those roots within

This collective is currently composed of three artists: Alida Esmail, Sophia Wright, and Hodan Youssouf.

Alida Esmail, BFA, MSc is a dance artist living and working in Tio’tia:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal. Her practice encompasses performance, choreography, teaching, and research. She holds a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts (major contemporary dance, minor psychology) from Concordia University, a Master’s in Rehabilitation Sciences from Université de Montréal, and she is a Body Harmonics-certified Pilates teacher. Her dance education also includes a year in India at the Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts learning Bharatanatyam and Kalarippayattu, and extensive training in Ballroom/Latin dance which she currently uses to help develop Liquid Lead Dancing, a gender-neutral approach to partner dancing. Born in Burlington, Ontario, she belongs to the East Indian, East African, and South African diasporas. Alida has a keen interest for socially-engaged work and questioning topics related to her identity, ancestry, and community. Alongside her performance career, Alida is also involved in innovative Arts & Health research which has been published in reputable scientific journals. Alida has been learning American Sign Language over the past two years and is also following a training with Danse-cité for audio-describing live dance performances for people who are blind who have low vision.

Sophia Wright (she/her) is a dance artist, welder, and cultural worker. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Contemporary Dance from Concordia University, studied Cultural Mediation at the Masters level at Paris III Sorbonne-Nouvelle, and, most recently, completed the Welding program at the Montreal Construction School. Sophia is passionate about bringing together diverse communities through art creation and events. She has been a part of multiple collectives that unite artists and artisans from diverse practices and cultures. She was also greatly implicated in the collective La Main, based in Paris, France, where she co-produced in 2017 “M’en parle pas – Silence”, an art event featuring some of Paris’ most prominent Deaf artists. Since this time, she has been learning sign language and continuing to engage with Deaf culture and Deaf artists. Most recently, Sophia has been working with Alida Esmail and Hodan Youssouf, for the creation of “Those roots within”.

Born in Somalia, Hodan Youssouf is Deaf from birth. She’s quadrilingual (LSQ, ASL, English, French) and active in Montreal’s Black Deaf community. She has 10+ years experience as an actress, consultant, and Deaf interpreter. Notable performances include After Faust at RISER Edmonton (2023) and Tempest at the Citadel Theatre (2019). She is also a member of the Survivance Collective which unites four Black Deaf co-creators from across Canada to share monologues inspired by real life experiences of oppression. The Survivance Collective presented at Clin d’oeil in France in 2022 and at the National Deaf Arts & Culture Festival in Halifax in 2024. At the same National Deaf Arts & Culture Festival in 2024 Hodan also performed in Pamela Witcher’s signed music performance “Lights: The Real Us”. Poet and actor, she has participated in a multitude of projects over the years, in both the Deaf and hearing communities, in Quebec and beyond.

This collective was created in 2020 by Alida and Sophia. They created two short works, “In our own backyards” (2020), a dance-theatre duet performed by Alida and Nathalie Kirpaul, a Deaf dancer, and “Backyard solos” (2021), a dance-theatre solo performed by Alida. Their collective expanded in 2021 when Hodan became the third member of the collective. Hodan’s engagement anchored the collective’s focus on the creation of Deaf-hearing artistic works. They have since presented works-in-progress showings at Circuit-Est’s Banc d’essai and at the Maison de la Culture Maisonneuve. They have also presented a workshop on their Deaf-hearing collaborative project at the SOUND OFF Deaf Theatre Festival in 2023, and attended Deaf performances, workshops and conferences in Canada (SOUND OFF in Edmonton and The National Deaf Arts Festival in Halifax) and in Europe (Clin d’oeil in France and the Edinburgh Deaf Festival in Scotland). “Those roots within” is the collective’s first full-length work.

Producers: Alida Esmail, Sophia Wright

Co-creators: Alida Esmail, Sophia Wright, Hodan Youssouf

Performers: Alida Esmail, Hodan Youssouf

Lighting Designer: Aurora Torok

Sound and Vibration Designer: Samuel Thulin

Costume Consultant: Nalo Soyini Bruce

Dramaturg: Fatma Sarah Elkashef

Dramaturgical and Choreographic Consultant: Thea Patterson

Deaf Cultural Consultant: Daz Saunders

Performance Coach: Peter Trosztmer

Deaf Communications Consultants: Sylvain Gélinas, Shirley Yu

Social Media Assistant: Shirley Yu

Primary ASL-English Interpreters: Jennifer Roberts, Brooke Nancekivell, Bohdan Ladashevska

Primary LSQ-French Interpreters: Catherine Langevin-Pepin, Charline Marmet & Marie Penelle of iLSQ

Outside Eyes: Emilie Peltier, Sylvain Gélinas, Dominique Ireland, Shirley Yu, Lia Mavroudis, Véro Leduc, Lucy Fandel

Logo Designer: Zoé Rodriguez

Funders: Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Conseil des arts de Montréal, Fondation des Sourds du Québec, Montréal arts interculturels

Co-produced with MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels)

Developed in collaboration with Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal

Residencies: MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels), Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal, Studio 303, Maison de la culture Maisonneuve, QUAI 5160- Maison de la culture de Verdun, La Serre arts vivants, Maison de la culture de Côte-des-Neiges