about the artists ↓

Oakland native, Antoine Hunter aka Purple Fire Crow is an award-winning internationally known African-American, Indigenous, Deaf, Disabled, choreographer, dancer, actor, instructor, speaker, producer and Deaf advocate. He creates opportunities for Disabled, Deaf and hearing artists, produces Deaf-friendly events, and founded the Urban Jazz Dance Company in 2007 and Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival in 2013. Awards include the 2023 USA Artist Fellowship, 2022 Disability Futures Fellowship, 2021 Dance Teacher Award, 2019 National Dance/USA fellowship recognized by the Mayor of Oakland, 2018 inaugural Jeanette Lomujo Bremond Humanity Arts Award and 2017 Isadora Duncan (Izzie) for BAIDDF.

Hunter’s work has been performed globally and he has lectured across the U.S. including at Kennedy Center’s VSA, Harvard and Duke University, and the National Assembly of State Arts as an ambassador for social change. Hunter utilizes his company’s artistic talents to engage with audiences, empower Deaf and disabled communities, and advocate for human rights and access, working to end discrimination and prejudice.

His shoe company DropLabs and Susan Paley released an innovative haptic product to help people feel music. Hunter curated 2021 Bay Area Deaf Arts at SOMArts, is a 2021 YBCA 100 honoree, is on the production team of Signing Animation actively working on inclusive films and serves on the boards of Dance/USA, BABDA, Museum of Dance and councils for CalArts Alumnx and Intrinsic Arts.

In response to Covid-19 in July 2020, Hunter founded #DeafWoke, an online talk show that amplifies BIPOC Deaf and Disabled stories as a force for cultural change. Www.realurbanjazzdance.com

From Edmonton, AB a bountiful city created in favour of the unfavourable [Arin Aron] jumped at chances and went crazy at dances and got tied up in so many fictions that I had to run from the hills. Trying to make amends with polarising forces. A Gemini caught between two sides - finding comfort in the in-betweens and nowhere nears. Making the most of the leftovers, generating material, gathering forgotten thoughts.

Celia Green’s practice spans choreography, writing, creation, and performance. Their work has been presented in Berlin, Montreal, and in Toronto at the Rhubarb Festival and the SummerWorks Festival where they received the 2019 Theatre Centre Emerging artist award. Earlier this year Celia curated GOODIE BAG! with Dancemakers, a week long event that offered that offered free massage, tattoos, portraits and acupuncture for trans and gender non-conforming performers. Through their work they often are drawn to exploring identity, the body, and the search for freedom.

I am Natasha “Courage” Bacchus. I’m a former 3 times Deaf Olympian Sprinter. I began working as an actress in 2019 - and since then I’ve performed in: ‘The Black Drum’, ‘The Two Natasha’s’, ‘21 Black Futures’, and season four of ‘The Corner’ on Netflix. I have participated as an art collaborator with numerous theater and film productions in Canada. I had multiple positions including an interdisciplinary visual artist, art accessibility consultant, and activist for IBPOC Deaf art community in terms of expanding IBPOC Deaf artists representation.

David Norsworthy (he/him) is a Tkarón:to/Toronto-based dance artist, choreographer and producer of mixed Japanese immigrant/British settler descent who is “an exceptionally lucid performer, impressive and articulate” (Globe and Mail). A graduate of The Juilliard School where he trained in Euro-American contemporary dance, David delights in asking questions, and believes deeply in the transformative power of dancing. David has performed with dance companies and collaborated with dance creators in Canada, USA, Sweden and Australia, and his choreographic career has included independently produced full-length works, international tours, and commissioned projects for companies, universities and schools. David is the grateful recipient of the Living Arts Centre’s Ron Lenyk Award and was one of three finalists for the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award. David is a Co-Founder/Co- Director of TOES FOR DANCE, a Board Member of CanAsian Dance, and a part-time Rehearsal Director for Norrdans, a contemporary dance company in Sweden. www.davidnorsworthy.com

Fran Chudnoff also known as Franz or Franny (they/them), is a Tkaronto based millennial, with a BFA in performance, and paying rent as a multidisciplinary artist. They are a dance maker, video artist, and photographer. They are beginning to extend their visual practice into digital illustration & 3D modelling and animation. Their work is in conversation with internet aesthetics, gender deviance, and shaping a “social aura”. Fran is currently performing and touring in Andrew Tay and Stephen Thompson’s “MAKE BANANA CRY”.

I [Heidi Strauss] am a dance artist curious about movement, human behaviour, and shifting perspectives. The complexities of who (and where) we are keep my practice evolving; I consider uncertainty a pathway to presence. My creative work responds to current personal, social or environmental moments and plays with the reconfiguring of space and roles of audience/performer. As a maker, mentor, pedagogue and co-learner, I believe in facilitating space for growth, thought, conversation and physical/embodied experience. I am the grateful recipient of a KM Hunter Award and multiple Dora Awards, currently in residency at the Citadel, an MFA candidate at Transart Institute, and artistic director of adelheid. https://adelheid.ca

jaamil olawale kosoko is a multi-spirited Nigerian American author, performance artist, and curator of Yoruba and Natchez descent originally from Detroit, MI. jaamil’s practice is conceptual, process-based, and interdisciplinary from within a corporeal modality. kosoko moves across the creative realms of live art performance, video, sculpture, and poetry using both cultural and academic idioms. As an educator and community organizer, they approach politics and education as extensions of their creative practice. Through rooted ritual and spiritual practice, embodied poetics, Black critical studies, and queer theories of the body, kosoko conjures and crafts perpetual modes of freedom, healing, and care when/where/however possible.

jaamil is the author of Black Body Amnesia: Poems and Other Speech Acts, released Spring 2022 blending poetry and memoir, conversation and performance theory as means to tell a personal narrative inspired by Audre Lords concept of the biomythography. kosoko is the recipient of awards including the 2022 Slamdance Jury Prize for Best Experimental Short film, 2021/22 MacDowell Fellowship, 2020 Pew Fellowship in the Arts, 2020 NCCAkron Creative Administrative Fellowship, 2019 NPN Creation & Development Fund award, 2019 Red Bull Arts Fellowship, 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Choreography, 2017-2019 Princeton Arts Fellowship, 2018 NEFA National Dance Project Award, 2018-20 New York Live Arts Live Feed Residency, 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Fellowship, and consecutive 2016-2020 USArtists International Awards from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. In Fall of 2020, jaamil was appointed the 3rd annual Alma Hawkins Visiting Chair at UCLA World Arts & Cultures/Dance Department. Additionally, jaamil lectures regularly at Princeton University, The University of the Arts Stockholm, and Master Exerce, ICI-CCN in Montpellier, France. Follow jaamil’s creative adventures on IG @jaamil_means_beauty or visit jaamil.com for more information.

Kaelin Isserlin is a third generation Ashkenazi settler and performance artist, specializing in dance, based in Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Treaty land. Kaelin spends his time interpreting and collaborating in dance process, researching and creating original theatre and film work, and curating creative practice series with company OVERSIZE.LOAD. Freelancing has offered Kaelin the pleasure to work with friends and inspirations including, WIlli Dorner (Austria), Marjolien Vogels (Amsterdam), Marie Lambin, Noemie LaFrance, NOSTOS collectives, EIlish Shin-Culhane, I/O Movement/Lauren Runions to name a few.

Morgyn (she/they) is a Dora nominated contemporary dance artist and an arts educator for youth and seniors. They are one of the co-creators behind ‘blank space’. Originally from Edmonton AB, she moved to Toronto to study at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, graduating in 2019. Since then she has worked with the Toronto-based dance companies Frog in Hand, Human Body Expression, Kaeja d’Dance, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, OVERSIZE.LOAD, the Citadel + Compagnie, the Wind in the Leaves Collective, Tiger Princess Dance Projects, and Rock Bottom Movement, as well as with independent choreographer Krista Newey, Eilish Shin-Culhane and Rumi Jeraj.

Roberto is the new era no longer restricted by time she walks the earth with patience noticing how all is changing he doesn't interfere she listens he watches ready for nothing yet it all shows it’s true colours, the sun and the moon have her life and it’s the random that keeps him alive.

i am:
a raver
a dj/creator of noise
a lover
A poet
a photographer/filmmaker
a sagittarius
and friendly so if you see me in the street come say hi!

Siwar Soria (they/he) is a Tkarón:to/Toronto based dance artist, who is finally learning how to skateboard. They are Andinx and have Irish/Slovakian settler roots. He is learning to speak Quechua Chanka, South Bolivian Quechua, as well as the Norte Potosí variety, which his family speaks. Their work aims to question western frameworks of the gender binary, by prioritizing indigenous perspectives on recovering sexual and gender diversities to make room for their own “deviances”. As a dancer, he tends to use impulse and distortion to build a playground where ancestral memory and desire meet. They have completed residencies in Whitehorse, YT (the Heart of Riverdale) and in Oaxaca, Mexico (Pocoapoco). They have presented work in CAMINOS 2021 produced by Aluna Theatre.

Tavia Christina is a multi-hyphenate artist based in Tkarón:to (Toronto, ON). Tavia embraces their ethereal nature as a driving force in both their artistic expression and research. They find solace, inspiration, and the ability to create through movement, seeing it as a means of communication, healing, and personal transformation. Their choreographic research and development are informed by improvisation, voice work, and a deep connection with the surrounding ecology. Their practice is based in somatic movement, improvisation, and spiritual endurance. They have a background in western contemporary dance training as well as other mediums such as: curation, acting, poetry, occultism, film and photography.

Ty Temple-Smith (she/they) was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta. Their artistic practice started from conception. Temple-Smith is a multi-disciplinary artist working with sculpture, video, illustration, and dance. She is most curious about the ways her identity as a queer black person interacts with her art and how it's seen. Working with ideas surrounding collaboration and how to feel safely seen.