Performance Clash

Rajni Perera ⚡ Andrew Tay

RAJNI PERERA b. 1985
Lives and works in Toronto, Canada

Rajni Perera was born in Sri Lanka in 1985 and lives and works in Toronto. She explores issues of hybridity, futurity, ancestorship, immigration identity/cultures, monsters and dream worlds. All of these themes marry in a newly objectified realm of mythical symbioses. In her work she seeks to open and reveal the dynamism of the icons and objects she creates, both scripturally existent, self-invented and externally defined. She creates a subversive aesthetic that counteracts antiquated, oppressive discourse, and acts as a restorative force through which people can move outdated, repressive modes of being towards reclaiming their power.

ANDREW TAY

Andrew Tay is a performer, choreographer, DJ and performance curator. In 2005 he co-founded Wants&Needs danse with Sasha Kleinplatz, producing the wildly popular events Short & Sweet and Piss in the Pool which take place in non-traditional venues throughout Montreal. Tay was awarded the DanceWEB scholarship (Impulstanz, Vienna), and was nominated for a Quebec Notables award for Arts&Culture. In 2017, he was named the first Artistic Curator of the Centre de Création O Vertigo (CCOV) in Montreal and in August 2020 relocated to Toronto to become the Artistic Director of Toronto Dance Theatre. Tay actively thinks about community, irreverence and resistance in both his performance and curatorial practices. Full profile can be found on the TDT Team webpage.

Mikiki ⚡ Peter Kelly

MIKIKI

Mikiki is a performance and video artist and queer community health activist of Acadian/Mi’kmaq and Irish descent from Ktaqmkuk/Newfoundland, Canada. Their work has been presented throughout Canada and internationally in self-produced interventions, artist-run centres, performance art festivals and public galleries. Their identity as a queer artist & activist has necessitated a porous boundary between what is labelled art-making, or activism versus ‘being’ in the world. Mikiki has worked as a high school Sexuality Educator, a Bathhouse Attendant, Drag Karaoke Hostess, in various capacities in the Gay Men’s Health and HIV response, in Harm Reduction Outreach and HIV testing all over Canada. Mikiki is irregularly found hosting their Golden Girls screening + queer cultural studies lecture series Rose Beef.

PETER KELLY

Peter Kelly is a queer Toronto based dancer, performance maker, artistic director, teacher, producer, and personal trainer. Peter trained in fitness through the International Sports Science Association (ISSA), is a graduate of the Dance Performance Studies program at George Brown College, and is currently in his seventh season as a company dancer with Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT). Beyond TDT, Peter has worked with SummerWorks Performance Festival as the Patron Services Coordinator, with The Toronto Dance Community Love-In as a Space Host, with Dance Ontario as the Provincial Networks Coordinator, and is currently the Artistic Director of New Blue Emerging Dance. As a performance maker, Peter strives to construct performance works that tackle taboos, barriers, and stigmas associated with nudity, BDSM, sexual identity, and kink. Peter has had the opportunity to present work at Guelph Dance Festival, London Dance Festival, Queer Cab (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre), and Impact Festival, among others.

Mic. Carter ⚡ Devon Snell

MIC. CARTER

Mic. Carter is a Toronto-based creative that through experimental design and stylization, has developed an interest in fusing social justice, futurity, abjection, and community with fashion. They are particularly invested in understanding how clothing can be used to embolden those on the slippages of cis-gender heteronormativity and femme-phobia, primarily through ethnographic embodiment. L’Uomo Strano is the result of this, a brand invested in creating responsive beauty for the femme-identified, gender non-conformist’s wardrobe.

DEVON SNELL

Devon Snell is from London, Ontario. He graduated from the School of Toronto Dance Theatre while working with Toronto Dance Theatre as an 2017-2018 dancer intern. While training at the school he had many opportunities to work with talented and acclaimed Canadian choreographers and teachers. Just recently he attended b12 Dance Workshop Festival in Berlin, Germany; there he had the privilege to research with international choreographers and teachers and perform a new creation by Shannon Gillen. Devon is happy to be dancing in his fifth season with Toronto Dance Theatre.

Jeremy Laing ⚡ Ryan Kostyniuk

JEREMY LAING

Jeremy Laing is a transdisciplinary artist living and working in Toronto. Through the synthesis of craft and conceptual modes, their work explores the interrelation and transitional potential of subjects and objects, materials and meanings, and the hierarchies of value to which they are submitted.

Recent exhibitions include the Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell, Iowa; The Plumb, Franz Kaka, and Paul Petro Contemporary Art, all in Toronto; and Wil Aballe Art Projects, Vancouver. Past screenings include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Liverpool Biennial, UK; and the International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen, Germany. Their work is in the permanent collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, and the National Gallery of Canada Library.

Currently a Masters candidate in the Visual Studies department at the University of Toronto, Jeremy’s academic and artistic work is being supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, a University of Toronto Fellowship, the Jack Chambers Graduate Scholarship, and the Jules Wegman Fellowship.

RYAN KOSTYNIUK

Ryan Kostyniuk is from Sylvan Lake, Alberta and graduated from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. He has performed works by Danny Grossman, Jennifer Dallas, Ryan Lee, Alysa Pires, Sharon Moore, Julia Sasso, and Hannah Kiel to name a few. He has attended workshops lead by Proarte Danza as well as Springboard Danse Montreal where he performed works by Vim Vigor Dance Company and MA•ZE Dance Company.

Angela Cabrera ⚡ Valerie Calam

ANGELA CABRERA

Angela is a Latinx multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Colombia. Their design work is inspired by the spaces unattended by man and ruled over by natural evolution. Fashion is primarily their focus, evoking an enigmatic spirit that experiments with alien forms. They are a celestial soul that came from the forest and creates from the shadows.

Instagram: @to.buggin

VALERIE CALAM

Valerie Calam is a Toronto-based dance artist interested in finding pathways to refresh and support herself. She works with fabric, patterns, sound, numbers, the nervous system, the body, and likes to edit/adapt/repurpose things. Most of all, Val enjoys working alongside dancers and artists. She umbrellas much of her work under the name Company Vice Versa (www.companyviceversa.com) and works frequently with Fantastical Realms. She’s the Dance Ontario Regional Representative for her hometown of Sault Ste. Marie and recently became Membership Coordinator for CADA/East. She completed a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Choreography in 2014.

Diana Lynn VanderMeulen ⚡ Alana Elmer

DIANA LYNN VANDERMEULEN

Mysterious elements of our natural world are studied alongside the super synthetic. Remixing techniques and textures, Diana Lynn VanderMeulen navigates new digital tools as a means to expand the lifespan and audience of durational immersive installations and location specific artworks. An exploration of 360 space reveals environments and atmospheres from angles that challenge perceptions of reality. These immersive environments transcend our sense of presence while exploring inner spaces and reckonings of imagined landscapes.

Diana is a multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto and holds a BFA from York University. Diana has recently shared work with Sky Fine Foods in mixed-reality exhibition, Shimmer of a Petal, Now a Mountain Stream. Utilizing new media technology, Diana hopes to expand the lifespan and audience of durational immersive installations and location specific artworks. Alongside many DIY ventures, she has also shown work at The AGO, The Canadian Embassy (Tokyo, Japan), Gardiner Museum and Idea Exchange. 

ALANA ELMER

Alana Elmer grew up on a farm, attended The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and has worked with the Toronto Dance Theatre company for over 15 years. Captivated by the power of framework and the music of the body, Alana is in constant examination of the lenses the performer and choreographer use to shape things, and how we engage with one another as we shape them -choreography as a way to mobilize questions, and questions as active ways to embody and connect, to reflect internally and externally. She continues to deepen and refine her somatic practice. Alana is a costume designer and the star of the short film Latched, which had its world premiere at TIFF 2017 and has won over 65 awards world wide. Her debut feature film Making Monsters was released September 2019 and has already won multiple awards including Best Horror Film at Shriekfestfestival run.