happened to Lee?, a co-choreographer for Corpus’s Divine Interventions, and an outside eye for Nova Bhattacharya’s Svāhā. Highly regarded as a teacher, mentor and outside eye, Bonnie was Rehearsal and later Associate Director of Dancemakers for nine years. She directed a cast of hundreds for Sylvain Émard’s Le Grand Continental, produced by Luminato. She trained at Claude Watson School for the Arts and the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and performed with many of Canada’s most respected artists and companies, including Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers, Fondation Jean-Pierre Perreault and Claudia Moore. Bonnie’s writing has been published in the Dance Current, Eye Weekly, Toronto Star, Toronto Life, and the Fall for Dance North magazine.

(emmandbee.wordpress.com)

Jeff Morris was born in Toronto, and studied technical theatre production and administration at Ryerson’s Theatre School (now Toronto Metropolitan University). From 1990 to 1995, he was Production Stage Manager for Toronto Dance Theatre, including the company’s debuts in Berlin, Warsaw, Beijing, Tokyo, and at the Joyce Theater in New York. He was Production Stage Manager for Dancers for Life (AIDS Committee of Toronto) from 1991 to 1997, Stage Manager for Theatre Passe-Muraille (Never Swim Alone, Metamorphosis of a Shadow), da da kamera (House), Theatre Smith-Gilmour (To Cry Is Not So, In the Wings of Eden), and for the Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists.

Morris joined The National Ballet of Canada in 1995, and has since stage-managed a wide range of the company’s unique classical and contemporary repertoire, including the world premieres of James Kudelka’s The Four Seasons, Cinderella and An Italian Straw Hat, Crystal Pite’s Emergence and Angels’ Atlas, Guillaume Côté’s Le Petit Prince, Frame by Frame (with Robert Lepage), and Alexei Ratmansky’s Romeo and Juliet. Company premieres include John Neumeier’s The Seagull, A Streetcar Named Desire, Nijinsky and Anna Karenina, and Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale. Special events include nine competitions for The Erik Bruhn Prize and company tours to Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Sadlers’ Wells, The Music Centre in Los Angeles, and Théâtre des Champs Elysées.

His freelance work in Toronto’s dance community has included independent artists and companies such as Sasha Ivanochko, Julia Sasso, Nova Bhattacharya, Dancemakers, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, and The Citadel + Compagnie (Jacob’s Pillow, James Kudelka’s alloneword).

In addition to his work with the National Ballet of Canada, he has taught and mentored stage managers at The Banff Centre and SMArts, and is Festival Co-Director for the biannual dance: made in Canada/fait au Canada.

Julia Sasso’s decades-long career encompasses performance, choreography, teaching, mentorship, writing, and advocacy. She began dancing in 1960 in Detroit, where she trained with Cecchetti ballet master, Rose Marie Floyd. In her teens, she was a scholarship student at the Joffrey Ballet School, and an apprentice with the Harkness Ballet, both in New York City. Her artistry has since been shaped by curiosity, inquiry, experimentation, and investment in a variety of practices including Skinner Releasing Technique™, improvisation, theatre, voice, pilates, Gaga, ELDOA, Fundamentals (Cristine Wright), and various contemporary movement techniques.

Recognized as ‘one of the foremost dance artists in the country’ (The Dance Current), Sasso performed internationally with Toronto’s Dancemakers in 1984-2000, and was the company’s Assistant Artistic Director and principal teacher for a dozen years. She is ‘one of perhaps a dozen contemporary modern dancers in Canada who is simply breathtaking in motion’ (The Ottawa Citizen). She continues to perform and create independently. Sasso has choreographed extensively for the concert stage as well as for theatre, feature film, and television. Her choreography has been commissioned and presented throughout Canada, in the United States, and abroad, by Harbourfront Centre, the Canada Dance Festival, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada, Toronto Dance Theatre, Dancemakers, Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, and DanceWorks among others.

Under the moniker Julia Sasso dances, she has created, produced, and presented five full evening-length dance works: Sporting Life (1996, remounted 2016), Beauty (2003), the betrayal project (2006), Túl a folyón (Beyond the River, 2009), and SLoE (2012). Her contribution to theatre and concert dance has been acknowledged with eight Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations. Sasso has taught at distinguished learning centres worldwide. She has created choreography for professional contemporary dance training programs across Canada and abroad and since 1995, and has created close to 100 dances for The School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s Professional Training Program, where she is a core faculty member. From 2006-2022, she directed a range of Dance courses in York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Her artistic practice has been recognized with awards, grants, scholarships, and bursaries from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Chalmers Performing Arts Training Awards, Laidlaw Foundation, Metcalf Foundation, The John McKellar Charitable Foundation, Dancers’ Transition Resource Centre, Skinner Releasing Institute, York University, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, Joffrey Ballet School, Harkness House for Ballet Arts, and The Cecchetti Council of America.

Sasso’s published writing appears in, Skinner Releasing Technique, A Movement and Dance Practice (2021) www.triarchypress.net/srt

Katherine Semchuck is a dance-based collaborator, performer and instructor currently based in Tkaronto (Treaty 13 Territory). She is a graduate of Victoria School of the Arts and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, where she was the recipient of the Kathryn Ash Leadership Award. Katherine has spent the last few years connecting with movement and artistic communities across the country, and has had the pleasure of making art with Good Women Dance Collective (GWDC), Kaeja d’Dance, Kylie Thompson, Mateo Galindo Torres, Meghann Michalsky, Mile Zero Dance, Nostos Collectives, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, Sasha Ivanochko, and Naishi Wang. She feels liberated when she is able to act as a physical portal for her own and other collaborators' stories, ideas and sketches.

She is fascinated by the use of spirals, momentum and opposition/conflict in the body, and integrates these functions into her ever-evolving movement practice. Her past work has been presented by Expanse Festival, Feats Festival of Dance, Mile Zero Dance, New Dance Horizons, and Nestfest. In the fall of 2021, Katherine’s new solo work “In pieces” was presented by Mile Zero Dance and Springboard Dance’s Fluid Fest, which includes live music by composer Julian Anderson-Bowes. She is grateful to be supported by Edmonton Arts Council, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and Canada Council for the Arts.

Katherine is a co-artistic director of Nostos Collectives, a program coordinator for Kaeja d’Dance, and is the organizer for Westside Movement Sessions (a platform for emerging instructors in Tkaronto). Her curiosity for movement has brought her to intensives and companies such as PARTS (Brussels), Company 605 and Radical System Art (Vancouver), and to David Zombrano (Flying Low), Elke Schroeder (Fighting Monkey), and Bonar McCallum (Ido Portal’s methods). Katherine has had the pleasure of sharing her movement and dance practices at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Canada's National Ballet School, Canadian Ice Academy, Ballet Edmonton, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, The University of Alberta, Edmonton Public School Board, and YYC Contemporary Training.

Michelle Silagy is a Toronto-based contemporary dance artist who maintains a close relationship between her arts practice and her teaching practice of 32 years. Silagy received an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Drama from San Diego State University (CA); is a School of Toronto Dance Theatre (STDT) Graduate (ON); and completed a Master of Fine Arts at the Department of Dance at York University (ON).

Her choreographic work has been presented in Amsterdam, Inuvik, New York, Winnipeg, Montreal, across Ontario, and in Toronto venues including The Gardiner Museum, where she presented ReTrace, a multi-generational, multi-ability performance event. A Master DanceAbility International© facilitator, Silagy has performed and trained with DanceAbility founder Alito Alessi at the ImPulsTanz International Dance Festival in Vienna’s Museumsquartier, the Cultural Centre, Baja California, Mexico, and at the Escuela Franklin Delano Roosevelt Latin America Disability Centre in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Silagy’s extensive work with children and youth joyfully informs her collaborations with artists of all ages through dance. As director of The Young Dancers’ Program at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre from 1990 to 2022, Silagy facilitated inclusive creative movement classes for children and youth which fostered dynamic movement invention in relationship to live music. She instigated WE Dance, inclusive dance for adults, in partnership with the STDT and Canada’s National Ballet School from 2017 to 2022. Silagy teaches extensively in Toronto and Ontario, and has designed curricula connecting movement with science and language for ages 3 to 16 for The Royal Conservatory of Music’s (RCM) Learning through the Arts Program, teaching throughout Canada and in London, England. She also originated dance models for RCM’s onsite research lab, Smart Start™, combining neuroscience with early childhood learning methods. As a pedagogue, Silagy develops multi-faceted training models while folding visual, movement, and dramatic influences into creative processes for the Artist in Community Education Masters Program at Queen’s University, and within pedagogical workshops for The School of Toronto Dance Theatre.

Silagy’s ongoing projects include Flying Hearts, a Dora-nominated Relaxed Performance made with Lynda Hill, which premiered at the International Wee Festival and toured in Ontario and Manitoba. Silagy works in partnership with Andrea Nann’s Dreamwalker Dance Company, Jumblies Theatre, and Moonhorse Dance Theatre, and is currently creating The Reverie Duets with dance artists who experience the world through widely diverse viewpoints.

George Stamos, originally from Nova Scotia, balances his time between Montréal, where he manages ongoing creative projects, and Toronto, where he is the Artistic and Pedagogical Associate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. George has maintained a prolific career in contemporary dance in Canada and internationally since 1993. Regularly performing in his work, George has project managed, coordinated and choreographed over fifty research/creation and production processes, and has danced in the work of pioneering choreographers, including Benoit Lachambre, Sara Shelton Mann, and Zab Maboungou. George is knowledgeable on a wide range of contemporary dance practices and has expertise in the areas of diversity and inclusion.

His creative projects have achieved success across the Americas and Europe. In 2009 and 2017, he was a resident artist at the Baryshnikov Arts Centre in New York, and from 2012 to 2015 at Agora de la Danse. In 2014, George received the much sought-after Northrop McKnight Fellowship for International Choreographers Award, and critical acclaim throughout his career for his inventive creations.

His artistic research and knowledge base have developed through his studies of Central African dance techniques at Nyata Nyata School of Dance (2011-2019), academic theories associated with communication studies, neurodiversity, gender and sexuality (2016-2019), and over 30 years of rigorous professional practice. In the autumn of 2022, he joined the faculty and staff of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. His piece Recurrent Measures DELUXE premiered at the Festival Buenos Aires Danza Contemporánea and his film SNAP, Archie’s Story, had its UK premiere at the Sunderland Shorts Film Festival and its NYC premiere at the Queens World Film Festival. He also performs in a piece titled Sister Nightlight that features guest performer Louise Lecavilier and musicians Remy Saminadin and Roger White. George is currently developing a film and performance project.

Pamela Wong Shoebottom holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa and a BFA Honours in Dance from York University. Pamela is currently the Recruitment & Training Associate at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. She is invested in an integrative approach to contemporary technique, yoga, somatic, and task-based movement research practices. Pamela’s national and international performance and choreographic work reflects her foundation in modern, contemporary dance, and interdisciplinary work. She choreographed Helen Tide, a Gala Award winning piece for the 2017 American College Dance Association festival. Pamela integrated contemporary dance and voice work as Resident Choreographer, dancer, and singer, with Pop/Cantopop singer and actress Teresa Carpio in Hong Kong. She explored immersive and interactive dance theatre as a dancer, singer, and interdisciplinary performer with Joe Goode Performance Group in San Francisco.

Pamela is committed to advocating dance in education and community. As a lecturer of Modern, Ballet, and Introduction to Dance at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa (UHM), she developed her growing love for collaborative teaching in higher education. As Associate Director of Outreach for Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre (CCDT) in Toronto, she designed and delivered K-12 dance curriculum and performance programs. As Artistic Director of the UHM Dance Ensemble, she designed, directed, choreographed, and performed in interactive, interdisciplinary, and cultural Taiko and dance events with local and native Hawaiian students. As Associate Director for the Outreach Program Every Day Movement for CCDT, she developed and produced Every Day Movement DVD Teaching Aid for the Toronto District School Board K-12 dance curriculum. Pamela adjudicated and taught Modern and Ballet for the 2017 BC Performing Arts Provincial Festival.

Pamela has taught Modern and Contemporary technique in Toronto, Hong Kong, San Francisco, and Hawaii. Pamela’s teaching and learning practice is influenced by her work with artists from New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Toronto, such as Jeanine Durning, Joe Goode, Laurel Jenkins, Christine Wright, Teresa Carpio, Darryl Tracy, and Pat Miner. Pamela continues to immerse herself in diverse, inclusive, and multi-disciplinary creative work that fuels her focus as a performer, choreographer, dance artist-educator, and arts advocate.

Peggy Baker is acclaimed as one of the most outstanding and influential dancers of her generation. Born in Edmonton in 1952, her unique abilities are the result of an education in both dance and theatre, pursued initially through the drama department at the University of Alberta, with The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and in New York at the Martha Graham School and the Herbert Berghof Studio. A vivid presence in contemporary dance since 1973, she has performed internationally with Lar Lubovitch, Mark Morris and Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, Doug Varone, Tere O’Connor, Molissa Fenley, Charles Moulton (NYC), Fortier Danse-Creation (Montreal), James Kudelka, and Dancemakers and Toronto Dance Theatre (Toronto).

She established Peggy Baker Dance Projects in Toronto in 1990, and for the first 20 years she dedicated herself to solo performance, winning rapturous praise for the eloquence and depth of her dancing, and accolades for her collaborative partnerships with extraordinary choreographers, directors, musicians, and designers. Over its 32-year history, Peggy Baker Dance Projects has been presented at major festivals and dance centres worldwide, including Danspace, The Kitchen, Symphony Space, and the Harkness Festival in New York; the Luckman Center in Los Angeles; Jacob’s Pillow; the Copenhagen International Dance Festival; the Time Festival in Ghent, Belgium; The Holland Dance Festival; Tanzmesse in Dusseldorf, Germany; MoDaFe in Seoul, Korea; Landmark Tower in Yokohama, Japan; The Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato, Mexico; Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires; the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa, The High-Performance Rodeo in Calgary; The Banff Centre; Tangente, L’Agora de la danse, Cinquieme Salle, and Danse Danse in Montreal; and Fall for Dance North at Toronto’s SONY Centre. Beyond the concert stage, Baker has premiered five all-night choreographic events for Toronto’s Nuit Blanche, and situated three hour-long choreographic installations – move, interior with moving figures and land | body | breath – in public spaces and galleries across Canada. Works for film include her body as words with Jeremy Mimnagh, which premiered on media screens at Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square before being streamed worldwide by Baryshnikov Arts Centre, and Choreographic Gems – 9 short films capturing distillations of avant-garde dance works created in Toronto in the 1970s – made with William Yong. The Choreographer’s Trust has published a series of booklet/DVD sets that document six of her landmark solos, and she is the subject of a book by Carol Anderson, Unfold – a Portrait of Peggy Baker, published by Dance Collection Danse.

Among her many honours are the Governor General’s Award, the Premier’s Award, the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, six Doras, the Toronto Arts Council’s Margo Bindhardt Award, Honorary Doctorates from the University of Calgary and York, the 2010 Walter Carsen Prize, a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, the George Luscombe Award for Mentorship, and TAPA’s 2019 Silver Ticket Award. Baker is a fellow of the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy and an Artist-in-Residence at Canada’s National Ballet School.

Marie France Forcier is a choreographer, performer, writer, and pedagogue of western contemporary dance forms, born in Montreal. Through studio work, public performance, and community initiative, she researches the intersection of somatic practices, trauma studies, and choreography. An Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Calgary’s School of Creative and Performing Arts, she received her conservatory training from the School of Toronto Dance Theatre in 2005, her Master of Fine Arts in Choreography from York University in Toronto in 2014, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Practice at Liverpool John Moores University through the Transart Institute in New York/Berlin as a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada doctoral fellow.

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 live and on film in disciplines ranging from family theatricals to contemporary dance, to performance art to aerial circus, touring extensively on four continents. Her trade articles can be found at The Dance Current, and her academic writing, in the books Literature and Psychology: Writing, Trauma and the Self (2019), Topography of Trauma: Fissures, Disruptions and Transfigurations (2019), What Happened? Re-presenting Traumas, Uncovering Recoveries (2019), and the journal Dance Chronicles (Taylor and Francis/ Routledge).

She was an Artistic Director at Hub 14 in Toronto from 2013-2015, a Board Director at Dancers Studio West for three seasons in Calgary from 2018-2021 (Chair: 2020-2021), the Dance Division Lead at the University of Calgary from 2021-2022, and continues to serve on several local, national, and international juries and committees.

Strongly tied to Eastern Canada, she lives with her two young sons and works within the traditional territories of the people of Treaty 7 and the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.

David Norsworthy is a Tkarón:to/Toronto-based dance artist, choreographer, producer, and arts educator of mixed Japanese immigrant/British settler descent, who is, as quoted by the Globe and Mail, “an exceptionally lucid performer, impressive and articulate”. A graduate of The Juilliard School, he delights in asking questions and believes deeply in the transformative power of dancing. David has performed with dance companies and collaborated with dance creators in Canada, the USA, Sweden, and Australia, and his choreographic career includes independently produced full-length works, international tours, and commissioned projects for companies, universities, and schools. David is the grateful recipient of the Living Arts Centre’s Ron Lenyk Award, and was one of three finalists for the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award. David is a Co-Founder/Co- Director of TOES FOR DANCE, a Board Member of CanAsian Dance, and a part-time Rehearsal Director for Norrdans, a contemporary dance company in Sweden.

(www.davidnorsworthy.com)

Tilman O'Donnell (German/U.S.) received his training at the National Ballet School in Toronto, Canada. He joined The Göteborg Ballet in 2001, Staatstheater Saarbrücken in 2002, Cullberg Ballet from 2003-2007, The Forsythe Company from 2007-2012, and was a guest artist from 2012- 2015. He has been freelancing as a choreographer, dancer and teacher since 2010.

Tilman made his debut as a choreographer in 2002 with Del A, receiving first prize in two major international choreographic competitions. In 2005 he was nominated both ”Dancer To Watch” and “Choreographer To Watch” by the magazine Tanz, and as “Hoffnungsträger” in 2015 by the same publication. In 2017 he was once again named “Dancer to Watch” for his performance of Whatever Singularity #453: Solo for Tilman/Dancing with Alain. He has made works for Cullberg, SPIRA Jönköping/Cullberg To Come, Staatstheater Graz, The Göteborgs Operans Danskompani, University of Dance Stockholm, Corpus Copenhagen/The Royal Danish Opera House, The Danish University of Dance, Weld Theater Stockholm, Skånes Dansteater, as well as producing his own works. Recent works include: This Is (2010), August did not have what is commonly considered good taste as far as furniture is concerned.. (2012), The Disambiguation Project (2013), Whatever Singularity #453: Solo For Maxime/Dancing With Alain (2014), In Life & Love & So On (2015), These & Those & Upon Us (2016), In Some Sense (2016-2018), Corpus Dogme: On The One Hand (2019), History Was Written By The Losers: Hoedown/Showdown (2020), and The View From Here (2021).

In 2022/2023, the work OnBach (working title) will be presented by Dansens Hus, Stockholm, supported by Kulturådet/Swedish Arts Council.

His work has been presented among others by Radial System (Berlin), BoraBora (Århus), Festspielhaus Hellerau (Dresden), Kampnagel (Hamburg), Festspielhaus St. Pölten (Austria), Dansens Hus (Stockholm), and Weld (Stockholm).

In recent years he has worked as a dancer in projects by Fabrice Mazliah (In Act & Thought, The Manufactured Series #2: Made in China, Telling Stories), Deborah Hay (Solo Commissioning Project, Figure A Sea, Animals On The Beach), and Laurent Chetouane (Duett Für Hörende Körper), and toured internationally with these works.

Most recently, he has collaborated with William Forsythe on the exhibition format Acquisition Körperschaft, which opened at the Folkwang Musuem in Essen, Germany, and is slated to tour internationally in the visual arts context. In addition, he has worked with Anne Imhof, most recently in her work Natures Mortes at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

From 2015 - 2018 Tilman was a member of the multidisciplinary artist group HOOD as part of a fellowship program at PACT Zollverein, Essen, Germany. In addition, Tilman was a SITE Stipend recipient in 2019 & 2020.

In addition, he teaches extensively, including at The University of Roehampton (London), University of Dance and Circus (Stockholm), Batsheva Dance Company (Tel Aviv), Cullberg (Stockholm), The Freedom Theater (Ramallah, West Bank), Mark Morris Dance Center (New York), UCLA Center for the Art of Performance (Los Angeles), University of Dance Copenhagen, Göteborgs Operans Danskompani (Göteborg), Esklan Art Factory (Rome), P.A.R.T.S (Brussels), Gypsy Project (Los Angeles), Dans Alliansen (Stockholm), Danish Dancers & Actors Foundation (Copenhagen), PACT Zollverein/Folkwang Schule (Essen), Artists Summit/Tanzplatform PACT Zollverein (Essen), Norrdans (Härnosand), Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch (Wuppertal), Freie Universität (Berlin), Transformation Dans (Montreal), and at CODA Festival (Oslo).

Finally, he is trained as an osteopath, with an emphasis on biodynamics.