Dancers

Ali Robson

Ali Robson is a contemporary dancer from Winnipeg. Since graduating from the School of Contemporary Dancers in 2004 she has worked in Vancouver with EDAM under the direction of Peter Bingham and in Winnipeg with Karen Kuzak of TRIP Dance Company. She has worked independently with Tom Stroud and Christopher Pinker (The Joy Collective, Winnipeg), Vancouver choreographers Delia Brett (MACHiNENOiSY) and Melanie Kuxdorf, Winnipeg choreographers Natasha Torres-Garner and Treasure Waddell, and independent choreographer and filmmaker, Coral Aiken (Toronto). She is a member of The Momentum Collective (Winnipeg) and her own choreographic work has been presented by Young Lungs Dance Exchange and performed in the Winnipeg Fringe Festival.

Alison Denham

Alison Denham is a contemporary dance artist living in Vancouver. She is originally from the Sunshine Coast and received her dance training at Arts Umbrella and the Ballet BC mentor program. She was a company member of Dancemakers under the artistic direction of Serge Bennathan from 2000 to 2005. Independently Alison has worked with many choreographers and dance companies in Vancouver and Toronto. Recent projects include a new creation with Shannon Moreno of Science Friction, M/Hotel by David Macintosh of battery opera, Highgate by Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, and Fluency by Peter Chin of Tribal Crackling Wind. She is the 2006 Isadora Award winner for Excellence in Performance for her role in Wen Wei Wang's Unbound. Alison performed with the 2011 Alcan Award winners, The Turning Point Ensemble, in Luft choreographed by Simone Orlando. She is honoured to be a part of Elles and to work with Serge and this amazing cast of women.

Carolyn Woods

Carolyn Woods trained at Grant MacEwan Community College in Edmonton under the tutelage of such great teachers and contributors to dance in Canada as David Adams, Charlene Tarver, and Brian Webb. She moved to Toronto and became part of one of Canada's leading modern dance companies, Dancemakers. In 1990 Serge Bennathan took the reigns and here began her journey of understanding what it meant to become passionate about dance and becoming an artist. In that time she had the great opportunity to work with many esteemed choreographers including a long and in depth association with Peter Chin. With Serge and Dancemakers she also worked with the Canadian Opera Company, then under the direction of Richard Bradshaw, on Venus and Adonnis and Salome with Atom Egoyan. With the ensemble of Dancemakers she has been nominated over ten times for Outstanding Performance and in 2004 won as a solo artist for the prestigious Dora Mavor Moore Award. In 2004 she left dancing full-time to pursue her studies as a Pilates instructor with Dianne Miller in Vancouver who was integral in bringing the Pilates Method to Canada in 1984. She spent the next eight years teaching Pilates at The Pilates Centre of Toronto and keeping her feet in the dance world by doing small projects. Feeling the call to come back to the West, Carolyn moved to Vancouver this past September to work at The Vancouver Pilates Centre, formerly The Dianne Miller Pilates Centre of Vancouver, now owned by Ms. Miller's long time associate, Mairin Wilde. Carolyn would like to thank Mairin and her co-workers for accommodating her on this project and Dianne for her absolute generosity of time and spirit in helping her rediscover her dancing body. It is an honour to be back in the studio with Serge.

Darcy McMurray

Darcy McMurray has been dancing since she was four, training mostly in ballet and contemporary techniques. In her earlier years she trained and performed with DanceStreams Youth Dance Company and toured with them to China in 1993. She joined Arts Umbrella in 1996 for the Professional Training Program and Youth Dance Company and then went on to Ballet BC's Mentor Program in 1998. She continues to work as a professional dance artist in Vancouver.

Ten years ago she studied to become a Pilates instructor, and went on to become an instructor trainer. In 2008 she opened her own Pilates studio, Full Circle Pilates and Health in Vancouver. Throughout her Pilates career she has created curiculum, trained instructors and conducted workshops and exams throughout Mexico, Austrailia, Denmark, Spain, Taiwan, Korea as well Canada and the USA.

Darcy has had the oppourtunity to work with inspiring choreographers such as Robert Derosiers in partnership with Toronto's Mendelssohn Choir, Judith Marcus in Earth = Home, looking at our environmental impacts on the globe. In collaboration with Karen Jamieson in Collision, Sisyphus and Stand Your Ground, as well as with Gail Lotenberg/LINK Dance in creation of Somatic Scientific and Experiments, both science and dance collaborations and most recently, with Jennifer Mascall in The White Spider, a vertical dance piece. She is thrilled to be dancing with these wonderful women in Serge's work Elles.

Erin Drumheller

Originally from rural British Columbia, Erin Drumheller graduated from LADMMI l’Ecole de danse contemporaine in Montréal in 2011. During her time at LADMMI she had the opportunity to work with the choreographers Serge Bennathan, Sylvain Émard, and Dana Gingras, among others. Erin has had the occasion to continue her training with internationally renowned artists Risa Steinberg, Antony Rizzi, and Iñaki Azpillaga. Since graduating, she has performed with Lucie Grégoire Danse, as part of the festival Quartiers Danses, as well as for the emerging choreographer Geneviève Lechasseur.

Linnea Swan

Toronto-based performing artist Linnea Swan has had the privilege of working with many of Canada's esteemed dance and theatre companies and artists including Dancemakers, Human Cargo, Ruth Cansfield Dance, TRIP dance company, Volcano Theatre, Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers, Serge Bennathan, Rachel Browne, Susie Burpee, Lesandra Dodson, Susanna Hood, D.A. Hoskins, Claudia Moore, and Tedd Robinson. A graduate of Main Dance Place (Vancouver), and the School of Contemporary Dancers (Winnipeg), she has continued her studies in New York, New Mexico, and was a danceWEB participant at ImPulsTanz in Vienna.

Linnea is a member of The Exchange Rate Collective, whose interdisciplinary collaborative creation Appetite received two Dora Mavor Moore Awards. She has acted as rehearsal director for Rachel Browne, TRIP dance company, and The Dietrich Group. She is featured in the Bravo!FACT videos Slip, Sahara Sahara, and La Revue. An emerging filmmaker herself, Linnea has worked alongside a number of choreographers and musicians to create music videos, promotional videos and films that accompany live performance.

Susan Elliott

Susan Elliott is a Vancouver-based dance artist and artistic director of Anatomica. Susan has been an active member of the Canadian dance milieu since 1989, working as a dancer, teacher, choreographer and rehearsal director. A few of the companies she has had the pleasure of dancing for: Lola Dance, EDAM, battery opera, The Holy Body Tattoo, Kokoro and DanStaBat, and in theatre: Theatre Replacement's The Greatest Cities in the World. Susan was Dance Artist in Residence at The Vancouver East Cultural Centre from 2000-04.

Valerie Calam

Originally from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Valerie Calam began dancing competitively at age seven, training in tap, jazz, and ballet at the Sherry Walsh Academy of Dance Arts. She moved to Toronto at 18 to attend the School of Toronto Dance Theatre's Professional Training Program where she was first introduced to modern dance, falling in love with the Graham Technique. After graduation, she had the privilege of working with Dancetheatre David Earle and Danny Grossman Dance Company. Under the artistic direction of Christopher House, Valerie was a member of Toronto Dance Theatre from 1999-2009 where she had the opportunity to work with Peter Chin, Sasha Ivonochko, Sharon Moore, and Stephanie Skura. Currently, Valerie is dancing with Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie and ProArteDanza where she recently performed works by James Kudelka and Guillaume Cote.

Valerie has been presenting choreography in Toronto since 1997 and uses the psudoneym name Vice Versa for her work in sound design and dance video. She has created works for Toronto Dance Theatre, Alias Dance Project, Ryerson Dances, the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, as well as many of her own choreographies. Valerie recently launched Company ViceVersa, a Toronto based contemporary dance organization, where she is the artistic director. Company VV presented its first full-evening work in January 2012 at The Citadel (Toronto). Valerie has been nominated for four Mavor Moore Dora Awards including Outstanding New Choreography in 2007. She is the winner of the 2011 KM Hunter Award for Dance chosen by juries of experienced artists from a selection of grant applications recommended by Ontario Arts Council juries. She is the drummer in the new age punk band The Tight Ship.