Cast & Crew
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Alison Kause is a founding member of the Good Women Dance Collective.
She works with the collective and independently, and is a teacher with Edmonton Public Schools. Alison’s dance experience is based in several years of studio, Cechetti, ballet and modern dance technique to the Good Women Dance Collective.
She is a graduate of the Grant MacEwan Dance Program and the School of Contemporary Dance at SFU, as well as the Education program at the University of Alberta.
Alison has trained and performed across Canada and been inspired by work with local and international colleagues. She has worked with Justine Chambers, Melanie Kloetzel, Peggy Baker, Shasha Ivanochko, Melanie Demers, Mile Zero Dance, Heidi Bunting, Brian Webb, Jen Mesch Dance Conspiracy, AM Choreography, Krista Posyniak, Richard Lee, Isabelle Rousseau, Katherine Semchuk, Jessica McMann, Marynia Fecekz and GWD Collective artists. Alison has performed in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton.
Alison is inspired by the challenge of finding an intersection between being an artist, mother and teacher – these roles constantly demand attention, inform one another and provide diverse perspectives.
Alida Kendell is a contemporary dance choreographer, performer, instructor and mother in amiskwacîwâskahikan, Edmonton. She has trained in both ballet and contemporary dance, completing her BA at the School of Contemporary Dancers in Winnipeg, MB. Her artistry is fed by her work as a collective artist with the Good Women Dance Collective (GWDC), her independent projects, and caregiving. Career highlights so far include performing in the Sterling award-winning productions BEARS (Pyretic Productions) and The Cardiac Shadow (Northern Light Theatre and GWDC), which she co-choreographed.
Molly McDermott is a dance artist, gratefully performing, creating, and teaching movement in Amiskwaciwâskahikan, colonially know as Edmonton. Upon graduating from Grant MacEwan College, followed by Simon Fraser University she received a BFA in dance in 2007. She has since interpreted work by a variety of inspiring artists and companies including, Kokoro Dance, Co. Erasga Dance, Les Productions Figlio, Mascall Dance, Billy Marchenski, Deanna Peters, and Justine Chambers, among others.
Molly has presented her own choreography at Vines Art Festival, 12 Minutes Max., Nextfest, Good Women’s Creative Incubator, and the Magpie Collection. She is the recipient of the Good Women New Work Award 2024 and had the pleasure of curating the dance presentation at Expanse Movement Arts Festival this past March 2023. Molly is thrilled to be joining GWDC this season as a collective artist and looks forward to future collaboration and expanding her practice amongst other brilliant artists.
Alongside dance, Molly is a mother of two small humans and welcomes the gentle chaos that comes with balancing motherhood and everything else.
Tamara Bliss – danced in the USA, frequently designed costumes for companies she danced with and for others. In NYC, SLC & Philadelphia, companies Jennifer Muller and the Works, Zvi Gotheiner, Young Soon Kim’s White Wave Rising, Matthew Diamond, Ed Henry, Lynne Wimmer and Rachel Lampert used her designs (1983-1993). In Canada since 1993, she costumed Montréal Danse Company’s Cuidad de Heirro (by José Besprovany) and for choreographers Tania Alvarado, Heidi Bunting, Usha Gupta, Kathy Ochoa, Andrea Rabinovitch, Linda Rubin, Charlene Tarver, Brian Webb, and more. Tamara taught dance costuming at NYU, Marymount Manhattan College, the Arts Outreach program MacEwan and Vic Comp. The Orchesis Dance Program’s annual productions saw numerous ‘Bliss’ costume designs over 25 years, including choreographers Peggy Baker, Corie Caulfield, Josh Beamish and Sarisa Figueroa de Toledo.
Tamara received three post secondary degrees: BA Dance/Theatre from WWSU (1975), AA design degree the Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC (1986) and MA from the U of A (1996) focused on performing in Flow and peak experiences. Retired from teaching dance in the U of A Faculty of Kinesiology Sport and Recreation in 2018, Tamara currently teaches yoga, True Movement ™ and creates in fabrics
Connor Yuzwenko-Martin is the founder and artistic director of The Invisible Practice, a Deaf arts collective based in Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). He is a public relations specialist, performer, producer, and playwright. He has nurtured a lifelong passion for theatre and accessibility, beginning in grade school with simple skits and continuing into his young adulthood with his first professional engagement as a rookie improvisor at Rapidfire Theatre. To date, he has worked with organizations including Edmonton Fringe, Intrepid Theatre/Victoria Fringe, Theatre SKAM, SOUND OFF Deaf Theatre Festival, Nextfest, RISER Edmonton, Tiny Bear Jaws, Good Women Dance, Outside the March, Quickdraw Animation Society, and Sync Canada.
Connor relentlessly explores the intersections between Deaf/Disability experience, art, advocacy, and leadership. He is a certified Access Activator through Tangled Art+Disability’s training program. In 2021, Connor completed his Public Relations diploma from MacEwan University and also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science at the University of Alberta (2014).
Silent Howl
Sarah Hin Ching U 余衍晴 (she/her) is a Chinese-Canadian dance artist/choreographer, trained and influenced by a multitude of styles including Latin Ballroom, contemporary, ballet and hiphop. My main intentions in my practice are 1. Explore and promote the cross-pollination between contemporary dance and street dance. 2. Investigate the integration of new media tools in performance-making, pushing the boundaries of choreography beyond physical movement. I gravitate towards stories about human desire, identity, relationship. My work has been presented by Dancing on the Edge (Vancouver), National Arts Centre, Capsule: Video series (Ottawa), The Dance Centre (Vancouver), NewWorks (Vancouver), DanceWorks (Toronto), Skampede (Victoria, BC), Free Flow Dance Theatre (Saskatoon), SpringWorks (Ontario) among others. In 2022, I received the Professional Performing Artist Award from British Columbia Arts Council and have been awarded residencies at Dance Arts Institute (Toronto), City of Port Coquitlam, ArtStarts (Vancouver), and Plastic Orchid Factory. Other notable performing credits include Dancing on the Edge 2019 with Danse Carpe Diem/Emmanuel Jouthe (Montreal) and Nuit Blanche 2021 with Jackie Latendresse (Saskatoon). I graduated Simon Fraser University in 2021 with a BFA in dance and kinesiology.
Alexandra Caprara is a queer interdisciplinary artist from Tkaranto (Toronto), Ontario whose practice is grounded in performance making and design, with a focus on devised processes, movement, interactivity, and design lead creation. She has worked internationally as a director, performer, and designer for lighting and video projection, and has presented her work across Canada. Select credits include designing for Mediation (Amber Barton, Re/Play), assistant design for An Undeveloped Sound (Electric Company Theatre) direction and creation of EVREN (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), and projection design for A Silent Howl (Dancing on The Edge). She is currently based in so-called Vancouver where she is concluding her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at Simon Fraser University.
Jack Adrian is a musician and sound artist living in Vancouver. Inspired by genres like Jazz, Jungle, and Noise music, Jack’s music can range from light and ethereal to frenetic and dissonant, scoring and sound designing live performance, dance, and film.
Gail Benin is a new grad BIPOC interpreter in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton), Alberta. She is passionate about her work while maintaining long lasting relationships in the dDeaf/HoH community. She values cultural representation being one of the very few BIPOC interpreters in Alberta. While interpreting is a big part of her life – she also enjoys reading a good book, hanging out with her dog, Beau, hiking in the mountains and spending quality times with loved ones. Gail is very excited to meet people in the theatre community in Edmonton and surrounding areas, while making sure that communication access is provided to all participating audiences.
Convergence 2023
Donna Sharpe is an Alberta-based stage manager equally at home in program
management, opera, dance, musical theatre, and new performance creation. A past
Manager of the Young Canadians School of Performing Arts, Donna also enjoyed a
16-year collaboration with Calgary Opera, working with both seasoned and early
career artists in Canadian and world premiere operas. She frequently returns to Banff
Centre, where she works as a faculty member, stage manager and/or mentor and has
worked with the Intercultural Indigenous Choreographers Creation Lab, the Classical
Indigenous Music Gathering, The Indigenous Singer Songwriter Residency, and the
Banff International String Quartet Competition. Other selected company credits
include Edmonton Opera, Vertigo Theatre, Rainbow Stage, Downstage, Alberta
Theatre Projects, The Old Trout Puppet Workshop, Opera on the Avalon, Theatre
Calgary, Beakerhead.
Skye (they/them) is a settler designer from the Treaty 6 area who explores design and costuming for the theatre as well as fine arts. They are passionate about creating work that is accessible for both audiences and artists. This includes sewing for all sizes and abilities. They are excited to collaborate with Good Women again in a new context. Select credits include: Honk! The Musical (Storybook Theater); The Space Between the Stars (Westbury Theater); Big Feelings, Small World (Found Festival); Dancefest (Nextfest).
Maaike Kuypers is a designer, artist and illustrator based in Edmonton. Currently, she most enjoys designing posters, album packaging, and painting wonky, colourful flower illustrations. Her work gifts encouragement, wit, wisdom and humour, while drawing attention to the everyday beauty that surrounds us all.
Lin Snelling is a dancer and professor living in Amiskwaciwâskahikan on Treaty 6 territory whose
artistic practice brings the qualities of improvisation into dance, theatre, writing, visual art and
somatic practice. She toured the world with Carbone 14 and worked with many improvisation
ensembles. She teaches dance, experiential anatomy and composition at the University of Alberta
where she is also Director of Graduate Studies in Theatre. She recently performed in the Joshua Tree
as part of the BWDC Summer Season. 2019 she received a McCalla Professorship for a new
collective creation, A Sounding Line. Her recent dance collaborations include Far Away and Personal, a
dance film with musician/composer Michael Reinhart and ENTRANCES with writer David
Gagnon Walker and multimedia designer Tori Morrison from Strange Victory Performance.
Rewriting Distance, her on-going research collaboration with Belgian dance dramaturg Guy Cools has
been performed in 7 countries and 14 different cities www.rewritingdistance.com
Deviani Andrea is a dance artist based in Amiskwaciwâskahikan / Edmonton. Originally from Mexico City, she holds a BA in Literature by the University of Mexico and studied at the Mexico City’s Dance School and Ema Pulido’s Dance Studio. Since landed in Canada, Deviani has worked as Movement Instructor for the Citadel Theatre, and as a guest teacher with Azimuth Theatre. She has performed with SkirtsAfire, Mile Zero Dance, Fringe Festival, Found Festival and Orchesis Dance Society and has choreographed for the Alberta Musical Theatre Company.
Her independent work has been kindly supported by the Edmonton Arts Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. This summer she’s going to perform the final version of her solo ESPARTANAE and collaborate with Shammy Belmore to create a choreography to be performed in public spaces around the city as part of the Creative Exchange Project by the CanDance Network.
She likes biking in the summer and skiing in the winter, brewing kombucha, and consuming content in different languages.
