Artist Residencies
THERE IS MY PEOPLE SLEEPING
WORK BY ROBIN POITRAS AND EDWARD POITRAS
MarcuS Merasty
PHOTO CREDIT: DANIEL PAQUET
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Lindsay Cottin is an accomplished versatile dancer and movement artist located in Regina, SK. She is currently a dance Artist-in-Residence with New Dance Horizons studio under the direction of Robin Poitras. With over a decade of experience, Lindsay is known both locally and internationally for her vibrant performances and teaching.
Lindsay is an award winning dancer who has performed with various dance companies such as; The Arabesque Dance Company and Tsingory Dance Company located in Toronto, ON, as well as the Los Angeles Bellydance Academy located in LA. She has trained in various styles from Contemporary, Bellydance, Ballet, Hip Hop, Dancehall, Salsa, Flamenco and Fighting Monkey movement. She is also an active movement member of the Flux Movement Practice studio. Presently Lindsay enjoys teaching various dance classes and is actively performing. Besides dance, Lindsay is a Holistic Practitioner and holds diplomas in Shiatsu Massage Therapy, Recreational Therapy and has various certifications in Reiki and energy work. |
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Mohana Das is a professional Indian Classical dancer with 25 years of experience and a Dance teacher for over 14 years. She is the recipient of the prestigious Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) Scholarship. She is a “National dance Competition “winner in her home country and performed as a soloist in major dance festivals in India, Bangladesh, Singapore. She also won prestigious dance awards from Government in different times. She is trained in different classical and folk-dance forms and learned under the tutelage of famous classical dance artists and Guru: Sharmila Banerjee, Shaswati Garai Ghosh, Benazir Salam, Vidushi Arushi Mudgal, Nritya Upadhyay Sandip Mallic and many more. She is enlisted as an Artist in National Television. She is the artistic director of her dance school in Regina named 'Nritya Kalpa Yog'. She along with her team performed in different festivals in Saskatchewan. Besides she is also working as Data scientist Manager at SaskTel.
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Photo credit: Daniel Paquet
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Gary Varro is a curator and visual artist based in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada where in 1996 he established and continues to present Queer City Cinema Festival and Performatorium Festival of Queer Performance. Since the mid 90’s, Gary Varro’s visual art practice has proposed critical relationships with the architectural and social spaces they occupy and reference. Areas of interest include: queer identities; public/private domains; self humiliation and vulnerability; spectacle and transgression; humour and pathos, endurance and the creative process itself.
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Bio coming soon.
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Davida Monk, Dance Artist
Davida Monk began her professional career in 1985 with Le Groupe de la Place Royale of Ottawa, and was instrumental in the development of Canada’s first professional contemporary dance laboratory for choreographic development, Le Groupe Dance Lab. Monk’s works have been presented across Canada and in Europe. In her current project Songs Without Words she has created 20 distinct solos which are available for viewing, complete with collaborator comments, studio notes and artists responses at www.m-body.ca. In addition to performing these works, Monk is in the process of giving them to other emerging and mature dance artists for their own performance repertoires. The next phases of Songs Without Words will also include productions of reimagined combinations of the SWW body of work. |
Photo credit: Shelley Bindon and Christie Schultz
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Shelley Bindon is a writer, communicator and multi-instrumentalist who is interested in how sound can accompany, augment and undermine communications. She designs soundscapes that dive into and play off the emotional context and content of art works.
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Photo Credit: Daniel Paquet
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Bill Coleman is a choreographer and performer His choreographic work has been presented at the Tramway in Glasgow, New York’s Dance Theatre Workshop, Place Des Arts, Montreal, Alexandrinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, Russia and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Bill collaborated with the legendary jazz band the Sun Ra Arkestra to create Hymn To The Universe in 2008, and is featured in OutSideIn, a 40-minute 3D film that premiered at the 2015 Venice Biennale.
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photo credit : Orange Slice Photography
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The first production by Moving Roots (MR) performance arts company with an eponymous name Moving Roots: Reflections. This multidisciplinary contemporary arts debut show combines contemporary dance, circus, film, and poetry while premiering six works by Anastasia Evsigneeva, Anna Protsiou, Robin Poitras, and Edward Poitras. MR: Reflections is a collaborative process of developing lights, projections, and music with guest artists that creates the magic to the event and makes it unforgettable. In the creation process artists were inspired by mythology, rituals and traditions of different cultures, ideas from psychology and philosophy, personal experiences, nature of the human psyche, emotions, feelings, and their manifestation in the body. The show features live music by Rayannah, and music by Chiyoko Szlavnics.
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Jeanette Kotowich is a Vancouver-based dance artist and choreographer of Cree Métis and European ancestry. Originally from Treaty 4 territory Saskatchewan, Jeanette is passionate about blending contemporary and Indigenous practices. Jeanette is currently choreographing a full-length, solo dance performance called Kisiskâwican. Previous works include: Eloise (2017) presented by Magnetic North, Vancouver International Dance Festival, Native Earth Performing Arts, Raven Spirit Dance, New Dance Horizons, and Bulkley Valley Concert Association. Steppin’ (2015) toured more than 30 stages across Canada, including BC, Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Yukon. Jeanette is a co-founder of Métis dance collective Acuhko Simowuk.
She works as a company dancer with Dancers of Damelahamid, Raven Spirit Dance, and V’ni Dansi and creates her own work. Jeanette co-ordinates the annual Coastal Dance Festival, is a member of the Full Circle First Nations Performing Arts Ensemble, and the Indigenous Performing Art Alliance. Jeanette has worked with artists Charles Koroneho, Carlos Rivera, Jessica McMann, Yvette Nolan, Deanna Peters, Tara Cheyenne-Friedenberg, and Su-Feh Lee. She is a Laureate of the Hnatyshyn Foundation REVEAL Indigenous Art Awards. www.movementhealing.ca Kisiskâwican by Jeanette Kotowich Kisiskâwican is born out of my desire to reflect a Métis cultural narrative within the context of contemporary Indigenous dance performance. Driven by my choreographic exploration of Métis cultural perspectives, this work investigates home, identity, ancestry and land. Kisiskâciwan, meaning 'swift flowing' in Nehiyawehwin/Cree, it is deeply tied to the landscape of Saskatchewan. The work unfolds out of the robust and undulating land of my grandmothers mothers, and great-great grandfathers. With memories of childhood summers embraced by the Kah-tep-was valley, Cree for 'river that calls', the vast prairie and gently rolling landscape have echoed their lasting impression and whispered a language of inspiration. Creating with an outstanding team of collaborators, this work infuses performance with land-based cultural research, ancestral knowledge and Indigenous futurism. 1 Minute Teaser: https://youtu.be/lUG4DuFi5PM |
Photo Credit: Melanie Orr
Photo Credit: Melanie Orr
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Photo credit: Kendra Epik
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Katherine Semchuk 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 had the pleasure of working 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 collaborator's stories, ideas and sketches. She continues to investigate her own creative practice and has presented her work through numerous festivals and platforms including Feats Festival of Dance, Mile Zero Dance, and Expanse Festival. Katherine’s artistic work has been supported by Edmonton Arts Council and Alberta Foundation for the Arts. |
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Meghann Michalsky is a dance artist working in Alberta. She is the co-creator of Project InTandem and YYC Contemporary Technique Training, two programs that offer opportunities to emerging artists in Canada. She was awarded the 2019 RBC Emerging Artist Award at the Mayor’s Lunch for Arts Champions - she is the first Dancer/Choreographer to receive this award.
Since graduating the University of Calgary dance program, she has rigorously pursued her dance technique training in Canada as well as in Israel, Portugal, Sweden, the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria. She creates highly visceral works that combine intense musculature and athletic physicality with subtle internally driven flow-based movements. Her movement signature has been described as vigorous, raw, and interknit. Her knowledge of Hip-Hop and Krump movement principles has influenced her development of isolated, rhythmic, bound, and fast-twitch movement qualities into her contemporary choreographies. Her most recent choreographic works have been presented at Project InTandem, Fluid Festival, Stream of Dance Festival, Annual Alberta Dance Festival, Convergence, and abroad in Finland. She will be presenting her work Deep END in Vancouver and Camrose this coming November. |
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Metis historian, Barb Parchman is mentoring under Robin Poitras and New Dance Horizons to turn a story about her Great Grandmother freighting a Red River Cart at age 12 into a dance performance and Metis culture workshop to be performed in summer 2019. This project will include Barb’s release of a children’s book on the same topic.
Barb is currently Curatorial & Operations Assistant at Art Gallery of Swift Current. She is a published writer, storyteller and photographer, receiving her diploma in Applied Photography from SIAST in 2004. Barb has been immersed in Southwest Saskatchewan culture and heritage for a number of years with her involvement in the Lyric Theatre, Swift Current Museum and Cultural Festivals. Barb develops and delivers programs which preserve, promote and celebrate Metis heritage and culture and contribute to the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She has worked on a number of research projects on the history of Metis in Southwest Saskatchewan. |
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Daniel Paquet is a Saskatchewan based photographer native to Québec City. He has worked with dozens of artists: dancers, choreographers, musicians. His main focus and interest is in the contemporary arts and how body expressions translate to emotion. He partners with performing artists to explore their work from new angles; both at the time of creation, and during their performances. Artists have used his photographs for the promotion and documentation of their work.
Website: photo.paquet.ca Paquet’s photography blurs the boundaries between documentary and fine art. He explores the human condition with an aesthetic and simplicity that does not distort objects and plays with the relationships that hold together the elements of an image. Throughout his development as an artist, his photography tests the relationship to images from a cultural and psychic point of view. His photography has been exhibited in Saskatchewan and Quebec, as well as published in various media around the world. |
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Edward Poitras is a multi media visual artist with a background in performance creation. A product of the experimental Indian Art Cultural programs of the 1970s, Edward has worked as a teacher in the arts and has worked in communications in a audio visual department and as a freelance graphic artist. Edward has also been involved with a number of Aboriginal artist run centre’s and has curated a series of exhibitions whose focus was Treaty Four Territory. He has also co-curated a couple of story teller festivals. Edward has shown his work in international art biennials and other major national exhibitions. Edward lives on George Gordon First Nation.
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Photo Credit: Don Hall
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Photo Credit: Dania AboAoun
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Anna Protsiou is a dancer and circus artist who is currently residing in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She immigrated to Canada from Thessaloniki, Greece in 2014. Anna graduated with a Bachelor Honors Degree in Contemporary Dance from the School of Contemporary Dancers’ Professional Program, an affiliated program with the University of Winnipeg. Anna started dance at age of seven training in ballet, but her love for contemporary dance took over when she became a teenager. Since then, she has participated in many workshops and intensives, and has performed in multiple shows. Some of her recent performances include works by: Odette Heyn and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Stephanie Ballard and the Winnipeg Preservation Initiative, Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers and Peter Quanz. She has also worked with out of province choreographers such as Harold Rhéaume and Le fils d'Adrien danse in Quebec City, and in Toronto for the New Blue Dance Festival. In the summer 2019 she participated in Creando Lazos a Traves De La Danza with Ilse Torres and Roberto Mosqueda in Mexico. Circus has always been a fascinating genre for Anna. She began her circus journey by training in contortion and hand balancing with her coach Samantha Halas. Anna was fortunate to have such amazing guidance and support that allowed her to develop contortion and hand balancing skills. She recently started practicing and performing aerial hoop under the guidance of Liz Cooper and Kimberly Craig, as well as pole. Some highlights of her performances as a circus artist include Heartache Hotel with Frostbite Circus, Stage Frights with One Trunk Theatre, Legends of Horrors with Hit and Run Dance Productions in Toronto, as well as multiple public and private events. |
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The first production by Moving Roots (MR) performance arts company with an eponymous name Moving Roots: Reflections. This multidisciplinary contemporary arts debut show combines contemporary dance, circus, film, and poetry while premiering six works by Anastasia Evsigneeva, Anna Protsiou, Robin Poitras, and Edward Poitras. MR: Reflections is a collaborative process of developing lights, projections, and music with guest artists that creates the magic to the event and makes it unforgettable. In the creation process artists were inspired by mythology, rituals and traditions of different cultures, ideas from psychology and philosophy, personal experiences, nature of the human psyche, emotions, feelings, and their manifestation in the body. The show features live music by Rayannah, and music by Chiyoko Szlavnics.
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Photo Credit: Michael Kutschbach
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Chiyoko Szlavnics is a composer and visual artist living in Berlin. Her two artistic disciplines both inspire, and inform each other – drawings have often served as the basis for compositions, and aspects of sound have influenced several of her drawings series. Szlavnics was born in Toronto in 1967, graduated from the University of Toronto in 1989, and studied composition with James Tenney from 1993-1997.
She received a Fellowship Grant from the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany in 1997, and relocated to Berlin at the conclusion of the residency. Szlavnics attended Walter Zimmermann's composition seminar at the University of the Arts, and subsequently taught the seminar for one year. Szlavnics was awarded the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize as "Outstanding Composer" in 2010. Szlavnics' music has been performed by Ensemble Musikfabrik, Klangforum Wien, RSO Stuttgart (SWR), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Quatour Bozzini, Asasello Quartet, Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, Eve Egoyan, among others, and has been presented by Maerzmusik, Donaueschinger Musiktage (2014 & 2017), Tectonics (2013), and Klangspuren (2017). |
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James Viveiros is a graduate of both the Grant MacEwan College Music Theatre and Dance Programs in Edmonton Alberta. He is a former company member of LA COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD (CMC) from the fall of 1999 to the summer of 2016. For the past seventeen years, James has performed in contemporary dance festivals around the world. He has also worked with HOP Martha Carter, Suzanne Miller and Alvin Pavio productions, Movement 7, The Brian Webb Dance Company, Edmonton Opera, The Citadel Theatre, Workshop West and Leave it to Jane Theatre. He has been seen in works by Tania Alvarado, Martha Carter, Tony Chong, Dominic Porte.
In 2009 James was a recipient of a Gemini award (film and television) along side the other company members of CMC, for best performance in a Performing Arts Program or series for bODY_rEMIX/les_vARIATIONS_gOLDBERG, by CMC. In 2015, to 2017 he was awarded funding on two occasions from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec (CALQ) to become a certified Gaga teacher and studied with Batsheva under the direction of Ohad Naharin in Tel Aviv, Israel. He also works as a rehearsal director and choreographic assistant to Collective La Tresse. James solo work, “MELT” ( a prefix for a prayer ) will premier this September 2017 in Montreal. |
Photo Credit: Mark Dela Cruz
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Marcus Merasty is a dance artist from Pelican Narrows, Saskatchewan and is of Cree descent, Assin’skowitiniwak meaning “People of the rocky area”. His interest in dance began with learning traditional Métis jigging in 2013. A year later, following the invitation to perform in a contemporary dance work by Edward Poitras and Robin Poitras he began to pursue a life in dance. This was also the beginning of an on-going mentorship with artists Robin Poitras and Edward Poitras. Since then Marcus has participated in the Indigenous Dance Residency (2016) and the Indigenous Choreographers Creation Lab (2019) at The Banff Centre, and has toured across eastern Canada with The Dancers of Damelahamid. Marcus recently completed the 4 year Professional Program at The School of Contemporary Dancers and is working toward his BA. (Hons) in Contemporary Dance from the University of Winnipeg. He is currently employed with New Dance Horizons with a major focus on archiving the organization’s 35 year history.
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Brooke Hess (she/her) is a contemporary dancer, choreographer, and teacher based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Brooke has a close relationship with the School of Contemporary Dancers, and began classes in their general program, followed by in the Junior Professional Program, which was followed by the Senior Professional Program. Brooke is a 2021 Graduate of the School of Contemporary dancers. She has worked professionally with dance artists such as Robin Poitras, Casmiro Nhussi, Paula Blair, and Stephanie Ballard. Brooke has also worked as a choreographer for Juno award winning producer Danny Schur.
Brooke has been teaching dance since the fall of 2017, some institutions include the School of Contemporary Dancers in the General Program and Junior Program, River Heights Community Center in affiliation with Winnipeg Dance Force, and Lord Roberts Community Center Dance Program. This past summer Brooke has had the opportunity to tour daycares around the city of Winnipeg and offer “Discover and Dance: Summer Program”. Brooke’s teaching strives to make dance accessible, relatable, and enjoyable for children everywhere while promoting play, creativity, and confidence! |
Photo by Courtney Maertens
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© Daniel Paquet
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"Dance is, in itself, a unique biosphere. Akin to our jungles, forests and oceans, dance supports an incredible range of wild expression. The more I listen and attend to my own inner landscape through dancing, the more I am delighted, stirred and drawn in by the hundreds of movements I see being made in the natural world.
I crave to learn from other perspectives. For the past decade, my practice as a dance artist has been greatly influenced by an array of genres including ballet, modern, contemporary, hip-hop, afrobeats and break. Collaboratively, I am interested in creation opportunities that invite difference through a reciprocal exchange of cultures, skill-sets, dance genres and disciplines. I hold immense gratitude for the opportunities to receive artistic mentorship from senior artists in the country including Margie Gillis, Robin Poitras & Edward Poitras. It is through witnessing their devotion, tenacity and generosity of Spirit that I feel enlivened, inspired and compelled to continue to shape the artist I am becoming." |
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A Stone's Poem
Created by: Margie Gillis and Paola Styron Lighting: Pierre Lavoie Music and soundtrack: Larsen Lupin, Kilmartin and Gordan Monahan As part of The Legacy Project, Tessa is currently in the process of learning one of Margie's original works titled "A Stone's Poem". It is a piece originally by a set of runes - small stones, inscribed with a code of symbols, which were used by the Vikings as a tool for divination and spiritual growth. Out of this, the piece evolved into a broader exploration: that of humankind's ancient and ongoing relationship to the actual origin of sacred symbols, and our deep connection with the forms, forces and elements of nature from which those symbols derived. |
The Last Caribou
Created by: Robin Poitras & Edward Poitras Lighting: James Proudfoot Music: Garry James Joynes aka Clinker Through Dance Saskatchewan's Mentorship Program, Tessa had the opportunity to work with Robin Poitras and Edwards Poitras on a new work entitled The Last Caribou. It is an ode to love and loss in our tragic times — a duo a song and echo, pairing a caribou dancer and their shadow. In addition to the creation process, The Last Caribou will be presented at the Annex Theatre as part of the PuSh Festival in Vancouver. |
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Biography
Tessa Rae Kuz is a dance artist, emerging choreographer and educator based on the Treaty 4 Territory of Regina Saskatchewan - the original lands of the Plains Cree, Saulteaux, Dakota, Nakota, Lakota, and Metis people. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance from the Toronto Metropolitan University. She has worked with some of the most reputable Canadian choreographers in the contemporary dance field including Margie Gillis, Robin Poitras, Heidi Strauss, Apolonia Velasquez, James Kudelka, David Norsworthy and Kristen Carcone. She is currently an active participant of Margie Gillis' Legacy Project, where she performs in both solo and group works. Her long-term artistic mentorship with Robin Poitras and Edward Poitras began in 2019 and continues to evolve through opportunities to interpret and perform in new and past creations, rehearsal direct, and teach. In 2022, she had the opportunity to further her development through Educate And Dance - a street dance training program led by Montreal hip hop pioneer Angelo Ameur. |
Photo credit: Andrew Parry 2022.
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Hours:
Mon - Thu: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM Friday: 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM Sat - Sun: Closed Statutory Holidays: Closed |
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Address:
2207 Harvey St, Regina, SK S4N 2N2 Canada |
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