Stream of Dance Festival
​Artist Bios and Credits

SOD#5 & SOD#7
Prairie Dance Circuit

THIS | NDH \ Rouge-gorge

​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. Robin’s works have been presented across Canada, in Spain, France, Germany, Mongolia and Mexico. She is a recipient of the 2016 Sask Arts Board 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

dancer
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.

MOSS | Nicole Mion | Linnea Swan

​A choreographic installation focused on transformation in the organic world and in live performance. Featuring the indefatigable Linnea Swan, and devised choreography by Nicole Mion. Moss is a part of a performance series called I Eat You, which creates a series of manufactured landscapes and foraged experiences that reveal individuals in a state of becoming.

choreographer
Nicole Mion: Artist and curator, Nicole Mion creates for the stage and screen. She is a sought after director and contemporary choreographer specializing in contemporary performance, new media, dance, and installation. She is Artistic Director for Springboard Performance where she curates the Fluid Movement Arts Festival in Calgary; Interrarium interdisciplinary creation residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts; and ContainR, an Art Park made of retrofit shipping containers which connects communities through art. Recently Nicole was awarded the Colin Jackson and Arlene Strom Creative Placemaking Award at the Mayor’s Lunch for Arts Champions. She has been invited to speak about her work at the IETM Conference (Bergamo, Italy) as a part of the Canadian delegation representing new arts practices, CINARS (Montreal), Calgary Arts Congress (Calgary), and York University’s Arts, Placemaking, and Policy Conference (Toronto).Contemporary choreography includes Constellations for the City of Calgary New Years Celebrations, Quiver which toured to Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, and Winnipeg and featured Vancouver performers Justine Chambers and James Gnam. Her stage work has been seen at OYR's High Performance Rodeo, Seattle’s On The Boards Festival, Vancouver’s Dancing on the Edge Festival, Alberta Scene at the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), the Banff Centre Summer Arts Festival, New Dance Horizons (Regina), Dancers Studio West (Calgary), Mile Zero Dance (Edmonton), Brief Encounters (Vancouver), Art Gallery of Calgary, fFIDA Festival (Toronto), choreography representing Canada at the DaCI conferences in Brazil and The Hague, and direction and choreography for the opening ceremonies of the IAAF World Games (Edmonton).Nicole enjoys creating solos inspired by specifically wonderful and unique individuals. These biographical choreographies include solo work and commissions for Momo Mixed-Ability Dance Theatre, Luciane Pinto, Carol Greyeyes, Andrea Gunnlaugson, and Stephen Thompson.

Linnea Swan | Photo Credit: Ryan Carr

dancer
Linnea Swan: Born and raised in Saskatoon, Linnea Swan has had a long and colourful career that has seen her call Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto and now Calgary home. She began her professional career in Winnipeg dancing with Ruth Cansfield Dance and TRIP dance company, and moved to Toronto in 2003 to join Dancemakers. As an independent artist, she has had the pleasure of working with many of Canada’s leading dance/theatre artists including Serge Bennethan, Rachel Browne, Susie Burpee, Lesandra Dodson, Claudia Moore, Tedd Robinson, Jordan Tannahill and Volcano Theatre among others most recently collaborating with David Danzon to create the one woman show Swan Lake Syndrome. Linnea was honoured to be the 2015 recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award in Dance.

PORTRAIT | Brian Webb  | Tony Olivares

​directors notes
I have been so excited to be able to collaborate with Tony Olivares who is one of the strongest and dynamic personalities in the Edmonton dance community. Plus, this guy can really dance! When I approached Tony, I asked him to come to the piece with three stories that defined him. He came ready to reveal his most vulnerable self - Portrait was born. It’s a portrait of this man I first encountered in 1991, when he was my student and told me to “fuck off”.
In this collaborative a solo performance, I want to reveal Tony as a multifaceted individual, to reveal his unique way of dancing and his outrageously strong personality. I chose to use the iconic song “The First Time Ever I saw Your Face” and am offering it to the audience in a unique way.  

choreographer
Brian Webb has developed a national reputation as a contemporary dancer, choreographer and artistic leader. He has brought an international array of contemporary dance companies to Edmonton through the BWDC which he founded 39 years ago. Amongst many other honours, Brian won Edmonton’s prestigious Artistic Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. Brian has received the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medal for his volunteer work in the community. Brian recently received the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Anniversary Commission. He is collaborating with film maker Kyle Armstrong and Composer Mark Templeton on a work to be premiered in the summer of 2018. 

music
The Gypsy Kings
The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face – sung by George Michael & Johnny Cash

dancer
​Tony Olivares was born in Managua, Nicaragua and moved to Edmonton in 1987. His first experience as an independent improvisational choreographer and performer occurred at the age of seven. His official dance training began in Edmonton, when he attended the dance program at Grant MacEwan College.
 
Tony has performed across North America and was the assistant director of DancEnlight in Hartford Connecticut. Presently, he works as an Educator at Dance Fusion Academy in Sherwood Park and Mile Zero Dance in Edmonton, plus he is the artistic director of his dance company TONY OLIVARES DANCE.
Career awards and highlights include: 1st place and Top Choreography Award - 2017 (Standing Ovation Dance Festival); Citie Ballet, CAVE BEAT - 2014; Full College scholarship - 2008 (Trinity College - Hartford, Connecticut); Nicaragua National Dance youth competition - 1969 (first place).