Collaborators
Artist Bios
Brendan Wyatt - Co-Creator/Performer Beside Each Other/Reveries/Divination Duets
Brendan Wyatt was born in Unity, SK where he started dancing at the age of four. In 1991, Wyatt continued his dance training at Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet Professional Division. While there he performed with the Company in Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Don Quixote. In 1997, Wyatt moved to Victoria, BC where in conjunction with the CNIB he co-created and instructed an interactive dance program for the spatial and postural awareness of visually challenged students. Wyatt moved to Toronto, ON in 2001, where he completed the professional training program at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. Since 2006, Wyatt has performed in over 50 works by independent choreographers and dance companies across the country including Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, ProArteDanza, The Chimera Project, Karen Jamieson Dance, Andrea Nann, DA Hoskins, Robert Glumbeck, Matjash Mrozewski, Sharon Moore, Susie Burpee, Yvonne Ng, Heidi Strauss, Sasha Ivanochko, William Yong, Emily Molnar, Shaun Hounsel, Marie Forcier, Sylvie Bouchard, Roberto Campanella and Trish Beatty. Wyatt has been a guest artist with Dreamwalker Dance Company since 2008. We are thrilled to congratulate Brendan on his 2010 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance in Heidi Strauss’s This Time.
Gord Downie – Poet/Musician/Songwriter Beside Each Other/Reveries
Gordon Downie is the lead singer, songwriter and lyricist of the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip. He has released two solo albums,Coke Machine Glow in 2001 and Battle of the Nudes in 2003, and published a book of poetry, Coke Machine Glow. His third solo album The Grand Bounce, was released on June 8, 2010.
Elysha Poirier – Visual Artist/Graphic Designer/Website Designer Beside Each Other/Dreamwalker Dance
Elysha Poirier is a Toronto-based artist, designer and illustrator who engages various forms of new media. Currently, Elysha is working with video for live performances. Her video art encompasses stop-motion animation and attempts to translate the essence of painterly and handcrafted techniques into a digital environment. Elysha has produced several short video installations and has engaged in live performances locally and abroad. She has performed with a diversity of artists working in genres of electronic music, film, dance and performance arts. Her work is best described as organic and playful and embraces strong relationships to sound and design. Elysha has a diploma in graphic design and photography. Her love of design has given her a natural eye for composition and arrangement of imagery both in static and moving applications. She has taught various workshops in visual arts and runs her own freelance business, Peartree Design, which strives to work on unique projects within the arts community.
Guy Cools – Dramaturge Beside Each Other
After having trained as a dramaturge, Guy Cools became involved with the new developments in dance in Flanders from the 1980s, initially as a dance critic and from 1990 onwards as theatre and dance director of Arts Centre Vooruit in Ghent. As vice-president of the Dance Council, he contributed to the cultural policy towards dance of the Flemish Community. He curated dance events in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Venice and Montréal. In 2002, he left Vooruit to dedicate himself full-time to production dramaturgy with amongst others, Koen Augustijnen – Lisi Estera (Les Ballets C. de la B.), Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (B), Anabel Schellekens (B), Lia Haraki (Cyprus), Danièle Desnoyers (Montréal), Akram Khan (London), Christopher House (Toronto Dance Theatre). With Lin Snelling and Ginelle Chagnon, he developed a series of workshops to support the creative process of artists, choreographers in particular. He regularly gives lectures and publishes in Belgium, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Holland and Greece
David Duclos – Lighting/Production Design Beside Each Other
David is a lighting and set designer, a painter, a woodworker and a sculptor. David was the set designer for Peter Chin’s Transmission of the Invisible, a dance with multi-media elements which premiered at Harbourfront in 2008 and subsequently toured Western Canada, was presented at the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa, and then toured to Cambodia and Singapore. David has worked recently with bluemouth inc., designed the lights and set for the site-specific theatre collective’s Dance Marathon, which premiered at Harbourfront in 2009 and has toured to Cork, Ireland, and to Vancouver, BC, where it was presented as part of the Cultural Olympiad. In the past, David has worked with experimental theatre companies like Toronto’s emergency exit and DNA Theatre. From 1994 to 2004, David was the Artistic Director of the Theatre Centre in Toronto.
Valerie Stevens – Stage Manager/Performer Beside Each Other/Tumbling Dice/I Love You more…/The Whole Shebang Community Festival
Valerie Stevens began training to be a stage manager at a very young age by keeping her large, busy family organized. More formally, Val trained at Ryerson’s Theatre School, graduating in 2002. Since then, Val has had the pleasure of working with a variety of companies, including Tribal Crackling Wind, Toronto Dance Theatre, Dancemakers, The Banff Centre for the Arts, Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre, Only Human Dance Collective and Outside Looking In, among others. Val is excited to once again be working with Dreamwalker Dance and all of the talented artists who collaborated on Beside Each Other.
Maiko Bae Yamamoto – Co-creator/Performer Re:Location
Maiko Bae Yamamoto Artistic Directs Theatre Replacement with fellow artist, James Long. Past works include WeeTube, That Night Follows Day (English language premiere, PuSh 2009), Train, Clark and I Somewhere in Connecticut, Yu-Fo, BIOBOXES, I am Sam Stan, Sexual Practices of the Japanese, and The Empty Orchestra: a love story powered by karaoke. Next season, Maiko will co-direct The Greatest Cities in the World, a work which will examine everyday life in some of the world’s greatest cities — Moscow, London, Rome — all located in the state of Tennessee. As a freelance performer and director, Maiko has had the pleasure of working with several companies including: urban ink productions, neworld theatre, Stan’s Cafe, Mammalian Diving Reflex, and the Leaky Heaven Circus. She is a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts.
Andy Maize – Singer/Performer Reveries
Andy Maize is a singer/songwriter and founding member of the Juno award winning group The Skydiggers who began their career in 1988. The Skydiggers have created eight records to date. The band celebrated their 20th anniversary with the release of The Truth About Us, a retrospective CD and DVD package, and is currently touring Canada. Maize and songwriting partner Josh Finlayson have also released an album, Dark Hollow. Maize’s debut solo album The History of Forgetting was release on June 8, 2010.
Nilan Perera – Guitarist/Improvising sound artist/Performer Home/I Love You more…c
Nilan Perera has been a part of the improvised andart music community since the mid ‘80s startingas the guitarist of choice for the punkfunk/No Wave scene that then infected Toronto .Hehas since performed and recorded with JohnButcher, Evan Parker, William Parker, Jandek, MaryMargaret O’Hara, Glen Hall, John Oswald,DavidToop, Sarah Peebles, Eddie Prevost, Rainer Wiensand Michael Ondaatje among many others. Hisdecade long association with multidisciplinaryartist Susanna Hood has placed him in thevanguard of experimental sound artists workingin performance with three major works with Ms.Hood’s company ‘hum’ as well as many otherindependent dancer/choreographers and theatrecompanies.
David Buchbinder - Director/Composer/Performer Tumbling Into Light
David is a trumpeter, composer and cultural inventor. He leads numerous music groups, composes for concert, theatre, film and television, and presents large-scale performance projects and has toured extensively in North America and Europe. He has been involved in the creation and presentation of world music and jazz since 1987 and has earned a reputation as on of its compositional and instrumental leading lights, through the Flying Bulgars, and his creation of Ashkenaz: A Festival of New Yiddish Culture. He is the composer/creator/producer of Shurum Burum Jazz Circus, a unique music-centered extravaganza for 11 musicians and 7 movements artists from the world of circus and modern dance. His most recent music project is Odessa/Havana, an unprecedented fusion of Jewish and Cuban music with jazz. David is very involved in cross-cultural experimentation, exploring the places where the celebratory musical cultures of the Jews, Arabs, and other intersect, collaborating with his wife, Palestinian-Canadian dancer/musician/actor Roula Said. He recently debuted his Jerusalem Salon at the inaugural Canwest Cabaret Festival. In all of these endeavours, he and his gifted co-conspirators do their best to go for the joyful jugular.
Patricia O’Callaghan – Co-creator/Performer Seven Deadly Sins
Patricia was born and raised in Northern Ontario. In her travels, she has lived, studied and picked up the local languages in Mexico, Quebec, Germany, and France. Patricia divides her time between recording CDs, touring her own shows, and collaborating on other interesting projects, working towards her heart’s ambition to bring her distinctive brand of cabaret to a broad-based audience. Recent appearances include opening the 2007 season with Soulpepper Theatre Company playing the role of Polly Peachum in The Threepenny Opera and the 2008 Young Centre season with multiple appearances at the Canwest Cabaret Festival. She is currently producing and co-creating a work called The Gypsy Wife with Tarragon Theatre which will see its premiere in the 2009/10 season. She also has the good fortune to appear in television shows, such as her own Bravo! special, Live at the Rehearsal Hall; the Rhombus/CBC special, Youkali Hotel; and the acclaimed Ken Finkleman drama, Foolish Heart.
Peter Mettler – Filmmaker Shostakovich Notes in Silence/Piano Trio No. 2
Emerging as part of the critical wave of 80′s Canadian filmmakers while also living and working in Switzerland, Peter Mettler melds intuitive-associative processes with drama, essay, experiment or documentation. His films and collaborations (incl Atom Egoyan, Fred Frith, Robert Lepage) continue to take a unique and influential position within cinema and other disciplines, resulting also in works such as live image/sound mixing performance, photography and installations. Meditations on our world, rooted in personal experience, Mettlers films reflect the visions and wonder of their characters and audiences alike and have garnered numerous prizes and retrospectives internationally. Films include:Scissere (´82) and Eastern Avenue (´85) experimental investigations into the movements of the subconscious. The first, a structured feature, the second an intuitive diary. The Top of his Head (´89) feature drama following the search for identity in a media driven world. Tectonic Plates (´92) feature drama, an adaptation of the play by Robert Lepage & Co. The movement of the earths tectonic plates is used to illustrate interconnecting stories on a human scale. Picture of Light (94) feature documentary, takes a film crew to the Sub Artic to capture the wonder of the Northern Lights on celluloid. Balifilm (´96) 30 min. diary/performance, is a lyrical tribute to the creative forces found on the island of Bali. Gambling, Gods and LSD(02) documentary, A 3 hour journey across cultures, people and time, an exploration of the notions of transcendence and belief. Collaborations include: Werner Penzel, Michael Ondaatje, Atom Egoyan, Peter Weber, Fred Frith, Jim O’Rourke, Alexandra Rockingham Gill, Jane Siberry, Robert Lepage, Andreas Züst, Bruce McDonald, Patricia Rozema, Ed Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal.
Tom Kuo – Digital Media Artist/Co-creator LEIKA/Tumbling Dice
As a musician, sound engineer, designer and installation artist, Tom Kuo uses his grounding in electronic music to pursue a multidisciplinary arts practice, working often in collaboration with personalities ranging from software developers to contemporary dancers. In Toronto, Tom heads up Foundation Studio which specializes in spatial and multimedia design for commercial and creative projects. He is also part of the wabi design collective, the superspace: performance/installation initiative, the innovative PUSHER event series, the Pixel interactive gallery, and has been developing the 156 Augusta Digital Media Centre as the creative and technical director.
Anne Bourne – Composer/Cellist/Vocalist Meditation Series 1-5/LEIKA/Tumbling Dice
Anne Bourne is a composer, cellist and vocalist. She has performed and recorded internationally with many artists in creative music genres including Jane Siberry, Fred Frith eric chenaux, Copyright, Tom Cora, Sarah MacLachlan, Susie Ibarra, and Joelle Leandre among others. Anne has created scores for film and dance with Peter Mettler, Atom Egoyan, Andrea Nann and Michael Ondaatje. Anne “is an earthy, unrestrained musical force, she accompanies her cello with otherwordly vocalizing” – CODA magazine
Kate Hollett - Visual Artist/Co-creator I Love You more…
Besides being the official “Love Ambassador of Toronto”, Kate Hollett is an award-winning multi-media artist and “lmmaker exhibiting internationally. Voted as one of 12 Top Canadian Female Contemporary Visual Artists by the Royal Bank, top visual artist by NOW Magazine, her work also garners the walls of Former President Bill Clinton and Christo & Jeanne Claude to name a few. Her “lm I Love You Over & Over” won her Best in Show at the Detroit International Art Video Festival and screened internationally including the prestigious LA Short Film Festival. I Love You more… presents the public premier of her interactive video installation, I Love You Too. My work uses text, abstract words and the intrinsic energy expressed in the communal and individual interpretation of their meaning to create a form of social sculpture. Word meaning is broken down into individual personal expression using multi media. The meanings are used as boundaries, sculpting energy to create a collective understanding, one meaning united by the word or words. The work is participatory with the viewer involving reflection and allowing the social sculpture to morph and change shape as it grows.
Sarah Chase – Co-creator/Performer/Director A Certain Braided History
Toronto-based dancer and choreographer Sarah Chase studied dance with such teachers as Peggy Baker, Patricia Miner and Linda Rabin, and at the Teacher’s Collective in Toronto, the Cunningham School in New York and the Toronto Dance Theatre. Today, she sees herself as a storyteller as well as dancer. She speaks as she dances, and the spoken word is almost as important as movement as she spins her tales, in an intimate spirit of confidences shared. In 1996, when Sarah Chase commissioned Benoît Lachambre to create a solo for her, he recognized her genius as a teller of family stories, and was inspired to incorporate some of her tales into a solo calledSecrets and Stories. This eventually grew into a full-length work that toured Europe, and was remarked as a uniquely personal and narrative approach to dance. Interested presenters invited her to choreograph her own work, stemming from this alchemical combination of memory, story and emotion. Chase is an exceptionally gifted soloist, and her work has been very warmly received in Europe, where she is currently collaborating and touring with German choreographer Raimund Hoghe. Her dances have been presented at international festivals in Belgium, Holland, Austria, Norway, Germany and Canada. She founded her company, Sarah Chase Dance Stories, in 2001.
Michael Ondaatje – Author/Poet/Creative Collaborator Cato and Alice/Meditation #5
Internationally celebrated and award winning author and poet Michael Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka and has lived in Canada since 1963. His works of prose include Anil’s Ghost, The English Patient, In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter, The Collected works of Billy the Kid, his memoir, Running in the Family, and The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film. His collections of poetry include Secular Love, The Cinnamon Peeler and Handwriting. Michael’s acclaimed new book is Divisadero. Ondaatje’s filmmaking credits include The Clinton Special, Sons of Captain Poetry and Carry On Crime and Punishment.
Andrew Cash – Singer/Songwriter/Performer One Sided Stories
Andrew Cash is a Juno award winning Toronto based composer, singer/songwriter and journalist. He has released twelve albums over the last twenty five years, has toured Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom numerous times and composed scores for a wide variety of television and film productions. Cash has appeared regularly on television and radio both as a performer and as a commentator, discussing a broad range of issues from tobacco sponsorship, copyright in the digital age and Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. Cash will be running in the next federal as NDP’s candidate in downtown Toronto riding of Davenport.
George Gao – Composer /Performer Source
George Gao has toured the US, Canada, France, Germany, Denmark, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China extensively and featured asa soloist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Taiwan National Chinese Orchestra, National Arts Center Symphony Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and I Musici. He has pioneered the development of new music for the erhu, fusing traditional Chinese music with jazz, Western Classical music, New Age, and other ethnic music from different world cultures.
Aisling Sampson – Technical Manager & Lighting Designer Reveries/One Sided Stories/Divination Duets/Tumbling Dice/Cato and Alice/Meditation Series/Shostakovich Notes in Silence/A Certain Braided History/INK
Selected Theatre designs include work for the Royal Opera Canada, Necessary Angel, Circle Theatre, YPT, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Magnus Theatre, Theatre Aquarius, TheatreAsylum, Equity Showcase, Cahoots Theatre Projects and the Shaw Festival. In the world of dance, Aisling is currently the production manager for the National Ballet School and for many years was the production director for Danceworks, and lighting director for Spring Rites and the Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists. She has lit premiereworks for numerous choreographers and is a graduate of Ryerson Theatre School, a member of Associated Designers of Canada and a proud mom to Jim and Rory.
Wayne Ngan- Visual Artist/Co-creator INK
Wayne Ngan is an internationally renowned potter. He graduated from the Vancouver School of Art in 1962, where he also studied painting, sculpture and drawing. Over the years he has returned many times to China, Taiwan and Japan to teach, conduct research and exhibit his work. Wayne’s works embody Far Eastern ideals of energy and balance defined by simplicity of form and line. In 1983, he received the coveted Saidye Bronfman Award for top Canadian craft. A collection of his work is permanently on display in the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Doris Shadbolt writes, “Living and working by the sea, in a house and kiln-equipped studio all of his own design and making, (Wayne Ngan) has achieved an integration of his life and his art that embodies the values of simplicity and wholeness at the centre of his personal philosophy. Ngan’s holistic approach to art is neither sought after nor capable of realization by most craftspeople today, but his example has the force and persuasiveness of the committed and productive visionary.”
John Gzowski - Composer Cato and Alice/Mercurial/INK
Sound designer, composer, musician and instrument maker John Gzowski has been found across the globe. He’s played for the opera in Banff, studied Carnatic classical music in India, played oud and guitar in jazz and folk festivals across Canada and Europe, played jazz in Japan and written for Dance in Spain. His theatre work has won him 4 Dora’s, and another 4 nominations, using live music, acoustic instrumentation and electronic sources. Gzowski has played on numerous CD’s, with his latest release coming from a live score for Serge Bennathan’s choreography for Dancemakers. As a leader, he has run Canada’s first microtonal group, touring Canada playing the works of Harry Partch. He’s won the Freddie Stone award (given to Canada’s best improvising musician), been nominated for a Juno with the group Maza Meze and spent two years as Co-Artistic Director of the Music Gallery.
