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Meet the participants of this year’s Creative Incubator! GWDC’s Creative Incubator runs April 29 – May 3 at the Ruth Carse Centre for Dance.

Artists will participate in a week-long creation workshop with their peers, facilitated by local dance and theatre artist Amber Borotsik. Artists will bring their current ideas and interests and be able to work surrounded by the creative energy and input of their peers and community members.

Hayley Moorhouse is an actor and writer, and a recent graduate from the University of Alberta BFA Acting Program. Recent performance credits include Bug (University of Alberta), The Bully Project (Concrete Theatre), Off’d on Whyte (Found Festival), A Bright Room Called Day, The Lower Depths and The School for Scandal (Studio Theatre). Her plays have been workshopped with the Citadel Theatre Young Playwriting Company, Nextfest and the SkirtsAfire Festival.

“I am bringing a solo theatre show to the Creative Incubator: It’s about birds, and obsession, and seeking significance, and birds, and Vincent van Gogh, and birds. I’m excited to begin to bring it to life with the Creative Incubator team!”

Elizabeth Ferns has just completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Calgary this past June. Over the course of her degree, she created and collaborated on several pieces that were shown in a formal setting, and has found a real passion for composition. Most recently, she has been working on and performing #JustGirlyThings, a physical theatre piece directed by Samantha Ketsa and Emily Sunderland.

“I plan to develop a solo work that I first created in my fourth year of my degree. I am excited to see what the piece blossoms into as I prepare to perform it in this year’s Dancefest at Nextfest.”

Brandon Wint is a poet, spoken word artist and educator living in Edmonton, Alberta. He is a former Canadian national slam champion, and he is absolutely in love with poetry’s social and spiritual capacity to reflect life and clarify the human condition. His first book of poems, Divine Animal is forthcoming from Write Bloody North in autumn 2019.
“I’m going to be working on transforming my way of thinking about the theatrical and movement-based potential of spoken word performance. I want to interrogate the intersections between theatre, movement and poetry, and in so doing, become a more expansive, inventive and daring creator and performer of poetic work.”
Marynia Fekecz is a Polish dancer/performer/choreographer/organizer of the interdisciplinary festival “Rusza Festival”, and producer of the movie festival “Body Tells – Dance on the screen.” She recently moved to Edmonton, before that she was based in Calgary and collaborated with W&M Physical Theatre Dance Company. She was part of the residency program in W&M Physical Theatre. At this residency, she created a duet with Nicole Charlton Goodbrand called “Still a number.” During 2017 and 2018 she was one of the choreographers on Alberta Dance Festival in Calgary. In October 2018 she was part of Good Women Dance Collective’s residency program, where she created the solo “Behind the see.” Marynia has been a participant at workshops, festivals and dance projects in Europe and around the world.
“I would like to focus on two figures. They live separately, but they are built from the same material. The lower and upper body. The way they interpret movement and way of thinking can make us think that they are different. But even if they were in a different place they still create a complete picture. I would like to explore separate movement from lower and upper body through repetitive movement.”

Nicole Schafenacker is an Edmonton raised artist-researcher and activist. She spends a lot of time writing in a cabin in northern BC where she is finishing a masters and chopping a lot of wood. She is curious about interdisciplinary forms, site-specific work and, most recently, creating immersive installations with natural materials. 

“I will use my time in the creative incubator to explore working with devising practices for site-specific work in northern or remote settings. I am particularly interested in using ritual in performance and installation settings and designing structures that encourage audience/viewers to engage in self-determined ways.”

Mitchell Chalifoux is an Edmonton based artist and performer and is very grateful to here on Treaty 6 territory. Their practice is often about gender, hobby art, and craft. Collaborating with existing materials without overriding their histories in the scarce present is core to their practice. Mitchell is currently trying to work less. While not making art, Mitchell spends their time baking and waiting for tulip season (which is soon!)

“Belle and I will be working on our first fully realized drag performance(s)! I am less excited for the nerves but I can’t wait to experiment and perhaps hone in on who this vampy lady is as an on and off stage character.”
Kate Stashko is a dance artist currently based in Edmonton. She has studied and worked across Canada and in Europe and recently travelled to Tel Aviv to study Gaga. Kate is a teacher, writer and arts advocate, and she collaborates with local musicians, actors, poets and visual artists every chance she gets.

“I am planning to dig into a new solo that has been percolating in my body and mind for several months now. In the simplest terms, I am making a dance about my pelvis and my rib cage. But I am also exploring the words “cage” (French for ribcage) and “basin” (French for pelvis) and the imagery that goes along with the English meanings of these words. It is still very early days with this piece, on both a physical and a conceptual level, and I am really excited to see what will happen to it when it is in a room with all of these other magical, creative humans.”

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