Discipline: dance

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.

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.

Hanako Hoshimi-Caines is a choreographer and dancer based in Montréal. She is committed to an emo-critical engagement to dance, choreography and philosophy as a way to see, feel and love better. And what she means by love is an ambiguous kind of knowledge that is necessarily embodied, transformative and involves time and intimacy with things.

Her solo and collaborative works have been shown in performance and music festivals as well as theaters in Canada, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria. She has performed extensively with a number of artists such as Stephen Thompson and Andrew Tay, Maria Kefirova, Katie Ward, La 2eme Porte à gauche, Jacob Wren, Adam Kinner, Frédérick Gravel, Tanya Lukin-Linklater, José Navas, Louise-Michel Jackson and with the Cullberg Ballet (Stockholm) with Benoît Lachambre, Deborah Hay, William Forsythe (Human Writes), Tilman O’Donnell, Alexander Ekman and Jefta Van Dinther. She is currently finishing up a philosophy degree at Concordia University with a penchant for feminist ethics and performativity.

Claudia Chan Tak is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in visual arts and contemporary dance. She graduated with distinction from Concordia University’s Intermedia/CyberArts Department in 2009, and three years later was awarded the William Douglas prize of excellence in the context of a bachelors in contemporary dance at Université du Québec à Montréal. In 2017 she completed a research-creation project exploring the links between documentary film and contemporary dance. The outcome, an autobiographical solo piece titled Moi, petite Malgache-Chinoise, was presented at MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) in December 2016. Her first choreographic installation stemmed from this same solo and was presented at Tangente in January 2018, weaving together visual art, dance, and on-site video mapping. Thanks to this project she was awarded the prestigious Prix Mécènes investis pour les arts, underlining the quality and inventiveness of her artistic practice. Many of her choreographic projects have appeared on stage, among others at Tangente, OFFTA, Festival ZH, Phénomena, Short&Sweet, La Petite scène, Edgy Women, Art Matters, and Toxique Trottoir. In cinema, her first short film, La Buvette des carnivores, was awarded the Cinemateque québécoise’s prize for best directing at the Festival Quartiers Danses in 2015, while Norma, created in 2016, became part of the official program at the Festival International de Films sur l’Art. Enthralled by the archival documentation of contemporary dance, her first exhibition, Hydra, was presented at Place des Arts as part of the Festival TransAmérique’s official 2016 program, offering a poetic and original take on choreographic and intergenerational modes of creation.

Recipient of a CALQ Vivacité grant and a CAM-MAI joint mentorship for emerging choreographers to create her second solo, La Pileuse, Sarah Elola was born of blended contrasts. Her story abounds with multiple realities. She cast her first 15 years in kaleidoscopic African tones, rural and urban, traditional and modern, grounded in innumerable customs and cultures. It was in the savannah of the Land of Honest Men, in her native Burkina Faso – where, when one can walk, one can also dance – and in the Ivory Coast that she took her first steps, and grew up with this organic integration of rhythm, dance, song and music in daily life.

Accepted in July 2014 to the PEFAPDA (Artistic and Professional Training Program in African Dance) stream at Nyata Nyata (awarded the Prix de la Diversité 2015 du Conseil des Arts de Montréal) she strengthened her practice and choreographic reflection. She also joined the troupe as a dancer in Mozongi, Nyata Nyata’s flagship work (winner of the 30e Grand Prix du Conseil des Arts de Montréal), touring the Congo with the show in October 2015.

For Eclectik 2016 at the MAI, she created her first solo piece, Dans le ventre de l’éléphant marron [In the belly of the brown elephant] which she would also perform at the World Social Forum in August 2016, and at FIDO (Festival de danse international de Ouagadougou) in February 2017. In the summer of 2017 she was selected to participate in an intensive dance internship at the famous École des Sables in Senegal: Stage International Danses Noires.2 – Mémoire et Évolution. In November 2017 she returned to the MAI with La Pileuse, a creation acclaimed by the general public and dance critics alike.

Born in Mexico, Citlali Trevino grew up in France where she studied jazz, ballet and contemporary dance, as well as dance education. She began her carrier as a dancer working with various young choreographers (Aragorn Boulanger, Thierry Verger, Alexandra Lemoine). In 2013 Citlali returned to the Americas, settling in Montréal where she was first introduced to theatre arts working with the indigenous theatre company Ondinnok. Eager to continue learning, she participated in acrobatic and theatre workshops with Dynamo theatre. Citlali is currently developing her own artistic approach and projects, most notably through the creation of a dance-theatre solo, À l’Aube de l’Amertume.