May 2023
Julien Bradley-Combs (he/him) is a guitarist, composer and educator living in Tkaronto, Canada. He began playing guitar at age 17, and although he started his musical journey late, his passion and dedication to the craft has made him a highly versatile and in-demand working musician. Julien has become involved in playing many styles of music in a variety of settings, feeling at in any genre from modern jazz, hot-club jazz manouche, to rock, metal and pop. He is has been featured in many of Ontario's premier jazz festivals (TD Toronto Jazz Fest, Beaches Jazz fest, Niagara Jazz Fest and Kensignton Market Jazz Fest, to name a few) and is a member of many highly lauded groups, such as the award-winning Denielle Bassesl's group and Tak Arikushi's trio. Julien is also heavily involved in ZESTcreative, an interdisciplinary collective comprised of contemporary dancers and musicians, which aims to reimagine the relationship between artistic mediums as well as making art more accessible to a wider group of audiences.
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Eva Connelly-Miller
Eva Connelly-Miller (she/her) is a contemporary dance artist and creator based in Tkaronto. Her dance practice has taken her to Portugal, Berlin, New York, Montreal, and she graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University with honours where she received the coveted Nadia Pott’s Heart and Soul award. She is one of the founding members of ZESTcreative, a dance and music collective, which has performed at various shows and festivals, including two full-length works at The Toronto Fringe in 2019 and 2022. She has a keen interest in finding innovative ways in merging various artistic disciplines. Professionally she has had the pleasure of working with Louis Laberge-Cote, Kate Hilliard, The Playground Project, Candice Spykers, Martha Hart, Lofty Goal Project, among others. She believes in the power of art to help create compassionate beings, and approaches her work with curiosity, wonder, and is often driven by collaboration and the world around her.
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June 2023
Joanna Anderson graduated from the Mirror Dance Program in 2016 and has continued to train, create and perform in so-called Vancouver B.C. She was a part of creating and performing in the production “Look. See.” In 2017 and also performed alongside Kim Stevenson, Antonio Somera and Kevin Locsin in the 2019 production, “Accelerate 2.0.” She has choreographed and co-reated movement in music videos for Jon Bryant, Jodi Pederson, Jenny Banai and most recently for Jordan Klassen's music video, “Identivacation." She has co-created and performed in the film, “Hoover Dance: Nobody Does It Like You,” for the SGPS #9 Digital Edition of Shooting Gallery Performance. She has also performed and co-created for an untitled work in 12 Minutes Max. Her most recent project has been a dance piece titled, “I Relate To That,” created for Pacific Theatre’s 2021 New Roots Festival. She is curious about cultivating awareness, curiosity and connection around the body and how it is tied to emotional expression and the human psyche. She hopes her continued work in this area can create more understanding and empathy in regards to what it is to be human and how our experiences are unique yet similar in so many ways.
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July 1-15 2023
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July 16-31 2023
Out of the Box Productions
Development of their new work "a Criminal Waste of Time"
~an immersive, site specific physical theatre piece that investigates the consequences of sleep debt in our modern life.
“sleep is a criminal waste of time and a heritage from our cave days”
~ Thomas Edison … the inventor of the light bulb
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Liz Hobbs
Liz Hobbs (she/her) is a theatre director, festival coordinator, multi-disciplinary performer, and instructor based in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton), Alberta. She holds an MFA in Directing from the University of Alberta. Most recently she directed Fish at the Bottom of the Sea (Alberta Circus Arts Festival), The Secret Garden (Shuswap Theatre in Salmon Arm, BC) and assistant directed 4000 Miles (Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut). Other selected credits include 13 Encounters at the Bottom of the Sea (Fringe Theatre’s Spotlight Series), Featuring Loretta, Criminal Genius, An Evening with Satan, Judith, The End of Civilization, Dirt (Punctuate! Theatre,) Venus in Fur (assistant director), Encounters (Citadel Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (Shuswap Theatre), Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theatre Prospero). She is currently the Director of Programming and Communications for the Edmonton International Street Performers Festival. Previously, Liz worked as the Associate Festival Director for the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival, co-founded Punctuate! Theatre as Artistic Director, was the Associate Artistic Director of Theatre Prospero, and the writer and Folk Trail Co-ordinator for the Silver Skate Festival. She has taught directing, acting and performer-created theatre at the University of Alberta and has trained in various circus disciplines in Canada and Australia.
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September 2023
Originally from Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton), Katherine is an eastern european dance artist currently based in Tkaronto. She is an alumni of Victoria School of the Arts and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and has been learning from and collaborating with artists from across Turtle Island for the last 5 years of her professional career. Good Women Dance Collective (GWDC), Kaeja d’Dance, Mile Zero Dance, Nostos Collectives, The Platform TO, Peggy Baker, Shay Kuebler/ Radical System Art, Tia Kushniruk, Mateo Galindo Torres, Meghann Michalsky, Sasha Ivanochko, and Naishi Wang have all been integral to informing Katherine's current practice and imaginative physicality.
Katherine’s choreographic work has been presented by Expanse Festival, Fluid Fest, FODAR (Market Dances), Mile Zero Dance, and New Dance Horizons. Through an improvisational practice and the creation of solo work, she continues to dissect her artistic values. She is currently working on a full-length duet with her collaborator Meghann Michalsky, and a project called “Inner Works: A Solo Study'' which includes commissions from Tia Kushniruk, Sasha Ivanochko and Peggy Baker. Katherine is passionate about cultivating community and practicing in shared spaces; she coordinates a training platform called westside movement sessions in Tkaronto which creates space for emerging facilitators and teachers to share their practice with others. Spirals, momentum and opposition or conflict in the body, and the use of the eyes as a limb are constants in her dancer toolbox. Her passion for sharing movement and ideas with others has brought her to teach at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Canada's National Ballet School, Ballet Edmonton, The University of Alberta, and YYC Contemporary Training. |
October 2023
Cindy Poremba has maintained an experimental gamemaking and curatorial practice for almost two decades with a particular interest in captured media practices, and emerging technologies.
They are an Associate Professor in Digital Futures at OCAD University (Tkaranto), and Co-Director of OCAD’s game:play Lab. Their award-winning game, curation, and “New Arcade'' work (independently and as a member of the kokoromi collective), has been featured in both game and digital art exhibitions internationally. |