2012 Biographies

Performance Biographies

Lina Cruz
In The Studio | June 2, 2012 | Choreographer: SINK

“Stylized to the minimum gesture”, Montreal choreographer Lina Cruz creates with a very personal signature, always evolving on the margins of mainstream dance. She has presented her work in Spain, Switzerland, France, Mexico, and the United States, and performs regularly in Montreal. After 15 years as an independent choreographer, Lina Cruz founded Fila 13 Productions in 2003. The company tours increasingly in Quebec and extending to the rest of Canada and Europe. Cruz’s training and early career took place mainly in Spain. She moved to Montreal in 1989, where she is dedicated to her own creative work.
www.fila13.com

Femmes du Feu
In The Park | May 31, June 2 & 3 | Presenting: BOB
Founded in 2003, Femmes du Feu is co-run by dance artists Holly Treddenick and Sabrina Pringle.  Since its conception, Femmes du Feu have actively been creating and presenting aerial dance works and investigating new ways to combine their dance backgrounds with their aerial skills. This has included not only finding new ways to dance with traditional circus apparatuses like bungee in Impossibility (2007), or silks in Dive (2009), but has more recently branched into invented apparatuses such as the anchor, rope or pole, as in The Plank (2010) or Airship (2011). Femmes du Feu has presented their aerial dance works at various events including At The Wrecking Ball (2007), Hysteria Festival (2009), London/ Toronto/ Winnipeg Fringe Festivals (2009 & 2010), and Rhubarb Festival (2010).

firstthingsfirst productions
On The Stage A | June 1 | Presenting: a view is a view is a view
firstthingsfirst productions (fftp) was formed in 2005 by powerhouse dancers Kate Franklin and Kate Holden. Through their mandate to commission new contemporary dance works, ftfp has built a body of work that is thoughtful, transparent and honest. Powerful in its ability to communicate and clear in its kinetic language, ftfp’s repertoire is engaging and inspiring.

Gadfly
On The Stage A | June 1 | Presenting: Klorofyl
Public Workshop Instructor | June 2 | Workshop: House Dance
Apolonia Velasquez and Ofilio Portillo formed Gadfly in 2008. These choreographers envisioned Urban Dance genres that were imbibed with qualities of humanity, and also wanted to see some flavour added to contemporary dance. With this vision, other established dancers began to collaborate and a contemporary urban dance ensemble was formed—creating a forum for artists to express themselves and push urban dances to the forefront. In just three years, Gadfly has built a reputation based on its outstanding performers and fresh and eccentric concept. Contemporary Urban Dancing is more than just a fusion of dance styles—Gadfly merges art with entertainment and breathes spontaneity into performances, introducing audiences to the energy of the urban dance culture.

Kyra Jean Green
In The Street | June 1 | Choreographer: I II
Kyra Jean Green was born in France and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida. She obtained her BFA in dance from The Juilliard School in May, 2006. Upon leaving Juilliard she has danced with CityDance Ensemble, Culture Shock D.C., Cas Public, Destins Croisés, and Ballet Creole. She has set choreography on Hubbard Street II, Eisenhower Dance Ensemble, Bosma Dance, Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts, and Bridges of Cadence Contemporary, and was commissioned by the Kennedy Center to present an evening of her choreography. She was awarded the Audience Choice Award for her piece presented in the 2010 Fresh Blood performance with the Chimera Project. Kyra currently dances for and works closely with Cadence Progressive Contemporary Ballet and Jasmyn Fyffe Dance, both based in Toronto. She has recently presented work with Jasmyn Fyffe for Dance Matters, and Labspace. Kyra has also recently choreographed a music video for local Toronto music producers, Torro Torro.

Allen Kaeja
On The Stage A | June 1 | Choreographer: Armour/Amour
Gemini nominated Director and award-winning Choreographer, Allen Kaeja entered the field of dance after 9 years of wrestling and Judo. He has created over 100 dance pieces and choreographed for 26 films. He is Co-Artistic Director of Kaeja d’Dance with Karen Kaeja and is co-founder of the CanAsian International Dance Festival. Allen receives commissions across the globe and his works have been presented in festivals around the world. He is currently on faculty at STDT & RyersonU. Allen has also just published his second book, “Transcending Media” and currently has commissions in Mexico, USA and across Canada.
www.kaeja.org

Kinesis Dance somatheatro
On The Stage B | June 2 | Presenting: Box⁴
Public Workshop Instructor | June 3 | Workshop: Performing: Beyond Technique
Kinesis Dance somatheatro is a Vancouver-based dance company founded in 1986 by Choreographer and Artistic Director Paraskevas Terezakis. The Company has produced over 40 works including 11 full length pieces. Kinesis Dance somatheatro has performed in Canada, The United States, Greece, Croatia, Istria, Turkey, Montenegro, Germany, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Romania, Belgium, Poland, and Italy. Terezakis work has been the subject of three Bravo Fact Films for television. Terezakis is passionate about contemporary dance awareness and education. As such he enthusiastically conducts workshops both in Vancouver and while on tour.

Sasha Kleinplatz
In The Park | May 31, June 2 & 3 | Choreographer: Chorus Two

Since graduating from the Concordia Contemporary Dance Department, Sasha Kleinplatz has presented her work at Espace Tangente, Studio 303, Performance Mix Festival, and the OFF-TA. In 2003 Sasha created the company Wants&Needs Danse with partner Andrew Tay. For the past eight years, the company has been organizing the popular Montreal dance events: Piss in the Pool, Short&Sweet, and Involved. These events have been lauded for bringing the Montreal dance community together, for bridging gaps in age, language and experience, and for giving choreographers a rare opportunity to share with other dance professionals. Wants&Needs Danse seeks to broaden the audience for contemporary dance, and to find innovative approaches and venues for creating and presenting dance.

Susan Lee
In The Park | May 31, June 2 & 3 | Choreographer: Evocation – gentle rain falling
Susan Lee is a Toronto-based dance artist with a longstanding interest in interdisciplinary collaboration and improvisation in performance. Susan’s professional career spans over twenty years, performing in numerous works by established Canadian choreographers across Canada, the US, Europe and Asia. She is very pleased to set her structured improvisation Evocation – gentle rain falling on Guelph’s Fall on Your Feet Dance Collective. This collective explores collaborative, improvisational movement ideas and practices and provides improvisational performance opportunities in and around Guelph. Collective members are Janet Johnson, Catrina Von Radecki, Georgia Simms, Kelly Steadman, Lynette Segal and Tanya Williams.

LINK Dance
On The Stage B | June 2 | Presenting: Experiments: where logic and emotion collide
Yukon born and Vancouver based, LINK Dance specializes in creating cross-disciplinary performance both for stage and site-specific locations. Since 2001, collaborations with scientists, restorative justice advocates, legal scholars, locative media, and the public (through the critically-acclaimed Breakfast Dance) all have influenced the creativity of this company. LINK’s mission is to inspire social movement through physical motion, a concept that evolved over ten years of probing ways to engage audiences more fully into the sophisticated language of movement. LINK Dance tours in Canada, the US and Europe due to its trademark style of creating socially-relevant dance, inspired by dialogue.

Meghan MacNeil
In The Street | June 1 | Choreographer: Alter & Define
Meghan is a professional dancer, choreographer and teacher. Originally from Quisapamsis New Brunswick, Meghan began her training at Rothesay Ballet School. Further refining her craft, she studied at The National Ballet, The Royal Winnipeg Ballet and completed her post-secondary education in Dance, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2005 from Ryerson University. Meghan has a passion for collaboration; past works have included live spoken word poetry, music and various other media elements. Teaching continues to be an important part of her artistic development; Meghan has had the privilege of teaching and hosting choreographic workshops at High Schools and universities across Ontario and New Brunswick. Meghan works closely with dancers, improving their foundation technique, contact improvisation skills, as well as their own sense of artistry.

PARTS+LABOUR_DANSE
In The Street | June 1 | Presenting: The Calculated Risk Project [Remix]
PARTS+LABOUR_DANSE is a young Montreal-based dance company co-founded by choreographers Emily Gualtieri and David Albert-Toth, who began collaborating in 2006. They have since presented their work throughout Quebec, Ontario, and in New York City. The company’s work, infused with a distinctly minimalist theatricality that exploits the expressive potential of the fully present body in movement, dives unapologetically into the rich complexities of the human condition. Inspired by the effortful process towards resolution more than by resolution itself, their research is framed by an underlying interest in abstraction and deconstruction of classical, urban, and contemporary dance idioms.

Pollux Dance
In The Street | June 1 | Presenting: Not Quite There
Pollux Dance was founded in 2010 by choreographer Leslie-Ann Glen, a native of Ottawa, Ontario. Glen pulls inspiration from human hearts, depicting emotional concepts and experiences that would otherwise translate poorly through language, and communicating them through physical dance. Extracting these intangible, though commonly felt experiences and rendering them communicable, her hope is that they become relatable to other human beings. Glen selects technically proficient dancers and challenges them with conveying their more human attributes, letting the lines between dancer and pedestrian blur so that the magic of the art and the reality of the world can meet somewhere in the middle.

Suzanne Miller & Allan Paivio Productions
In The Studio | June 2 | Choreographer: UPdown
This year marks 25 years of production history that reflects Suzanne Miller and Allan Paivio Productions energetic collaborations in contemporary dance and music – influenced by total theatre, where all elements form an integral whole. UPdown was presented as a world-premiere at The Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival in the Palestine Authority in April 2011 including performances in Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. UPdown will return to the Festival in 2012 for an extended tour including Beirut Lebanon, Amman Jordan and Ramallah Palestine. A commissioned work entitled ‘water” from Palestine's premiere performing arts troupe, the Sareyyet Ramallah Troupe for Music and Dance, is scheduled for the summer of 2012.

tiger princess dance projects
On The Stage B | June 2 | Presenting: Cypress
tiger princess dance projects (tpdp) was founded in 1995, to support the activities of Yvonne Ng as a performer, choreographer, arts educator, and producer. tpdp creates and preserves dance works with a unique Canadian perspective reflecting Artistic Director Yvonne Ng’s personal and artistic vision, which involves experimentation and collaboration with a spectrum of artistic disciplines. The company has established an international touring repertoire comprised of an ever-growing number of works by renowned Canadian and international choreographers. Since 1995, tpdp has commissioned, produced and presented thirty-three works. These works have been shown across Canada, in Ireland, Germany, Australia and Singapore and have received critical and commercial acclaim. Four of the works have garnered eight Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations for performance and choreography. tpdp is also a member of CanDance Network, Canadian Dance Assembly, Creative Trust, Dance Ontario, Toronto Alliance for Performing Arts and Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists.

Zata Omm Dance Projects
In The Park | May 31, June 2 & 3 | Presenting: Bodhi Tree Duet
Zata Omm is ‘Zen And The Actualization Of Modern Movement’. Zata Omm is a contemporary dance company based in Toronto. It was founded by artistic director William Yong. Zata Omm endeavours to be an innovator in the creation of dance works of a contemporary nature by involving professionals from all disciplines. The company often involves itself in multi-disciplinary, interdisciplinary and collaborative dance projects. Zata Omm's Frames was nominated for 2009 Dora Mavor Moore Award for 'Outstanding New Choreography'. Zata Omm latest full-length production Eight Ways From Mara was premièred in October 2011 at the Enwave Theatre. Please visit www.zataomm.org