KEY COLLABORATORS
Edgardo Moreno (Composer)
Edgardo Moreno studied music at the Royal Conservatory of Music and York University. He has traveled to Chile, Trinidad, Puerto Rico and Venezuela to study local musical traditions. Having composed scores for film and television, he has also produced music for Nazka’s CD recording Write and Send Fruit and Mi Camino. He has worked with choreographers Livia Daza-Paris, Alejandro Ronceria, Norma Araiza and Karen & Allen Kaeja. He has composed pieces for the international multidisciplinary festival CAONABO in Venezuela, the television travelogue Exploring Horizons (Outdoor Life Network, Arctic Jungle Productions) and various pieces of music for the CBC, CityTV and the BRAVO! Network. Mr. Moreno has worked extensively as an educator in schools through the Ontario Arts Council - Artists in Education. He has lead workshops for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s "Adopt A Player" program, and has worked with the National Ballet on their Creating Dances in the Schools projects from 1994-2002. Represented by Prologue to the Performing Arts, he has been performing with the ensemble Maderaz in Ontario schools since 1993. In 2002 he was nominated as an emerging composer for the Louis Applebaum Composer’s Award for his work in film and television.
Mark Adam (Director, Director of Photography, and Editor)
A former professional dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, Ballet Arizona and Ballet de Montreal, Mark Adam has combined his twin passions of dance and film into a successful career since 1991. Since 1994 he has directed, produced and edited more than 25 dance-based films and television programs for Kaeja d’Dance, the National Ballet of Canada, Toronto Dance Theatre, Bravo! and CBC. These include Old Country, Departure, Zummel, Sarah, Witnessed, 1939 and Resistance (with Allen Kaeja). He recently completed three films for CBC’s “Opening Night”, The Imprint of Water with Dominique Dumais, The Dancer’s Story: 50 years of the National Ballet of Canada and Old Country with Allen Kaeja.
Jason Sherman (Writer)
Critically acclaimed playwright Jason Sherman’s plays include An Acre of Time; It’s All True; Patience; Reading Hebron; The Retreat; and Three in the Back, Two in the Head. He has received Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama (and been nominated three other times) and the Chalmers Canadian Play Award (twice, along with three other nominations). His adaptations of The Cherry Orchard (After the Orchard) and The Brothers Karamazov were seen last year at the National Arts Centre and Stratford Festival, respectively. Jason Sherman has written a number of radio dramas for CBC, including National Affairs and several episodes of the television series ReGenesis. Dubbed the enfant terrible of the Canadian stage, his work is uncompromising, challenging, and driven by an unerring sense of dialogue and theatricality. His plays - always political to some degree - encompass characters rarely seen in today’s drama, characters who face the tough questions, the big issues, and the difficult journeys many dramatists shy from. In the words of the late Canadian theatrical legend, Urjo Kareda, “The theatrical vitality of Jason Sherman’s plays starts from the sheer size of his central characters: the size of their desires, the size of their imagination, the size of their intelligence.”
Fides Krucker (Opera; Vocal Co-Composer & Coach)
Fides Krucker specializes in contemporary vocal repertoire. After training at the Banff Centre in the mid-eighties she performed the Berio Folk Songs extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East with such orchestras as the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, Il Maggio Musicale in Florence and the Opera de Lyon. Krucker is known for her performances of Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s works including ‘Ariadne’ in Requiems for the Party Girl for which she received a Dora nomination. She has sung in Britain, Canada, Belgium, Holland and Israel. She has also premiered new operas by several dozen composers both at home and abroad and is particularly interested in bringing extended vocal techniques into the development of new work. Fides is a founding member of and producer for the interdisciplinary female collective URGE. Their fourth collectively created show Trousseau / True Nature premiered at Calgary’s High Performance Rodeo, was remounted at Toronto’s Factory Theatre and was nominated for two Dora awards. In 2007 she travelled to Rome to work on the creation of arias for her character ‘Olympias’ in Maurizio Squillante’s new opera Alexander, with performances across Italy.
Andrea Donaldson (Abattoir - Text Director & Dramaturgical Support)
Andrea is a Dora Award-winning performer, director and theatre creator. She directed The Unfortunate Misadventures of Masha Galinski in Winnipeg, Victoria and Toronto, garnering Outstanding Direction, Production and Performance (NOW Magazine). Other highlights: directing The Blyth Festival Young Company, Howard Barker’s The Possibilities, and Rob Baker’s Crack, and performing in Theatre Direct’s And By the Way, Miss, in Shh…, and The Eyes of Heaven at The Blyth Festival. Upcoming, Andrea will be directing Offensive Fouls (Theatre Direct Canada)
Sarah O’Brien (Abattoir - Stage Manager)
Sarah has worked extensively in theatre for the past five years, and her experience includes a diverse section of production roles with various companies in different genres, ranging from touring musical theatre to new work creation integrating dance, text, and design. Sarah also works as a member of Harbourfront’s crack tech team. She is the Senior Stage Manager for Festival Antigonish Summer Theatre, Nova Scotia’s longest running professional repertory company.
Cheryl Lalonde (Costume and Set Designer)
Born and raised in Toronto, Cheryl Lalonde began her career in the arts with Act IV Theatre at Adelaide Court. After two years backstage at Toronto Workshop Productions her design debut was for the premiere production of Thompson Highway's The Rez Sisters under mentor Larry Lewis (director). Splitting her time between stage management and design has allowed her to travel the world as well as collaborate with many companies, including Desrosiers Dance Theatre, The Danny Grossman Dance Company, CORPUS, Eclectic Theatre, The Alberta Ballet, Theatre Smith Gilmour, and Kaeja d’Dance. Ms. Lalonde has been nominated for four Dora Mavor Moore Awards for design and was honoured in 1997 for her design of Eclectic Theatre's Chutzpah a-go-go. When not designing, stage-managing or sleeping, Ms. Lalonde is kept busy as mother to a delightful daughter, Rowan, and wife to dancer Jean-Aimé Lalonde.
Roelof Peter Snippe (Lighting Designer)
Roelof
began his professional lighting design career with Toronto Workshop Productions under the direction of George Luscombe. He went on to enjoy a long working relationship with Toronto Dance Theatre creating designs for over 150 works in their repertoire. Other credits include original designs for the Danny Grossman Dance Company, Dancemakers, Ottawa Ballet, Kaeja d’ Dance, Denise Fujiwara, Tedd Robinson, Claudia Moore, Michelle Silagy, and Natasha Bakht. Over the past 35 years Ron’s work as a Lighting Designer, Stage Manager and Tour Coordinator has taken him to national and international festivals across Canada, throughout Europe, Central and South America and Asia.
Deanna Brown (Costume Designer)
Deanna
trained as a cutter at Ryerson University and continues to develop her work in the world of costume and fashion design. She has designed for Kaeja d'Dance's Tabled Manners and Princess Productions' Emerald Lies. Deanna has collaborated extensively with designer Astrid Jansen on such works as VideoCabaret's History Plays, which won Dora awards for Costume Design in 2004 and 2005, plus Veronica Tennants film Shadow Pleasures. Currently Deanna is the mother of newborn baby girl and operates The Custom Clothing Company from her studio in Toronto.
Jorge Sandoval (Costume Designer)
Mr. Sandoval designed the costumes for the Kaeja d’Dance film Between Seams. In the fall of 2007, Mr. Sandoval designed the costumes for A Christmas Carol for the Globe Theatre (Regina), which opened with ravishing reviews. He is presently designing the opera The Marriage of Figaro for The Glenn Gould studio, which will open in the spring of 2008, as well as the costume design and choreography for the musical Et si on chantait for Theatre Français de Toronto. A native of Mexico City, Mr. Sandoval received his formal training as a dancer/teacher concentrating on contemporary dance.
Diana Groenendijk (Dancer & Co-Director on Bird's Eye View) is an independent dance artist based in Toronto and the co-artistic director of INpulse Dance together with Suzanne Liska. In the last year they have performed at The Junction Arts Festival, The Tarragon Theatre, The Drake Hotel, The Ice Lounge, “Coexis Dance” and “DARK” at Todmorden Mills choreography by Pam Johnson. Originally from South Africa, Diana moved to Vancouver to train at the Goh Ballet Academy. She is a graduate from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s Professional Training Program and was mentored by Dancemakers under Artistic Director Serge Bennathan for his creation of "Tizgans". She has worked with choreographers/directors Andrea Dugas-Hawkes, Sasha Ivanochko, Pam Johnson, Learie McNicolls, Meagan O' Shea, Kelly Straughn, Darryl Tracy, and as well as Tracy Human, and Pasi Niemena in South Africa.Her choreography has been presented at the Jane Mallet Theatre, Dancemakers Centre for Creation, The Winchester Street Theatre, The Steelworkers Hall, The Theatre Centre, and “Series 8:08”. Diana’s short film “Existence Measured” has been screened at The Gladstone Hotel, “The Culture Vacuum”, and “The Wrecking Ball II”. In 2004 she co-founded and produced the site-specific modern dance showcase “In a White Room”. For Nuit Blanche 2007, Diana co-directed Bird’s Eye View with Karen Kaeja at the Casa Loma Stables.
