Lucy M. May (she/they) is a dance artist born in Eqpahak/Wolastokuk/Fredericton and based in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal since 2003. Her choreographic projects explore the materiality of human attention and our relationships to place and to each other. Improvisation resides at the heart of their work as a dancer, creator, and teacher, nourished by experiences performing in Contemporary dance and practicing Krump. She has lead workshops and classes for such organizations as RQD, EDCM, Love-In, Studio 303, Kinetic Studio, DansEncorps, Empirical Freedom, and Fada Dance. Interested in collective ways of transmitting movement knowledge, she has co-created gatherings such as Off_Script.

Anya Allegra Saugstad is a dancer and choreographer based in Vancouver BC, on the unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh', Stó:lō and Səlílwətaʔ/ Selilwitulh, and xwməθkwəyə̓ m First Nations. Anya trained at ArtsUmbrella, and has a BFA in Dance from Simon Fraser University. Anya Saugstad is the Artistic Director of a non profit dance organization called Furious Grace Dance Theatre, (originally Judith Garay’s company Dancers Dancing). Furious Grace / Anya Saugstad create live collaborative performance works in theaters and outdoors. Anya builds vigorous and highly physical ensemble choreography to express stories that encompass strength, celebration, and yearning. Anya has created works for ArtsUmbrella, LamonDance, Simon Fraser University, Method Dance Company, Coastal City Ballet, and she is currently teaching Choreographic Lab at Simon Fraser University. Anya’s work has been presented through The Dance Deck (Belle Spirale), Dance West Network, The Scotiabank Dance Center, Crimson Coast Dance, The Rotary Center for the Arts, and has toured her work across BC and to Montreal Quebec. Anya Saugstad is grateful to be the recipient of the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award for 2023/24.

Aisha Sasha John is interested in performance as a site of rehearsing being and in the power of reception as creative methodology. She’s the 2023-2035 Toronto Dance Theatre Affiliate Artist. John’s duet with Devon Snell, DIANA ROSS DREAM (Danse-cité), premiered in fall 2022 and was developed during a 2019-2022 Dancemakers choreographic residency. Her first full-length solo work debuted as the aisha of oz at the Whitney Museum in 2017, and in 2018, iterations of the aisha of is were presented at MAI and Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival. From 2015-2017, John choreographed, performed and curated as a member of the collective WIVES, presenting ACTION MOVIE at La Chapelle (2017). John’s video work and text art have been exhibited in galleries (Doris McCarthy, Oakville Galleries). A celebrated poet, John is the author of the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize nominated collection, I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart 2017). Her fourth collection total will be published in spring 2025.

Leelee Oluwatoyosi Eko Davis’ practice is rooted in the foundations of contemporary dance and intermedia creation methodologies. As a disabled, transgenderqueer artist of Nigerian/French/Algonquin descent, working in decolonial frameworks is central to their research and creations. Being from Treaty 1 Territory, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Leelee has had the opportunity to train and work professionally across Turtle Island. Their artistic goals are to merge performance and life, stage and experience, building a bridge to revealing the human condition. They can most commonly be found, producing their own work as a solo artist, however often collaborate across milieus. Leelee has had the profound pleasure of collaborating with artists and interpreting for choreographers such as Jolene Bailie, Dayna Danger, Raven Davis, Jesse Dell, Yannick Desranleau, Vanessa Dunn, Audrey Dwyer, Reginald Edmund, Johnny Forever, Gambletron, Chloe Lum, Ryan MacNamara, Kate Nankervis, Alexandra Tigchelaar on works for theatre, film, and stage. Eko Davis also works as a program designer, facilitator, and consultant in the field of Social Innovation and Adaptive Change and is a Co-Artistic Director at the Toronto Dance Community Love-In.

Tanya Marquardt is a writer and performer. Their performances have been presented at PuSh, VIDF, rEvolver, Summerworks, foldA, The Tank, Brooklyn Museum, The Brick, The Collapsable Hole, and at U500 in Budapest, Hungary. Tanya has worked with JoAnne Akalaitis, Jerome Bel, Ballez, Jess Barbagallo, Mallory Catlett, Fay Nass, the only animal, radix, and the Leaky Heaven Circus. They live and work on the unceded, ancestral and occupied traditional lands of the xwməθkwəy̓əm, Sə̓lílwətaʔ, and Skwxwú7mesh Nations and in Lenapehoking, the homeland of the Lenni-Lenape People, and Canarsie and Munsee Nations. IG: @Tanya-Marquardt // tanyamarquardt.com

Darryl Tracy is a Toronto-based artist who loves human movement and expression.  He is involved in dance, choreography, movement facilitation, conditioning and teaching. He has performed with many Canadian and European choreographers over the last 25 years and has also created 42 works through commissions and self-productions. He was on faculty at School of Toronto Dance Theatre (now named Dance Arts Institute) for over 18 years under the artistic direction of Pat Fraser. Currently, Darryl teaches at the National Ballet School (Teachers Training Program) in Anatomy and Contemporary/Modern Dance. He is a neurological rehabilitation physiotherapist in Toronto in the private and public sector. Most recently: a new solo created alongside Marie-Josee Chartier for Tracy entitled "six ways to peel an orange", a new choreographic commission for the Saint John Contemporary Dance Festival (July 2024) and a new co-creation with actor Krista White.

jaamil olawale kosoko is a multi-spirited Nigerian American author, performance artist, and curator of Yoruba and Natchez descent originally from Detroit, Michigan. kosoko moves across the creative realms of performance, video, sculpture, and poetry. Through ritual and spiritual practice, embodied poetics, Black critical studies, and queer theories of the body, kosoko conjure and crafts perpertual modes of freedom, healing, and care.

jaamil's works- including Black Body Amnesia (2022), Chameleon (2020), Séancers (2017), and the Bessie Award-nominated #negrophobia (2015)—have toured to venues and festivals such as Abrons Art Center, Gibney Dance Center, Wexner Center for the Arts, Fusebox Festival, and Montréal Arts Interculturels, among others.

jaamil is the recipient of several awards including the 2022 Slamdance Jury Prize for Best Experimental Short Film, 2022 LaBecque Residency (Switzerland), 2021/22 MacDowell Fellowship in the Arts, 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Choreography, 2017-2019 Princeton Arts Fellowship, among many others. jaamil lectures regularly at Princeton Univiersity and The University of the Arts Stockholm. Visit jaamil.com for more information.

Robert Kingsbury is a queer multi-disciplinary artist and somatic practitioner working in contemporary dance, photo/video, sound design and composition. He does Biodynamic Craniosacral, Gestalt, Somatic Experiencing in therapeutic contexts and is interested in the connections between bodywork and the arts. His works have been at Summerworks, Rhubarb, Guelph Dance, and performed by TDT & Cadence Ballet. He has danced for Padmini Chettur, D.A. Hoskins, Andrew Tay, Brandy Leary, David Earle & Terrill McGuire. He has collaborated on video works with Janet Morton, Francesco Gaggliardi, Christina Kingsbury and Sujit Vaidya. Robert was honored to receive the 2011 Premiere's Award for Emerging Artist. In 2014 with the support of the OAC Chalmers he mentored in facilitating somatic research with Shannon Cooney of Berlin for 3 months. Other highlights include 8 intensives with the Trisha Brown Dance Company and an internship with Dancetheatre David Earle.