Short&Sweet: Toronto Edition

Michael Baboolal

Michael Baboolal is an Indo-Caribbean Canadian dance and visual artist. Since 2020, he has been a full time company member with Compagnie Marie Chouinard and an active member within both the commercial and contemporary dance and entertainment industries. Michael is a frequent guest artist within the Toronto District School Board and enjoys working with, learning from and educating the next generation of artists. He is constantly researching how movement and choreography can be developed through rhythm and groove. As a visual artist, he strives to document the human form in its purest state. “I celebrate accomplishment, growth and acceptance in queer, BIPOC & diverse bodies” Michael is also an avid tea drinker and alpaca enthusiast.

Nova Bhattacharya

Nova Bhattacharya is an award-winning artist and cultural leader based in Tkaronto, and the Founding Artistic Director of Nova Dance. Crafting vivid images that invite the viewer on a journey of heart and mind, integrating improvised movement and gesture, she invents a language that needs no translation. Dancing solos that are intimate and intense, she reinterprets traditions through a diaspora lens to tell new stories with movement. In September of 2022 her new work Svāhā! will be presented by TO Live at The Bluma Appel Theatre.

CM²

CM² is an artistic collaboration composed of Chantelle Mostacho and Caden MacKinnon.

Their dance influences and training draw from a multitude of styles including popping, animation, contemporary and waacking. 

While they are highly regarded as soloists, their uniqueness truly shines in their boundary pushing approach to contact improvisation. 

Select credits include Cadence Weapon, Bassnectar, Unity Charity, Moments of Movement, 2U4U, TUDS, and Lost is Found.

Syreeta Hector

Syreeta Hector is a dance artist and educator in Toronto, Ontario. As a highly accomplished performer, Syreeta has worked for internationally recognized companies like Adelheid Dance Projects, Danny Grossman Dance Company, Political Movement, and Toronto Dance Theatre. She is a proud graduate of The National Ballet School’s Teacher Training Program, The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and has achieved her Master of Arts in Dance Studies from York University.

Her work called “Black Ballerina” focuses on the dualities within ones identity, along with Syreeta’s blackness and indigeneity in relationship to classical ballet. The development of the full length version of “Black Ballerina” is taking place through the support of the Citadel+ Compagnie, Canadian Stage, and the Kaaitheater. Syreeta is currently one of the Luminato Artists in Residence for the 2020-2021 season.

Nyda Kwasowsky

Nyda Kwasowsky a freelance dance artist, interpreter, performer and emerging choreographer based out of Tsi Tkaronto. Their language is the moving body and their practice is used as a tool for healing. ‘This body has the role of remembering, dance as the action that collects us.’ Her work centers around loss, grief and belonging in diasporic experience. Transforming memories and histories from colonial supremacies. Studied in trauma informed practices and somatics. Choosing to work with non-definitive synesthetic relationships as an opportunity to form connections that push at the boundaries of who and what we can be together.

Victoria Mata

Victoria Mata Venezuelan-Canadian settler in T’Koronto. Poly-lingual choreographer, dance artist and activist with a background in expressive arts therapy. Mata’s career was first sculpted by pedagogic, self-directed training, which proceeded with training under internationally renowned choreographers. Mata’s sensibility to inclusion and border stories is due to her eclectic upbringing in three continents before the age of fifteen. Mata’s intimate, dynamic and visceral aesthetic is rooted in traditional Venezuelan dance genres reframed through contemporary expressions. Intersectional, multi-framed community-arts and the abolishment of violence against women are some of Mata’s passion. She has intricately weaved these themes in her MFA in Contemporary Choreography and is the foundation for some of her recognitions such as being a recipient of the Metcalf Foundation, a finalist of the Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award and 7 Dora nominations. Mata deeply believes in the arts as a core and tangible mode of sustaining and transforming the paradigms of oppressive tropes to populate a sphere of discourse, play, exploration and possibility.

Marcus "OG" Paris

Marcus “O.G” Paris (He/Him) is a Toronto-bred and based artist who involved himself in various dance communities such as Hip Hop and Dancehall. Along his development as an artist, he discovered Krump which he decided to prioritize his focus. For over a decade he has had the privilege of learning, engaging, and spreading the movement of Krump in the City of Toronto through workshops, youth outreach programs, and the performing arts. Marcus has contributed to creating an inclusive, supportive, and caring community for those within it and who want to learn about it. Marcus hopes to continue growth and attain the knowledge needed to spread the impact of Krump and its movement as a self-care practice for youth, teens, and adults.

Veronica Simpson

Veronica Simpson is a dancer and theatre artist in Toronto. She has performed as a soloist with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and as a member of tap company Rhythm and Sound. In 2021, Veronica joined the Tap Performance Ensemble at the School at Jacob’s Pillow, then continued her work as a swing on TimeSpell at New York City Center. Most recently, she co-founded a new tap dance collective called Boys’ Club whose first work was developed at tanzhaus nrw in Germany. 

Raoul “Jiggyman” Wilke

Raoul Wilke, a multifaceted Dora Award winning artist, is the co-founder of The Moon Runners dance crew and the CEO of FeedYourSole. His choreographic work extends into film and theatre, artistic directing and coaching for artists such as Dillion Anthony’s “Love That We Found, Tyra Jutai’s “New Shoes” and Abhithi’s cover of “7 Rings “.

Under the artistic direction of Gadfly Dance Company, he got to perform for major brands such as Canada Goose, Azzaro Fragrance as well as grant commissioned works, at the Four Seasons, The Sony Center and many other Canadian based venues. As a black emerging artist, he’s accolades within these different communities opened doors for new collaborations.

He was a model for Seika Boye’s “This Living Dancer” in collaboration with the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario). He performed for The Raptors half time show, as well got to produce his own film over the summer of 2019, commissioned by Canadian Stage Theatre. As a leader of street dance community within Canada, he has mentored various companies and dance schools over the years, on the importance of the historical context, within these vernacular street forms and the value of themselves. He has represented Canada internationally battling at world renowned competitions, with his biggest accomplishment to date, representing Team Canada In China, for KOD in 2018.

Raoul is currently Faculty at Ryerson Dance School, educating students on these vernacular dance forms that helped shape him in to the man he is today. As a student of dance, he continues to live by the quote, “See the music, Hear the Dance” by Balanchine

Ravyn Wngz

Ravyn Wngz “The Black Widow of Burlesque” is a Tanzanian, Bermudian, Mohawk, 2Spirit, Queer and Transcendent empowerment storyteller. Ravyn is an abolitionist and co-founder of ILL NANA/DiverseCity Dance Company, Black Lives Matter Canada, & the Wildseed Centre for Arts & Activism, Ravyn is committed to eradicating all forms of anti-Black racism, settler colonialism systems of oppression while nurturing Black and Indigenous healing in communities.