Born and raised in Montréal, Tanveer Alam started his Kathak training with Sudeshna Maulik and continues to study with guru Sandhya Desai. Alam is a 2019 graduate of the School of Toronto Dance Theatre. Alam has performed in the works of Lata Pada, Padmini Chettur, Brandy Leary, Sashar Zarif, Peter Chin, and Harikishan S. Nair. An emerging choreographer, he has been presented at Summerworks Festival, Battery Dance Festival +, MAI (Montréal, Arts, Interculturels) and Tangente, to name a few. Alam has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Toronto Arts Council, and Ontario Arts Council. Across the 21/22 season, he premiered The Tagore Project at Sampradaya Dance Creations in Mississauga, and will be performing in the premiere of international choreographer Padmini Chettur’s work, Chalking (produced by Anandam Dancetheatre).
Shameka Blake
Choreographer, Withrow Park
Shameka Blake was born in Manchester, Jamaica, and immigrated to Canada at the age of ten. She developed a passion for dance at age three, and in 2007 Shameka, pursued dance professionally. Her training in a variety of dance genres, including jazz, ballet and contemporary, helped her to develop her craft as a dancer/choreographer. Since establishing her professional dance company Artists in Motion in 2008, Shameka, through her choreography, has made a strong imprint on the Toronto urban and commercial dance communities. Her work has earned her the 2015 Black Canadian Award for Best Urban Dance Act and has been featured at the Association for the Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) Convention in New York City and the BNL (Basketball National League) Finals Halftime Show in South Africa, in addition to local Toronto festivals; Toronto Fringe, Pride Toronto and TIFF. She has also had the pleasure to co-choreograph for the Victory Celebration of the 2015 Pan Am Games honouring Canadian and International athletes.
Jaqui Brown
Local choreographer, Barrie
Jaqui is a dancer and dance teacher from Newmarket, Ontario. She is a graduate of George Brown College where she earned a Diploma in Performance Dance Studies, and a Certificate in the Performing Arts. Her formal training includes modern dance (Limón; contact improvisation), ballet (RAD; Cecchetti), jazz (BATD; theatre), vocal, and acting. Additionally, Jaqui has her degree in Psychology and Spanish from York University. Her passion for dance extends through to her love of other artistic forms such as singing, and photography. Jaqui joined SCD in 2014.
Michael Caldwell
Choreographer, touring
Michael Caldwell is a choreographer, performer, curator, director, producer, and arts advocate, based in Tkaronto (Toronto). His choreography has been commissioned/presented throughout Canada at major festivals, in traditional venues and in site-responsive and community-engaged contexts. Michael has performed/collaborated with over 50 of Canada's esteemed performance creators and companies. He has performed across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. His performances have earned him two Dora Mavor Moore Awards for outstanding performance. He has previously served as a Guest Curator and Producer for Dusk Dances, Older & Reckless and Porch View Dances. Caldwell is a two-time K.M. Hunter Charitable Foundation Artist Award finalist, and a nominee for the 2021 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize. Michael currently serves as the Lead Producer of Generator, after 7 seasons as the Executive Producer of Fall for Dance North Festival.
CORPUS collective
Local choreographer, Repentigny
José Flores and Gabrielle Simard established CORPUS collective four years ago. Graduates from l’École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, they work as dancers for different companies alongside their work as choreographers and dancers for their collective. Teaching is also a big part of their lives, allowing them to share their passion and expertise. The word Corpus, coming from the dead Latin language, represents extinction, oblivion of the language that unites all humans – body language. In a very cerebral era, they aim to reconnect body, primal instincts and the deep roots of the human being through movement.
CORPUS Collective was part of the TV show Révolution’s second season and many showcases of dance competitions. They also presented their first 25-minute-long work, COMMUNICARE, in last year’s Festival Quartiers Danses. Their most recent short film, RESURGO, produced in 2021, has been selected in seven festivals around the world and won many awards, as did their first 2019 short, Entre les lignes.
Lina Cruz
Choreographer, Withrow Park
Montréal choreographer Lina Cruz founded her company, Fila 13 Productions, in 2003 and has presented her work in festivals and events at local, national and international levels. Cruz has a background in ballet as much as modern/contemporary styles and takes interest in martial arts and various forms of stage expression. She has created works for independent artists as well as dance companies and institutions of professional dance training. Cruz is also often involved in theatre and opera projects. In her works, she explores detailed body language, sound and vocal expression, composing characters and sketches which portray an unsettling strangeness, but always hand in hand with a mischievous playfulness. Cruz is a two-time Dora Mavor Moore Award recipient for Outstanding Original Choreography (2012 and 2017) and was nominated for the same award in 2015. She received a second-place award in the 1998 international choreographic competition of the St-Sauveur Arts Festival (Quebec). www.fila13.com
Nickeshia Garrick
Choreographer & Performer, Withrow Park
Nickeshia Garrick is a settler on the stolen land of Tkaronto and has performed on this land for over 25 years. They are unapologetically a Black, Queer Artist, who believes in the healing power of breath through raw emotion and movement. Nickeshia received her dance training at the NYIDE (New York Institution of Dance and Education), National Ballet School of Canada (Tkaronto), Toronto Dance Theatre (Tkaronto), and Simon Fraser University (Vancouver). Her classical vocal and theatre training was achieved at Eastwood Collegiate Institute (Kitchener). Nickeshia has had the honour of training with Sean McLeod (New York) to achieve her certification in Sean McLeod’s Reinforced Motor Function Technique®, RMF®. Her extensive dance training includes Bakari E. Lindsay, Arsenio Andrade, Rob Kitsos, Peter Bingham, and Christopher House. Nickeshia has received the privilege of performing in pieces by TDT, Tara Butler, Kaeja d’Dance, Serge Bennathan, James Kudelka, Ballet Jorgen, and the Newton Moraes Dance Theatre. Nickeshia is a Dora Mavor Moore, winning and multi-nominated artist who holds their BFA in Dance from Simon Fraser University, is a Movement Teacher at the Toronto Film School and has recently completed her first independent dance film called To My Past, Present, and Future… which is a continued exploration of what it is to be Black, Queer, Broken, and Spiritual.
Deepti Gupta
Local choreographer, Hamilton
Deepti Gupta is an exponent of the elegant Kathak style of Indian dance. She is a disciple of preeminent Kathak Gurus, Shri Munna Shukla and Pundit Birju Maharaj. As artistic director of Arzoo Dance Theatre, she creates new works in dance that transcend geographical and cultural boundaries. A relentless experimentalist with a variety of theatrical interests she loves to collaborate with musicians, designers, and new media artists. Deepti’s works have been presented by the National Arts Centre of Canada, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Canada Dance Festival, Tangente, Danceworks, Danspace Project and DTW, New York, International Kathak Festival, Chicago, Kalanidhi Fine Arts of Canada, Vasantotsava, Delhi and Panchatatva, Mumbai, amongst others.
Alyssa Martin
Local choreographer, Barrie
Alyssa Martin is a choreographer, director and performance maker. She founded Rock Bottom Movement in 2012 as the creative home, and the group has since been named “the quirky weirdos of Toronto’s dance/theatre world” (Toronto Star). She creates absurd dance theatre works through radical and intensely committed play alongside her most brilliant friends. She believes that new work should be created from a place of joy and curiosity in a down to earth process that worships the collaborators in a collective quest for glittering catharsis. Audiences should be trusted as co-conspirators in our mission to achieve escapist moments of wonky joy.
Michael Mortley
Choreographer, performer & workshop Leader, touring PERFORMER, WITHROW PARK
Michael Mortley graduated from the university of Trinidad and Tobago in 2015. He attended Beijing Dance Academy from 2015 to 2016. When he first arrived in Canada, he worked with KasheDance and performed in Re: Imagining TPM in April 2018. He also worked with Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO) at The Gathering in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Michael has had the pleasure of working for Wind In the Leaves Collective on the Searching for Eastman project as a dancer and collaborator in the creation of that full length work. He worked with Ronald Taylor Dance on a project entitled Psychosis in June 2019 and then again in October 2019 for Rendezvous with Madness festival as a dancer and costume designer. Michael travelled to Winnipeg and New Brunswick respectively to perform in NAFRO Dance Presents: Moving Inspirations Dance Festival with KasheDance and Impact Festival by Atlantic Ballet with Wind In the Leaves Collective. Michael is a photographer for Ronald Taylor Dance, as well as other noted dance companies. He does social media and administrative work as well.
Atri Nundy
Choreographer & Performer, Withrow Park
Atri Nundy started learning Bharatanatyam at Sampradaya Dance Academy under Lata Pada. After completing her arangetram (graduation) in 2005, she continues to work as a teacher at Sampradaya Dance Academy and as a Company dancer and choreographer at Sampradaya Dance Creations. She has toured extensively in India, Indonesia and the UK. She has attended a variety of workshops including ones that have been conducted by highly acclaimed artists such as Harikrishna Kalyanasundaram, Priyadarshini Govind, Leela Samson and Mavin Khoo. While training in Bharatanatyam, Atri was fortunate enough to be able to train in various dance forms during her childhood. Her training has given her the interest to explore beyond the traditional realms of Bharatanatyam. She is a frequent collaborator with NovaDance, Kashe Dance, and Anandam Dancetheatre. These opportunities have shaped the way Atri is now looking at dance, the way she is choreographing her own works and practicing repertoire.
Throwdown Collective
Choreographer, touring & WITHROW PARK
Toronto-based Throwdown Collective is an award-winning contemporary dance company that supports the collaborative creative pursuits of founders Zhenya Cerneacov, Mairéad Filgate and Brodie Stevenson. The Collective’s site-specific trilogy, originally commissioned for Toronto's Dusk Dances Festival, went on to tour throughout Canada and beyond, including the 85th Anniversary Celebration of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, MA and Fall for Dance North at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts. Their first full-length evening of stage works, presented by DanceWorks, received two Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Choreography and a total of eight nominations. Commissioned by Dance Happens Here Haliburton, Throwdown Collective has created two full-length works as artists-in-residence at the Haliburton Sculpture Forest (2018, 2019), and the short film: Dance Happens Everywhere. The collective is currently creating their first full-length work for stage, to be premiered in February 2023.
