Plug-N-Play Residencies

Mark Reinhart is a multidisciplinary artist, mover, educator, and instigator.  His practice is grounded in queerness, and the curiosity for intersectional and phenomenological ways of seeing and being in the world, and wondering about places beyond.  His works seeks to identify moments for agility and change, hover in space, find colour and rhythm where they are perhaps not expected, and activate private and public spaces to animate their quiet physical and social infrastructures.

Instagram: @markreinhart

Kass Prus (they/them) is a multidisciplinary performance creator, producer, and movement therapist based out of Tkaronto. A 2nd generation Ukrainian-Canadian settler, Kass was born into a home immersed in ancestral traditions, dance, music, art, and resistance to imperialism. As a trans non-binary and multiply disabled artist, Kass uses contemporary performance to queer and crip Slavic ethnography and folk arts practices. They also work with groups and clients doing tailored movement therapy and holistic coaching.

Instagram: @city_folk_dance

Krista Newey is a dancer/performer/comedian/choreographer hybrid. She holds a BFA in Dance from Toronto Metropolitan University. Krista uses her experiences in dance to explore performance art that pushes the boundaries of traditional dance ideals. Her creative platform, Fatal Shapes, is her canvas for crafting dynamic, bold, and abstract physical theatre work that embraces all forms of expression. Krista’s artistic ethos is a vibrant fusion of absurdity, comedy, and tragedy, all woven together to create stories that are an amplified reflection of the human experience.

Instagram: @k_newz and @fatalshapes

Mayumi Lashbrook is a Japanese Canadian settler who seeks to expose, challenge, and rectify systems of oppression by creating innovative, introspective and inclusive dance theatre. She sees embodiment as at the crux of world making, creating opportunity for conscientious action. Her primary practices span performance, choreography, and education. Mayumi is the Artistic Director of Aeris Körper, mentee of Denise Fujiwara of Fujiwara Dance Inventions and has choreographed for Dusk Dances, Guelph Dance, and CanAsian Dance.

Instagram: @mayumi.movement

Nyda Kwasowsky a freelance dance artist, interpreter, performer and emerging choreographer based out of Tsi Tkaronto.‘This body has the role of remembering, dance as the action that collects us.’ Her work centers around loss, grief and belonging in racialized diasporic experience. Studied in trauma informed practices and somatics, she scores multidisciplinary improvisational and experimental explorations. Her most recent explorations look at the intersections of movement and cultural materiality.

Instagram: @de_adyn

Brigita Gedgaudas is an emerging, interdisciplinary, trans*, and diasporic-Lithuanian artist working in so-called Toronto. Embracing indeterminacy and multiplicity, Brigita engages with in-betweenness as they explore contradictory experiences of gender identity and cultural heritage through experimental realms of dance and digital worldbuilding. Brigita’s practice is highly influenced by his engagement in the queer street dance style, W*acking, the performance collective, PriXm, and the Lithuanian folk dance group, Ginta.

Instagram: @de.brii

Emily Duckett (she/they) is a Black, queer, dance artist residing in the region originally known as Tkaronto. Her artistic expression is profoundly influenced by her intersecting identities. Since graduating from York University with a BFA in Dance and a Specialized Honor in performance and choreography in 2022, Emily has had the opportunity to work with esteemed companies such as Mocean Dance, Buddies in Bad Time Theater, and ProArteDanza. At present, their artistic exploration centers on themes of unity, controlled chaos, visceral instincts, pleasure, paradoxes, and risk taking.

Katie Couchie is an Anishinaabekwe Oji-Cree dance artist from Nipissing First Nation, now based in Tkaronto. Katie has worked with companies and choreographers including Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, Human Body Expressions, Alejandro Ronceria, Christine Friday, Peggy Baker, and Jera Wolfe. She has performed at events including the FODAR Dance Festival (2023), Governor General’s Performance Awards (2023), APTN’s Indigenous Day Live (2022) and for film projects including The Nature of Things (2021), CBC Gem’s New Monuments (2021) and the Toronto Fringe Festival (2021). Most recently, Katie received a Dora nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble for the production of Homelands with Kaha:wi Dance Theatre.

Instagram: @katiecouchie

Tavia Christina is a multi-hyphenate artist. They embrace their ethereal nature as a driving force in both their artistic expression and research. Their work touches genres between dance, theatre and performance art. As the Artistic Director of Near & Far Projects, their choreographic research and development are informed by improvisation, voice work, and a deep connection with their surrounding ecology. Their practice is based in somatic movement, improvisation, and spiritual endurance.

Instagram: @tavschristina

Jocelyne Cajamarca is a non-binary latinx artist based in Toronto who shares their unique skills and expertise as a professional dancer, teacher, ballroom performer in the Canadian Ballroom Scene, also known as Jaws. Jaws continues to further their craft by discovering new ways to merge their foundation in streetdance with ballroom, continuously learning about other dance styles, history and culture. They are highly dedicated and focused on uplifting and prioritizing queer bipoc artists, curating new explorative work, and engaging with the community through workshops, outreach, and support.

Instagram: @purrrrrrrr_____

lo bil (she-her) is a Toronto-based second-generation-settler and queer performance artist who experiments with making once-performed risky-heart performances involving spontaneous utterance, impulse-based scores and inter-relational proposals with audience. lo has performed 7a*11d, AGO First Thursdays, Luminato online, Rhubarb!, Summerworks, Fringe, Nuit Blanche, Duration & Dialogue, p.s. We Are All Here, LADA DIY (UK), Pi*llOry and at academic conferences in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Chicago, Mexico City, Vienna and Amsterdam.  lo is a Kathy Acker award recipient.

Instagram: @mywildarchive

I am Natasha “Courage” Bacchus, I am former 3 times DeafOlympican Sprinter. Since 2019, I have participated as an actress for “The Black Drum”, “The Two Natasha’s”, “21 Black Futures”, TV film Season 4 Netflix “The Corner”. I have participated as an art collaborator with numerous theatre and film productions in Canada as an interdisciplinary visual artist, art accessibility consultant, and activist for IBPOC Deaf art community and expanding IBPOC Deaf artists representation.

Kwasi Obeng-Adjei is a Canadian dancer, choreographer, and instructor born and raised in the Greater Toronto Area. After being accepted into the regional arts program at St. Roch Secondary School, Kwasi was able to expand his knowledge training in various styles that include ballet, jazz, hip hop, and modern and traditional African dance. Kwasi’s professional credits include the Pan-American Games, Lua Shayenne Dance Company’s Kira, The Path | La Voie, Esie Mensah Creations, the Raptors half-time show, and more.

Instagram: @kwasi.obeng

Cody Berry-Ottertail, (ojibway/settler heritage) is a two-spirit dance artist from Lac La Croix, First Nation based in Toronto. Cody is a graduate from Conteur Academy and trained with Apolonia Velasquez after his studies. He’s had the opportunity to perform works by Frog in Hand Dance Theatre, Larchaud Dance Projects, Jera Wolfe, and Christine Friday. Choreographically he has presented works for Fall For Dance North, New Blue Dance Festival, Artworx TO, and Ayimach Horizons. Cody is also the recipient of the 2019 Metcalf Performing Arts Protoge Prize for choreography.

Instagram: @codyberry.o

Akash Inbakumar is an interdisciplinary artist, primarily working in textiles, based in Tkaronto. Their practice explores personal racialized queer narratives and material kinship, grounded in craft methodology. Inbakumar graduated from OCAD University in 2020 and has since completed a residency at Xpace Cultural Center and is currently starting their second year of the Harbourfront Center: Craft and Design residency. They have shown work at Patel Brown, Harbourfront Center, Xpace, and Artscape Gibraltar Point.

Instagram: @akashinbakumar

Mary-Dora (they/them) is a queer, neurodivergent, multi-disciplinary artist, careworker and settler based in Tkaronto. They show up in their communities as a dance artist, birth/postpartum doula, somatic movement facilitator, organizer, peer supporter and writer. Through their own experiences of transforming trauma and embracing gender fluid expressions, they explore the intersections of individual and collective healing. MD engages with healing arts and body-centered practices for a more liveable future and as a method for surviving in late-stage capitalism. Check out their work and offerings at www.somaticpractice.ca 💫

Instagram: @crystalwhispurr and @somaticpractice 

Blessyl Buan is a multigenerational, multidisciplinary artist whose expressions span from healing, visual and dance arts. Since 2005 she built a chiropractic practice for performing artists and has four decades of performance experience. Her choreography re-weaves Philippine diasporic narratives through the interplay of natural objects and the land, while reconciling with the biopsychosocial impacts of colonization and assimilation. This work informs her motherhood and influence on future generations navigating the embodiment of living beyond repression.

Instagram: @drblessyl and @buankissed

Same As Sister (S.A.S.) is an award-winning performance collective founded in 2013 by Canadian-American choreographers, Briana Brown-Tipley + Hilary Brown-Istrefi. Based in NYC and Toronto, S.A.S. was initiated to make experimental narrative performance accessible to a diverse audience through collaborative and interdisciplinary practices. Their commissions have been presented internationally at The Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance; Base: Experimental Arts + Space; Archaeological Museum of Messenia; Danspace Project; Centre d’Art Marnay Art Centre; BRIC Arts | Media House; and New York Live Arts, among other venues. S.A.S.’s recent commission, “This is NOT a Remount”, was nominated for a TAPA 2022 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Production (Dance). They were an Alternate and Finalist for the Jerome Foundation’s 2021-22 and 2019-20 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (Dance), and are the recipients of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ 2022 and 2017 Emergency Grant (Dance); Queens Council on the Arts’ 2020 Queens Arts Fund New Work Grant (Multi-Discipline); and a New York Foundation for the Arts’ 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship (Choreography).

Website: sameassister.com