Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood is a leading international teacher, performer and creator in the field of instantaneous choreography, compositional improvisation and contact improvisation since 1975. He is the artistic director of AH HA Productions, a project oriented company dedicated to improvisation. Andrew studied, taught and performed with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith and Nita Little, the founding members of Contact Improvisation. He also has a background in gymnastics, athletics, yoga, contemporary dance, somatic studies, and Aikido. His work has been presented in numerous international festivals since 1980. Andrew danced for the companies of Fulcrum, Jo Lechay, Marie Chouinard, and Jean-Pierre Perreault and has also collaborated in performance with Marc Boivin, Peter Bingham, Lin Snelling, Benoit Lachambre, Chris Aiken, Kirstie Simson, Ray Chung, Lisa Nelson and Paula Zacharias among many others. He is the recipient of the Canada Council’s Jacqueline-Lemieux award for the year 2000. www.ahha-productions.ca

Originally from Vancouver, Antonija Livingstone currently lives and works in Montreal after several years living and working nomadically throughout Europe. Her practice spans a wide range of interests and abilities (including ballet, drag and martial arts), from which she facilitates her business of transformation. She collaborates with a diverse range of artists including Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, Benoît Lachambre, Vera Mantero, George Stamos, Antonia Baehr, and Heather Kravas.

Born in Seoul, raised in Vancouver, Chanti Wadge relocated to Montréal in 2001 where she has been working as an interdisciplinary movement-based artist. Her work is typically influenced by her curiosities of ‘being’ human, in relation to the sacred and the mundane and in dialogue with the inner and outer natural worlds. Over the past 5 years her works (Just Beings, 100 Returnings, [thru]: the stilllife studies, [we]: fieldnotes from the bardo) have been presented locally and abroad, and include creation residencies in Berlin, Porto, O’Vertigo and Le Groupe. As a dancer she has worked for various artists such as Jose Navas, Martin Belanger, Ginette Laurin, Andrew Harwood, Emmanuel Jouthe, and Isabelle Van Grimde. She is currently in residence at Companie Marie Chouinard and Studio Nyata Nyata creating a new work for a tour in France in 2010, as well choreographing at LADMMI. When not in Montreal she enjoys gardening and the silence of living in the Laurentian forest with her partner and cat. www.fromthegroundonup.blogspot.com

In 1993, Dana Gingras (with Noam Gagnon) co-founded The Holy Body Tattoo as a multi-media dance company. Since its inception, the company has toured world-wide and captured a number of significant awards and honours for both its stage and film work. In 2006 Gingras formed a satellite company, Animals of Distinction, and presented Smash Up, a co production with the Festival TransAmériques in May 2008. Dana is an Associate Dance Artist of Canada’s National Arts Centre. www.holybodytattoo.org

Dana Michel is a mover. Her training scales tip towards athletics. Before tossing herself into dance at twenty-five, she was competitively involved in track and touch football – pivotal in her constructions. Her work has been presented extensively since 2005 including on Mange ta Ville – a program on ARTV (Radio-Canada), at DanceOff! PS122 – New York, at The Proving Ground – Salt Lake City and at The Festival of Choreographic Miniatures – Belgrade, Serbia. A relative newcomer to contemporary dance, Dana has already been recognized for her achievements, winning the Studio 303 Best Dance Choreography prize at the Montreal Fringe Festival and the Montreal Hour’s “Best in Dance” in 2005. In 2006, she was named “Best Emerging Choreographer” by the Globe and Mail. Most recently, and by popular vote, she’s been twice listed in the Mirror’s Best of Montreal (2008 and 2009) top ten choreographers. “Michel… is a killer soloist who tackles the warped, frenetic and fierce rhythms of her piece with precision and fiery authority…” (InfiniteBody, 2007).
www.myspace.com/danamichel www.youtube.com/user/bandofbless

Dynamique au sein du milieu de la danse montréalaise depuis plus de trente ans, Daniel Soulières est le fondateur, directeur artistique et directeur général de la compagnie Danse-Cité qu’il a créée en 1982 et qui a engendré plus de 260 créations. En tant qu’interprète, Daniel Soulières participe à plus de 180 créations d’une cinquantaine de chorégraphes, dont Louise Bédard, Danièle Desnoyers, James Kudelka, Jean-Pierre Perrault et Linda Rabin. Également membre fondateur du Regroupement québécois de la danse, Daniel Soulières reçoit le Prix Jacqueline-Lemieux qui souligne l’ensemble de sa carrière. De plus, Danse-Cité est honorée par le Conseil des Arts de la ville de Montréal, en tant que finaliste 2002 du prix de la Ville de Montréal. www.danse-cite.com www.facebook.com/danse-cite

Dario Milard est connu pour sa gestuelle hors du commun et intrigante qui crée des ponts entre les styles de danse. Ce qui le distingue dans son art est sa recherche continuelle à pousser les limites des mouvements préconçus et sa manière originale de surprendre ou de bouleverser le spectateur. Principalement danseur autodidacte depuis 6 ans, Dario a décidé d’apprendre la danse contemporaine au DEC de danse au Cégep de Montmorency en 2007. Sa plus grande réalisation à ce jour est sa participation comme danseur dans le top 20 de So You Think You Can Dance Canada.

The multitalented Deborah Dunn was first introduced to dance at university where she was studying visual arts. The art form immediately began to influence her drawing and painting, the body finally leaping off the canvas and leading her to dance class. She then found herself steadily seduced by the theatre, first as a photographer and costume designer, then as a performer and choreographer. She founded her company Trial & Eros in Vancouver in the early 90s and is now based in Montreal. The company has been touring nationally for the past fourteen years. Deborah has created eight evening-length works: Trial & Eros, Pandora’s Books, The Little Queen, The Birds, Blackmail, Elegant Heathens, Nocturnes and Four Quartets. She has also been very active as a soloist with works like Moth, Fuse, Burnt Norton, Macbeth’s Wife and now Four Quartets, the latter two works marking her first explorations of live text and movement. www.trialanderos.com

Emmanuel Jouthe is a choreographer, dancer, and artistic director of company Danse Carpe Diem/Emmanuel Jouthe, as well as a membre of Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique. Encouraging the exploration and création of contemporary dance, he created and danced in many works such as Le Sabot de Maogani, FH…les petites morts de la paume, 3 Centauromachia 4, M, and Dimanche XXIe (Vitrail, Aechylos, Æternam). His most recent work, a trio of men entitled Staccato Rivière, has been well received both by the public and critics. His works have been presented in Montreal, through the province of Quebec, and Canada as well as in some European cities. His next creation, CINQ HUMEURS is planned to premiere in Winter 2010. Emmanuelle danced for Paul-André Fortier and Pierre-Paul Savoie, and also participated as a dancer/performer in many Danse-Cité’s productions : Célébration I and II, Hautnah by Felix Ruckert, 63 apparitions by Michel F. Côté and the collective improvisation Treize lunes. www.emmanueljouthe.com

Frédérick Gravel is a choreographer, dancer, lighting designer, musician and researcher. As a choreographer, his latest creation is Gravel Works. Created at Tangente in October 2008, this piece has been presented at the TransAmériques Festival (FTA) in Spring 2009 and will soon tour around the world. Gravel is the co-founder of La 2e Porte à Gauche, a production company in contemporary dance. He is the director of Grouped’ArtGravelArtGroup (GAG), a grouping of performers in various art disciplines who participate in his creations.

Choreographer-artistic director George Stamos is known for generating intensely physical movement and a sophisticated use of humor. Featuring dynamic performers, in his choreographic practice Stamos also draws on extensive experience as a dancer and performance artist. A graduate of The School For New Dance Development in Amsterdam 1993, George worked on many productions outside of Canada before established a permanent residence in Montreal in 1998. Since 1998, Stamos’ choreographic works have been presented frequently in Montreal and have toured in Canada and Europe, receiving critical acclaim in both. Thru-out his career in dance George has worked as a dancer-performer with other choreographers including David Neumann, Koosil-ja (aka Kumiko Kimoto), Benoit Lachambre, José Navas, Danielle Desnoyers, Isabelle Van Grimde, Sara Shelton Mann, Mariko Tanabe, Roger Sinha, Lynda Gaudreau, and others. Stamos also regularly performs in his choreography. George is currently creating a duo with dancer-performer-singer Clara Furey titled Klōk to be premiered at The Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York in June 2010.

A daring dancer and choreographer with an uncommon style, Louise Bédard has created more than twenty works, from solos to sextets and from short to evening-length pieces. She has united the vocations of dancer and choreographer with finesse and discernment, constructing and deconstructing in a constant effort to reinvent the very essence of movement. Her works are invested with abandon, with rigour, with mystery, and with sensuality, as it could be seen in two of her latest productions, the duo Elles (2002) and the solo La Femme Ovale (2003). The language of her choreography describes the complexity and fragility of the human condition with poetry, humour, and irony, and this gives rise to works that are intense, impressed with an inexhaustible drive for authenticity, and great expressive force. Louise is a co-founder and member of Circuit-Est, a choreographic centre dedicated to research and creation, which also offers studio space, master classes and workshops to the dance community. She is currently a guest professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal’s Dance Department. www.lbdanse.org

Trained in classical dance, with a background in art history and philosophy, Lynda Gaudreau founded Compagnie De Brune in Montreal and launched an international career in 1992. Her very personal approach incorporates her movement research with elements from architecture, music, and the visual arts, in works for the stage, installations, laboratories, events, and video projects. Her work has been presented and commissioned across three continents by major festivals and organizations including the Venice Biennale, Theatre de la Ville de Paris, Dans in Kortrijk and Klapstuk in Belgium, and Batsheva Dance Company in Israel. She is on faculty at PARTS, the internationally renowned school founded in Brussels by Rosas director Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, and teaches around the world. Gaudreau’s repertoire includes the Encyclopœdia project (1999-2005), a choreographic suite for which she created four DOCUMENT(S), a series of works comprised of dance, exhibitions, video documents, and text. As guest curator at the Festival international de nouvelle danse 2003, she set up the Lucky Bastard laboratory, a series of evenings where approximately thirty Montreal artists from different creative disciplines came together in performances and improvisations. Other projects include Time flies, an installation commissioned by TanzQuartier Wien in Austria and also shown at the Nottdance Festival in the United Kingdom. In 2006 Gaudreau was artistic advisor for dance to the Festival TransAmériques (Montreal), and launched her Clash project, an event on and for creation in dance. www.lyndagaudreau.com

Martha Carter is a Director and Choreographer of dance, theatre, media and music works, primarily with her Vancouver-based company, mmHoP. Transcending her roots of classical music and ballet, Carter creates works that push the boundaries of style-fusion, including interdisciplinary stage pieces, site-specific events, experimental videos, and drag cabaret (Montreal’s House of Pride). Martha has taught at Ohio State, Concordia and Simon Fraser universities as well or private studios, notably Montréal’s Studio 303 that she co-founded in 1989. Since 1993 she has toured internationally with Compagnie Marie Chouinard as part-time Rehearsal and Touring Artistic Director. www.martamartahop.com

Roger Sinha, Artistic Director of Sinha Danse, has presented his works both nationally and internationally. His inspiration stems from a deep felt and intense need to reclaim his Indian heritage and to use this tradition to shape a modern expression of his reality. His work uses the universality of the body to explore cultural harmony and dissonance, and tensions created by the collision of East and West. Beautifully expressive mudras (hand gestures) and the rhythmically complex footwork of Indian dance combine with the full body movements of modern, ballet and the martial arts. Critical successes include Burning Skin (1992), LOHA (2000), THOK (2002) and Apricots Trees Exist (2004). A number of his works have been filmed for television. His recent creations are Zeros & Ones & Thread which is Roger’s 3rd collaboration with Natasha Bakht. He recently finished a one month tour of India in February with 5 cities 6 performances. www.sinhadanse.com

After dancing for several leading choreographers and companies in Vancouver, Sarah Williams moved to Montreal to join La La La Human Steps in 1990. Since then we have seen her on stage and in film, performing in the works of prominent directors and choreographers such as Robert Lepage, Jean Pierre Perreault, Martin Faucher, Emmanuel Jouthe, Léa Pool, Claude Fournier, Tim Southam, Nelson Henricks, The Holy Body Tattoo, Joe Ink, Louise Bédard Danse, and George Stamos. Sarah has commissionned and co-produced two integral programmes. She’s undertaking a third set of commissions that she will co-produce with Danse-Cité in part of theur 2009-2010 season. This program will include collaboration with Marie Brassard, Peter Chu, and Martin Bélanger.

Upon graduating from the Contemporary Dance Department at Concordia University, Sasha Kleinplatz was honored with the James Saya Award for Excellence. Sasha has completed choreographic residencies at the Fondation Jean-Pierre Perrault, the summer artist in residency program at Studio 303, a week-long intensive with Kathy Casey and her company Montreal Danse, and most recently a week at the O’Vertigo centre for creation. In 2009 Sasha received the Studio 303 award for Most Innovative Local Choreography at the St. Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival. She has shown her work in numerous venues including Espace Tangente, École Nationale de Théâtre, Studio 303, Théâtre D’Aujourd’hui, and Studio Mange mes Pieds. Sasha and her company Wants&Needs danse (co-founded with Andrew Tay) produce the popular Montreal dance events Piss in the Pool, and Short&Sweet. www.wantsandneeds.ca

Suzanne Miller & Allan Paivio Productions focuses on contemporary dance and music collaborations – using the body as a starting place, their work concentrates of the immediacy of action and the symbolic residue of representation. Together, they have toured throughout North America, Europe, Mexico and Venezuela. www.millerpaivio.com

The Choreographers is a group of 4 Montreal dance artists, Katie Ward, Thea Patterson, Peter Trosztmer and Audree Juteau who have banded together as part of an evil plan to take over the world! (or maybe just survive!) Between them they have worked with many Montreal choreographers and companies including: Marie Chouinard, Deborah Dunn, Montréal Danse, 4Dart, David Pressault (to name only a few). They are also active as creators and collaborators in their own work, and in other unique projects that inspire them- presenting dance is spaces ranging from small bars, to abandoned theatres, and larger stages across the country and internationally.

Victor Quijada is founding director of RUBBERBANDance Group (RBDG) since 2002, and Resident Artist of Cinquième Salle at Place des Arts de Montreal since 2007. Originally from Los Angeles, Quijada is a dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and director who collaborates with artists from various disciplines to create works that explore relationships through a unique blend contemporary, classical, and urban sensibilities. RBDG was the resident company of Usine C in 2004, 2006, and has toured throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and Japan. Quijada has created work for Pacific Northwest Ballet, Scottish Dance Theater, Le Jeune Ballet du Québec, and others. His work was first presented in Montreal at Studio 303’s Vernissage Danse #89 in 2001. www.rubberbandance.com

Zab Maboungou founded Le cercle d’expression artistique Nyata Nyata in 1986 for the creation, presentation and promotion of her work in a local, national and international context. This prolific artist is active on many fronts: as choreographer, performer, musician, author, and teacher of philosophy and dance, she has been working for the development and promotion of African dance in Quebec, across Canada and abroad. Zab Maboungou has been teaching the technique “Rhythms and movement” in Montreal for 20 years. Her reputation as artist, thinker and activist is well established, and she is often invited to hold workshops in universities and cultural centres (Halifax, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington D.C., South Korea, The Congo, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and England). www.nyata-nyata.org

Line Nault — Pre-show performance
- Only available in French -
À partir de concepts minimaux – basé la plupart du temps sur une logique linguistique ou systématique – Line Nault élabore des projets qui permettent à plusieurs domaines (comme le somatique, le médiatique et le numérique) de réfléchir les uns sur les autres. Cette réflexion-miroir devient le territoire même de ses créations. Elle qualifie sa démarche d’Intersticielle, autant dans son travail physiologique que dans son regard sur les pratiques artistiques. Elle a collaboré à titre d’interprète et de chorégraphe avec différents créateurs et organismes autant pour la danse, le théâtre, le multi, la performance et la variété. Parmi eux: Manon Oligny, Martin Bélanger, Brigitte Haentjens, Marie-Claude Poulin (kondition pluriel), Louis Champagne, Stéphane Crête, et les compagnies : Trans-Théâtre, Momentum, L’ange à deux têtes et Tournifoilie. Depuis 2002, elle se concentre sur son propre travail tout en se spécialisant en Éducation Somatique (UQAM). L’Espace des autres est sa cinquième création solo. www.nault.ca

Alexis O’Hara – Sound Composition
Straddling the divide between the worlds of experimental electronic music and the blackest comedy, Alexis O’Hara paints narrative atmospheres with her voice, a gaggle of electronic friends and the chimerical properties of electricity. She has been known to wear clothes that run on batteries. Sampling and processing her voice in real-time, she creates live performances that combine electro-acoustic maximalism, sexy beats and good old-fashioned story telling. (this is where i took out a sentence) Mutating, delinquent and fearless on stage, Alexis owes a great debt to Montreal’s lively cabaret and avant-noise scenes. The eclecticism of her work attracts international programmers from various disciplines from performance poetry and sound art to live art and music. www.dyslex6.com

Kathy Casey – Artistic Advisor
Born in North Carolina, Kathy Casey began her dance career in 1979 with the Chicago Moving Company. Settled in New York in 1980, she danced for many choreographers before joining the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1984. In 1989, she became a member of Susan Marshall & Company, with whom she had collaborated since 1981. From 1985-1989, she also assisted Mr. Lubovitch and Ms. Marshall in the creation and resetting of works on various international companies. Kathy Casey has danced in Europe, Asia and North America and continues to give numerous workshops across Canada and the United States. Welcomed by Montréal Danse in 1991, she was appointed Artistic Director of the company in March 1996. A major portion of her work now is choosing choreographers with unique and captivating voices and then assisting them in the creation of the works they create on the company. In addition to her work with Montréal Danse, she also works as an artistic counselor for several independent choreographers in Montreal, participates in various artistic juries and evaluates professional dance schools across Canada for the Canadian government. www.montrealdanse.com

Miriam Ginestier – General and Artistic Director of Studio 303
Miriam Ginestier has pursued a multi-faceted career as an artist and cultural worker. She is currently Artistic Director of Studio 303, where she has been involved since 1990. An innovator at Studio 303, Miriam prioritises the development of emerging artists and practices through residencies, workshops and mentorships, and events such as Factory Project, and the Edgy Women Festival. Miriam also organises queer cultural events in Montreal, including le Boudoir, a Vaudeville-style event (1994-2006); and the ongoing Meow Mix cabarets. Miriam is also a performer, DJ and filmmaker. Her three hommages to the silent film era, which have been screened internationally, feature her alter ego, Fannie Nipplebottom. In 2003, Miriam was awarded a Prix Arc-en-ciel as an hommage to ten years of outstanding contribution to queer culture in Montreal. Miriam has sat on several panels: History/Memory in women’s performance (Ljubljana, 2006); Electric Fences – performance and technology (Ottawa, 2007); and Canadian Networks (Calgary, 2007). In 2007, Miriam was also invited to speak to Concordia theatre students about queer performance in Montreal, and to lecture about queer culture in Montreal at a Gayline event. She currently sits on the board of OUT Productions, Culture Montréal and is the president of the RAIQ (Québec’s interdisciplinary arts association).

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