Stream of Dance Festival
​Artist Bios and Credits

SOD#3      Prairie Currents B

ELOISE  | Jeanette Kotowich

​Eloise is a character-derived dance performance choreographed, written and performed by Jeanette Kotowich, which brings insight to the practice of honouring traditional territory. Eloise invites the audience to witness and participate in protocol with sincerity, hilarity, and gratitude. Through paralleling the irreverent against reverence, the performance experience is a provocation, asking the question "How do we give thanks?" Eloise is honouring, the inner terrain of the body, the ties to land and experience that we carry with us from where we have come, and the physical land on which we currently stand.
We are all of our relations.

Jeanette Kotowich | Photo credit: Yvonne Chew

Jeanette Kotowich is a Vancouver based professional contemporary Aboriginal dance artist and choreographer. She holds her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Simon Fraser University, BC. Currently, she is creating a full-length, innovative solo performance, collaboratively directed with Maroi artist, Charles Koroneho (Te Toki Haruru), and has worked with Vancouver based dance artists Deanna Peters (Mutable Subject), and Su Feh Lee (Battery Opera). Jeanette creates work as an independent dance artist & choreographer; she is a seasonal dance artist with Dancers of Damelahamid, Raven Spirit Dance, and V’ni Dansi. Jeanette co-ordinates for the annual Coastal First Nations Dance Festival, is a member of the Full Circle First Nations Performing Arts Ensemble, the Indigenous Performing Art Alliance & a founding board member/secretary for Savage Society. Honoring her Cree Métis heritage (originally from Saskatchewan) as a source of inspiration and reference point in her work, Jeanette is passionate about investigating a blend of contemporary and Indigenous practices.

​Previous Performances: Raven Spirit Dance IndigeDIV, Dance in Vancouver ñ November 2017, Gold Saucer Fundraiser for Mutable Subject, NEW RAW  ñ Vancouver ñ August 2016 
Acknowledgements: I would like to acknowledge each person who has offered his or her support as a mentor or ëoutside eyeí in the creation of Eloise. In working order, thank you to Sharon Brass, Deanna Peters, Michelle Olson, Charles Koroneho, Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, Carlos Rivera MartÌnez, Margaret Grenier, Jack Gray, and DÂkot-ta Alcantara-camacho.
Project Support: Raven Spirit Dance, The Dance Centre, Talking Stick Festival
Image Credit: Chris Randle

TRAILS | ​Misty Wensel  

Misty Wensel is a co- founder, dancer and choreographer with Regina based FadaDance Troupe. Dancing with this trio informs her creative spirit, while affording her the opportunity to create inquisitive & intuitive works of contemporary dance.
Misty, a University of Regina graduate with a B. Ed (Dance), has been sharing her craft with students and peers for two decades. In 2004, Misty established FadaDance, a contemporary dance school, the first of its kind in Regina, SK. Since then, she has had the opportunity to train and inspire dancers of all ages, while creating a platform for her troupe and her students that is truly unique. Misty’s work with FadaDance Troupe and youth company has taken her to stages across Canada, and as far as Jamaica, Brazil, Taiwan, & Denmark. As a solo artist, Misty has become recognized for her ability to fuse Kathak into an original breed of contemporary work. In 2018 Misty toured this body of Pathak-Influenced work throughout India in a new collaboration- Finite with Joanna de Souza of Chhandam Toronto.
Misty is excited to present Trails her new solo work which fuses elements of contemporary dance, songwriting, music production, and theatre.

Photo credit: Jocelyn Tanner

Trails
At the head of a trail, this beaten down path where many have walked before.
The lens shrinks and the repetition of steps becomes a song.
The lens broadens and the vast prairie soundscape unfolds.
The cadence of feet stepping, visions of a congested dance floor.
Tracks gathering at a meeting point, bodies brought together by shifting winds.
Snapping sparks, a call to return home.

These are just the songs that follow the seeker into the wild.

​Costume Design & Creation: Lisa Wickland

Music Credits:
Music Production: Orion Paradis
Vocals: Kacy Lee Anderson
Matt Good - Passenger
​Wolf Willow - Calexibeisel I&II, River Bends, Sleds I&II
Kevin Redfield - Tear Stained Eyes
Hector Plimmer - Shiver (Sarathy Korwar Remix)

THIS  | ​New Dance Horizons 

​​A solo work in evolutionary change created for Krista Solheim, began in a previous group work entitled the End of Winter by Edward Poitras and Robin Poitras.The calving of an iceberg into the ocean, with music rooted in the Russian avant-garde, THIS traverses a metaphorical landscape of change.

Robin Poitras | Photo Credit: Don Hall

Robin Poitras is one of Saskatchewan’s most prolific dance and performance creators. Creating dance, performance and installation works, she has been actively engaged in contemporary dance practice since the early 80s. For many years Robin has traversed the formal worlds of dance and performance art. She co-founded New Dance Horizons in 1986, where she continues to act as Artistic Director. With an interest in research into diverse fields of artistic and somatic practice she has developed a unique interdisciplinary approach. Robin’s works have been presented across Canada, in Spain, France, Germany, Mongolia and Mexico. She is a recipient of the 2016 Lieutenant Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2006 Mayor’s Awards for Business & The Arts’ Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2004 Women of Distinction Award for the Arts.

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Edward Poitras | Photo Credit: Don Hall

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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Krista Solheim | Photo credit: Daniel Paquet

Krista Solheim is an independent dance artist and movement teacher based in Regina, SK. She received her early dance training at the Youth Ballet Company of Saskatchewan, then completed a BFA in Contemporary Dance from Concordia University in 1998. In 2014, she became STOTT PILATES® certified instructor. Over the past 20 years, Krista has pursued an independent creative and performative dance practice. As choreographer, Krista has been active in developing her voice as a soloist. As performer, she has worked with a range of choreographers from across Canada. Since 2017, Krista has been working with New Dance Horizons (NDH) Creation Base, NDH/ Rouge-gorge; dancing in the creations of Robin Poitras and Edward Poitras.