Originally from Lebanon, Chanel Cheiban works as a performer and choreographer in a variety of artistic projects at Tio’tia:ke (Montreal). She holds a degree in contemporary dance from Collège Montmorency, a UNESCO-recognized CID in the BIGBANG program, and is a graduate of the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal. In January 2025, she presented her multidisciplinary work, El kamar bi zaher, at Tangente, which she choreographed and performed. She also presented PLAYGROUND at Tangente in 2022, a co-creation with Maude Laurin-Beaulieu. She plays the qanun, an oriental stringed instrument in the zither family. She has been mentored by Naeem Shanwar, Didem Basar, and Ghassan Sahhab, while also developing her own more intuitive practice.

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Rayanne Fawaz is a choreographer, performer, and dance researcher from Lebanon, currently based between Montreal and Beirut. Trained in classical ballet in Beirut, she holds a Bachelor’s degree in Bioresource Engineering from McGill University. In 2024, she shifted towards professional dance, developing a practice that explores memory, migration, and the dance forms of the Levant, particularly dabke. She has participated in residencies in Beirut and Montreal. Her work approaches tradition as living matter, intertwining oral archives, everyday gestures, and community dances. Her interest in dabke stemmed from her studies of sustainable agricultural practices in Lebanon, where she rediscovered the repetitive everyday gestures in local dances, thereby questioning the movement’s origins.