Kaleido Artists: Dance

You will find great dance at the Kaleido Festival. To find out when each is playing, view our schedule here.

Linda Turnbull

Dance Curator

Linda Turnbull is a dancer and choreographer residing in Edmonton. She has presented her choreography at the Edmonton Fringe Festival, Vancouver Powell Street Festival, Expanse Movement Arts Festival (Edmonton), Dancefest @ Nextfest (Edmonton) and the Brian Webb Dance Company (Edmonton). Linda was the recipient of the Northland’s Emerging Artist Award at the Mayor’s Evening for the Arts in 2007. She has been an active voice in the Edmonton contemporary dance scene, promoting new works and giving guidance to emerging choreographers through Dancefest@Nextfest. Linda is very excited to be a part of the Kaleido Family Arts Festival and looks forward to seeing you around the festival!

Aboriginal Dance

Capoeira

“Capoeira is an ancient Brazilian fusion of martial arts, dance, and music, invented by African slaves. Africans brought to Brazil as slaves from several regions and of different ethnic groups shared cultural customs: dances, fighting techniques, and rituals. Born in an atmosphere of oppression, Capoeira developed as a means of self-expression, freedom, and play that today is gaining popularity worldwide.

Elite Dance Studios

Mile Zero Dance

Water’s Edge

Mile Zero Dance (est. 1985) was founded by Andrea Rabinovitch and Debra Shantz to provide a professional forum for emerging dancers. Since then, MZD has been adapting to meet the needs of a growing community. MZD is now a voice for a generation of choreographers, artists and audience members alike who are interested in being part of a larger creative community. While focusing on the development of contemporary dance through interdisciplinary, collaborative explorations, MZD exposes dance to new audiences of all ages in a wide range of settings. Gerry Morita, the current Artistic Director of MZD, has infused the company with a distinct voice and aesthetic that encompasses dance, interdisciplinary work, and performance art.

Currently, Mile Zero Dance produces at least one mainstage performance each season, as well as a Salon Series, Dance Lab, Workshops, and School touring residencies. MZD’s programming demonstrates a unique and vital role in the community. MZD has been expanding its scope on the international stage, performing at festivals in Turkey and more recently in Japan, where “Water’s Edge” was exposed to Tokyo audiences.

“Water’s Edge” originally premiered in Edmonton as MZD’s 2007 mainstage performance. It poetically synthesizes dance, media, sound and performance art in response to the question of water’s future. As waters recede and scarcity turns to commodity, how does this affect life? The piece is a multi discipline experience that brings together a rain of movement, splashes of light and waves of music to explore the political and social issues that surround water. Don Ross composed the original score for Water’s Edge”, and the video was conceptualized by Tim Folkman.

Theresa Dextrase- Dancer

Hailing from rural Alberta, Theresa comes from a rich and varying dance background. She first discovered contact improvisation in 1998, studying with Alice Harkness and Martin Keogh, and for the past six years, she has been studying, performing, and teaching contact improvisation with Gerry Morita. Theresa has been active in the Edmonton dance community for many years as a dancer and as an independent educator. She supplements her understanding of dance through her work as a massage therapist and her study of Taoist tai chi.

Gerry Morita – Choreographer and Dancer

Artistic Director Gerry Morita (BA Dance SFU) has been with Mile Zero Dance since 2002 and has collaborated with regional and international artists including Linda Rubin, Yvon Bonenfant, Hideo Arai, Wendy McNeil, Kathy Ochoa, Peter Bingham, Tim Folkmann and Izumi Kuribayashi. Pushing dance into the multidisciplinary arena of performance, Morita won Innovation in Artistic Direction: 2006 at the Mayor’s Award for the Arts 2006. Besides making an impression in Edmonton and Vancouver, she has also lived and worked as a professional dancer in Tokyo and Montreal.

Eryn Tempest- Dancer

Eryn has recently been dancing for Mile Zero Dance, Kathy Ochoa, and Orchesis Dance. She appeared in the January work of Calgary choreographer Helen Husak. Eryn is a Victoria School for the Arts grad, and teaches ashtanga yoga and movement classes at Lion’s Breath. Her focus in movement is to practice presence and embodiment through improvisation, contact dance, and contemporary technique.

Eryn will be performing to music by Travis Boa and Cam Boyce, performing as “Of Breath”. (read more about Of Breath on our Musicians page.

Pleated

Project description:

An investigation into shared artistic space. Dancer Eryn Tempest and musicians Cam Boyce and Travis Boa explore the patterns that arise out of personal desire folded into a collaborative creative vision. How are the compulsions of the individual transmuted into the transcendence and synthesis of the live artistic event? What is lost and what is gained? And where do we go when we lose ourselves to the moment.

Salsaddiction Dance Co.

Salsaddiction is proud to be participating in community events. We are host to some of the hottest dances around the world. With Salsa, Cha Cha, Bachata, African Dance and now venturing into Belly Dancing with some of the most experienced teachers on board.
We are home to two performance teams in Cuban style Salsa and L.A style Salsa. Our teams have performed everywhere from Porto Rico, Miami, San Fransisco to Vancouver. We are proud to entertain the community over the years and continue to teach around the city to people of all ages and professions. If you are looking for a fun, enjoyable and challenging opportunity come join us in our classes and who knows someday you might be performing for us. Check us out at www.salsaddiction.com.

NYLA TEAM: Gino/ Dianne, Jay / Grace, Scott / Angel, Tommy / Marla, David / Ann Marie

Raena Waddell

“My Gift To You” is a reflection and response to a series of situations over the past 8 months that served as a lesson in illusion, deceit and emotional surrendering. Alongside the dance is a unique soundscape engineered by Kevin Green and Cameron Dahl, using music sampled by Trent Reznor and Tori Amos.

Raena Waddell is thrilled to perform her dance “My Gift To You” again after it’s premiere at Nextfest 2008. Raena graduated from the Grant MacEwan College dance program in 2000, where she received the Brian Webb Dance Company Award. Raena is a 2007 recipient of the NextFest Enbridge Emerging Artist Award. Raena works as an independent artist having presented and danced in work at Alberta Dance Explosion’s, Feats Festival, Fringe Theatre Adventures, Nextfest and Expanse Festival. Raena trains with Tracy Friesen and performed Tracy’s duet, “Split Open” in both Calgary and Edmonton earlier this year. Raena also trains with Heidi Bunting and recently performed Heidi’s “Everything Has A Face” as part of the Brian Webb Dance Company Season 07/08. Away from the stage Raena teaches Pilates and administers Reflexology at Integration Pilates Studio.

Choreographer/Performer: Raena Waddell

Collaborator/Performer: Vincent Theodore Forcier

Collaborator/Performer: Amber Bissonnette 

Collaborator/Performer: Nicole Kelly

Collaborator/Performer: Dixie de Vries

Music Engineered by: Kevin Green and Cameron Dahl

Nicole Kelly

After completing the dance program at Grant MacEwan Community College in 2004, Nicole graduated from Simon Fraser University in 2006 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in contemporary dance. Upon returning to Edmonton in the summer of 2006 she worked with Mile Zero Dance on The Parking Lot Project, and a collaboration with FAVA at The Works festival. She has recently began working as a registered massage therapist and continues to create and perfrom work with her collegues in Edmonton.

Dixie De Vries

Dixie de Vries is an independent contemporary dance artist residing in Edmonton. In 2000 Dixie attended Grant MacEwan College, and later continued her training in the contemporary dance program at the University of Calgary. Dixie has presented pieces from her solo repertoire in the 2004 Wonju Arts Festival in Wonju Korea, in the 2007 and 2008 Nextfest Movement Arts Festival, in the 2008 Dance Explosions Festival, and in the 2008 Feast Festival. Her current focus is directed towards the expansion and presentation of this repertoire and the development of the Good Women collective in Edmonton, Alberta.

Vincent Forcier

Vincent is an actor, dancer, director currently completing his final year of the BFA – Acting at The University of Alberta. He has worked on several physical projects including: directing, writing and choreographing ‘The Anti Morality Plays’ co-written with Joel Crichton (Nextfest 2008), Directing and choreographing ‘Duet for a Schizophrenic’ (Fringe 2006), directing and choreographing the sterling nominated ‘Nobody’s Story’ (fringe 2006), choreographing the piece ‘No Strings’ (U of A) and dancing in several pieces at Nextfest, The U of A and Victoria School. Vincent believes that dancing and acting have a lot to learn from each other and he tries to explore this in every way possible.

Amber Bissonette

Amber is an Edmonton based performer/choreographer. Her choreography has been seen in such productions as The Seventh Circle at Queen Elizabeth High School, The Pajama Game and A Christmas Carol, The Musical for Harry Ainlay High School, Chicago and Suessical The Musical for Eastglenn High School where she was an invited guest choreographer, and Cinderella for Alberta Opera Touring Association. Select theatre performance credits include The Winter’s Tale Project ((Off Off Broadway) Orange Bus Productions), The Leisure Society (Theatre Network), Follies in Concert (Plain Janes), A Chorus Line (Stage West Calgary) Cheerleader!, Pulling Down, Breaking Face (Human Loser), Poki Talks (Teatro La Quindicina) Marie Christine, Company, A Little Night Music (Grant MacEwan) and West Side Story (Stage Polaris). Amber has performed with local dance companies Free Fall Dance and Vinok World Dance and has collaborated/performed in Dancefest @ Nextfest for the past two seasons.