Type de fiche: Artist

letícia tórgo

Letícia Tórgo is a writer, dramaturg and translator, as well as the founder of the production company Da Gaveta (in Brazil) and Dans le Tiroir (in Québec). Although she developed a rich literary career in native Brazil, in 2014, Letícia began to write in French and English in Montreal. As a dramaturg, she has worked on the productions “Somos ici”, presented at MAI in 2016 (with Florence Bobier); “Disquiet”, with the Black Theatre Workshop’s Artist Mentorship Program in 2017; and “Saudade”, presented as part of Festival tout’tout court in 2018. As a translator, Letícia has developed a Portuguese version of the Canadian theatre show “Siri” (Glassco Translation Residency, Tadoussac) in 2016 and translated Pascal Brulleman’s “Petite Sorcière” from French to Portuguese. As a writer, Letícia is drawn to the field of autofiction, especially to the relation between mother and daughter.  Her newest project, Entre les langues, is inspired by her experience of living, writing, and dreaming in different languages.

 

Image : Alline Ourique

mich cota

Mich is a two-spirit Algonquin-mixed woman who lived her childhood in Maberly, Ontario. Mich was born to a native father and a white mother and raised with a mix of indigenous and settler perspectives. She began to explore her identity through writing stories that encapsulated her world as an Algonquin child immersed in the rigid limitations of fundamentalist Christianity. Music became a place to reflect as well as escape inner conflict as she entered adolescence, questioning her natural desires to identify as female and queer. She currently lives independently in Montreal, writing and performing through song and dance as a way to share her story. Mich seeks through her artistic work to provide an unfamiliar but safe area where people across community lines can begin to digest the intensity of differing, specifically the emotional weight contained in the voices of people in conflict.

 

Image : Sadie Mallon

bahar taheri

At the centre of Bahar Taheri’s work is a critical reflection on current affairs in society. The social and historical context in which she grew up has had a significant influence on her work. Originally from Iran, Bahar grew up in Tehran. Besides her curiosity and fascination with history, the experience of living in a region beset by political and cultural conflict leads her to trace the roots of these events across time.

Bahar’s choice of medium differs from one project to another, depending on the concept, though she mainly uses painting. Aesthetics and beauty play an important role in her work and she devotes special attention to detail and ornamentation in keeping with her culture baggage.

Bahar’s previous projects have addressed issues of gender, identity, collective memory and the manipulation of the mass media. She is currently conducting research on architectural structure and its relationship to power and religion.

sonia bustos

Sonia Bustos is a Mexican dancer and choreographer. She holds a Masters in dance from UQAM (2014) and a Bachelors in theatre from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (2006). She has worked with, among others, Danza Contemporánea Universitaria, Les Soeurs Schmutt, and the interdisciplinary group Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra, with presentations in Mexico, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, and Austria. She dances in the solo Intérieur brut, which was created in collaboration with choreographer Élodie Lombardo and presented in April 2018 at the MAI. Sonia received a Vivacité Montréal (CALQ, CAM) grant for this project, in addition to support from the Canada Council for the Arts through the Explore and Create program.

Sonia’s interests as a dancer and choreographer are closely linked to questions of socio-political engagement as well as to a recognition of the dancer’s creative labour. Her artistic research is axed on the status of women, the third root in Latin America, memory, theatricality, and public engagement. She is also interested in video dance as a tool for evoking and questioning the ephemerality of dance.




sebastián mejía

Sebastian Mejia studied Colombian percussion with Kelly Rojas and Luis Carlos Ochoa (Colombia, 2005, 2006) and Cuban percussion with Francisco Sánchez “Lele” and the company Cutumba (Cuba, 2009, 2010).  He did a training programme with DEI in Costa Rica (2007), which introduced him into popular education. He has put theses experiences into the creative projects he has co- founded, Barefoot Salsa Collective and Gypsy Kumbia Orchestra, as well as punctual collaboration with some musical projects in Montreal such as Tamcoaré (2006- 2007) and Ramón y Su Son (2007- 2010).

lydie dubuisson

Born and based in Montreal, Lydie Dubuisson is a theatre creator, playwright, director, and storyteller.  She performed in musicals, sang in choirs, directed choirs, sang in a jazz band and graduated with distinction in Theatre from Concordia University.

Her art explores intersectionality, dystopian reality, collective memory, and ritualistic moods.  Gospel music permeates her work. Dubuisson’s plays give voice to women living in conservative communities by questioning destiny within fundamentalist environments.

Her play Quiet had a staged reading for the Black Theatre Workshop’s 2018 Discovery Series.  She is part of the writing team of Blackout, a Tableau d’Hôte production, which will be presented in January 2019. Dubuisson is currently writing her second play, Sanctuary.

diogo ramos

Diogo Ramos is a singer-songwriter from Sao Paolo, Brazil. Ramos’ music is part of a long tradition of Brazilian folk singers. In 2010, Ramos left Brazil to settle in Montreal where he obtained a Bachelor of Music in Guitar Performance from the University of Quebec in Montreal. Ramos has been working professionally for 20 years as a music producer, having released 16 albums. In 2012, Ramos produced the album “Egológico Recycle,” dedicated to Rommel Ribeiro as part of the 2012-2013 Révélations Radio-Canada award in the world music category. In 2014, Ramos directed the album “O Momento Presente é Azul” by renowned artist Paulo Ramos.

2018 marks the release of Ramos’ album “Samba sans Frontières”, where he pays homage to his country of adoption through the interpretation of the works of Gilles Vigneault, Félix Leclerc, Pierre Perreault and his own compositions where Portuguese and French intertwine. As Ramos’ remarkable guitar playing and voice discovers the language of his new country – it’s Franco Bossa-nova. A recipient of a Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) research and creation grant in 2017, Ramos has also received the Conseil des arts de Montréal’s Coup de Coeur award and MAtv’s Coup de Coeur award at the 2017 MUZ Festival (Vision Diversity) –  a tribute to world music in Montreal.

kyungseo min

Kyungseo Min is a Korean-Canadian playwright and performer currently based in Montreal. After completing a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre at the University of Southern California, she pursued her passion for physical theatre and Japanese traditional theatre by training in Body Weather Laboratory in Venice and Nihonbuyo with the Kyoto Arts Centre. As a writer and Third Culture Kid, her goal is to create a distinctive style of theatre blending Western and Eastern philosophies, weaving text, movement, and symbolism into a cohesive whole. She strives to tell stories that break linear structure and find drama not only in action and dialogue, but also in stasis. She dares to write plays that remove the audience from reality and transport them into a metaphysical realm where a single gesture can slow down their heartbeat and a symbol can make them stop in their seats and feel what is underneath the banalities of the everyday.

leticia vera

Leticia Vera’s explorations focus on physical dramaturgy, choreography, and contemporary stage performance. Born and raised in Mexico, she holds a degree in contemporary dance from the Escuela Nacional de Danza Contemporanea, INBA (Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes). She began her career as a dancer in 1992 at the same time as she was expanding into the area of dance-theatre.

Leticia has has continued pursuing a career as an artist, dancer, and choreographer in Canada, where she’s been based since 2006. In 2009 she collaborated with Gaétan Gingras (Manitowapan dance company) in Montreal and was invited to participate in the Indigenous Choreographers Dance Residency at the Banff Centre, where she would return a year later for collaborations with Sandra Laronde (Red Sky) and Neil Ieremia (Black-Grace).

Since 2010 Leticia has collaborated as a performer, choreographer, and associated artist with the french-language theatre company Ondinnok, on projects such as Rabinal Achi, Un monde qui s’achève Lola, and the three editions of the Printemps Autochtone d’Art. Leticia made her Montreal directorial debut in 2017 with the presentation of El buen vestir–Tlakentli, at the Monument National.

Leticia has worked often with other multidisciplinary artists from the contemporary Indigenous scene. Collaborators include Émilie Monnet, Natasha Kanapé Fontain, Moe Clark et Barbara Diabo. She is currently working on a new creation, La Soif, the first part of which will be presented at Tangente in 2019.

cécilia bracmort

Cécilia Bracmort is an artist and curator with an interest in the cross-disciplinarity, the mixing of genres, and experimentation. She was born in Creil, France, has roots in the islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe, and has lived in Montreal since 2012. Her curatorial and creative work draws on her various layers of identity as much as on the notions of movement (walking, running, performance), spaces, history and memory (memorial spaces and monuments).

Cécilia holds a masters in cultural mediation and communication from Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle, a bachelors in philosophy of art from Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, and a bachelors in fine arts from Bishops University. She has participated in numerous theatre and visual arts projects both in Paris and Montreal.

In 2017 Cécilia was an invited curator as part of the Montréal/Havana exchange, in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Cuba. In August 2018 she became administrative coordinator at the artist-run centre articule.