Barb Parchman

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.
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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.

​Chiyoko Szlavnics​

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).

Daniel Paquet

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. 

Edward Poitras -- Artist-in-Residence Season 32-33

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.

Photo Credit: Don Hall

James Viveiros

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. 

Jeanette Kotowich — Artist-in-Residence Summer 2020

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