Staff & Board

Staff

• Kate Alton, Programming Director – kate@publicenergy.ca
• Eva Fisher, Managing Director – eva@publicenergy.ca
• Josh Raspberry, Bookkeeper

Board of Directors

• Colin MacAdam, Board Chair
• Kate King-Fisher, Secretary
• Mara Heiber
• Laura Lawson

Kate Alton, Programming Director

(She/Her/Hers)

Kate Alton was an award-winning dancer, choreographer and multi-disciplinary theatre maker for decades before relocating to Peterborough/Nogojiwanong in 2022. As a member of Toronto Dance Theatre from 1989-95, she toured extensively nationally and internationally. As an independent dance artist she worked with numerous renowned choreographers across North America.

In 1998, Alton formed Overall Dance to showcase her own choreography and bring choreographers from across Canada and beyond to work with Toronto’s finest contemporary dancers.  Enjoying consistently strong critical acclaim, her programs brought dance to Guelph, Hamilton, Montreal, Peterborough, and Vancouver, as well as to the Blyth Festival, the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa, and Festival Danse en Vol in Brussels, Belgium.

In 2004 Alton won a Harold Award and the K.M. Hunter Artist’s Award in Dance. In 2006 her renamed company, Crooked Figure Dances, presented its first show DESPAIR …and other conundrums to critical acclaim.

Kate was choreographer and co-creator/director with Ross Manson of dance and sound poetry production The Four Horsemen Project, which garnered four Dora Mavor Moore awards including Best Direction by Alton and Manson. It toured nationally and internationally, including an early presentation of the unfinished version persented by Peterborough New Dance in 2001 at the Market Hall. In 1999 Peterborough New Dance and Performance presented the Overall Dance program Calculated Risks in Peterborough, as well as Hamilton and Ottawa as part of its Dancing Across Ontario initiative.

Alton, Manson and Soprano/Actor/Dancer Neema Bickersteth together created Century Song, a live music and dance performance piece with original projection design by Germany’s fettFilm. Century Song has been presented in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Ghent, Edinburgh, Kigali, Manchester, Birmingham and London.

In 2015 Alton’s first solo show This Dance was listed as one of the top five shows of 2015 in NOW magazine.

For several years Kate danced with Coleman, Lemieux & Compagnie, performing James Kudelka’s masterworks In Paradisum and 15 Heterosexual Duets in Canada, China, Mongolia and the United States.

Since moving to the area, Kate has participated in two small dance for a small space festivals, choreographed & performed in visual artist Stan Olthuis’ Interconnected at the Peterborough Art Gallery, and appeared in Kate Story’s play Death in Reverse: Project Baroness at TTOK, directed by Ryan Kerr.

Eva Fisher, Managing Director

(She/Her/Hers)

Eva Fisher is Public Energy’s Managing Director. She comes to us with a love of performance first fostered in the role of “Jamie at 6” in the 4th Line Theatre’s 1993 production of The Moodie Traill. Nowadays she is more comfortable in front of a spreadsheet than an audience. Eva has honed her management and event production skills through her previous role as Program Coordinator with the Electric City Culture Council.

Colin MacAdam, Board Chair

Colin MacAdam met his true love at Trent in the late 70’s. He was a poet of sorts in those days and learned to throw a Frisbee. Since returning to Peterborough in 2007 Colin has been singing with the Peterborough Singers and the Convivio Chorus, performing with Old Men Dancing, and working as an adjudicator. Colin has been on several boards of directors and now chairs the board of Public Energy.

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Kate King-Fisher, Secretary

Kate King-Fisher is an enthusiastic supporter of the arts. She has training in and has worked as an Expressive Arts Therapy Practitioner and Parenting Facilitator in Peterborough, where she has lived since 1998. As part of her expressive arts training, she has done extensive work in clown performance. She has taught courses at two Ontario colleges. She has a business diploma in Human Resources and Marketing from St. Lawrence College and extensive training and experience in various art modalities, group facilitation and counselling. In the early 1990s, she helped found and publish a community newspaper in Temagami, ON, and establish an umbrella publication for the arts serving the Temiskaming Region. Prior to that, she led the establishment of a community legal clinic in Kingston, ON and helped in the rebirth of that city’s Women’s Art Festival. Since moving to Peterborough, she has held numerous volunteer positions with the Peterborough Folk Festival, including Artistic Direction , as well as co-ordinating the artist and food vendors, volunteer management, fundraising and accessibility.

Wherever Kate has lived, she has become a very active member in her community, and advocate for the arts through her volunteerism, activism and non-for-profit board work

Mara Heiber, Board of Directors

(She/Her/Hers)

Mara Heiber, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor with the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies, Trent University.

Mara is from downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  Her ancestors traveled to Turtle Island between 1880 and 1910 from Germany and Eastern Europe.

Mara completed a Ph.D. at The Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies, a M.E.S. at York University in volunteering and Palliative Care.  Her research interests include Indigenous-settler relations and how identity influences individual choices in terms of engaging with decolonizing and anti-colonial frameworks.  Her research focuses on how performance can impact identity, cultural connections and consciousness.

Mara studied at Claude Watson School for the Arts in Toronto and has worked with many Indigenous performance artists.  She teaches several ICR (Indigenous Content Requirement) courses at Trent including INDG 1001H Foundations for Reconciliation, INDG 1002 Critical Incidents in Indigenous Studies, CUST-INDG 1570H The origins of performance and theatre in Indigenous and Cultural Studies, INDG 3010Y Indigenous Masked Dance and Storytelling, INDG 3030 Indigenous Dance Theatre and INDG 3560Y The Living History of Indigenous Dance and Theatre.

Laura Lawson, Board of Directors

Laura was born in Peterborough and fell in love with the magic of the stage as a child studying at the National Ballet School of Canada. Her passion for theatre grew while attending Lakefield College School, and she went on to complete a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from Ryerson University. Highlights of her career as a performing artist include: The Nutcracker with the National Ballet of Canada, The Ring Cycle with the Canadian Opera Company, and appearances in the films Save the Last Dance II and Hairspray.

She then went on to complete Medical School at McMaster University and Residency in Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. She began her medical practice in Bancroft Ontario, where she also sat on the Board of Directors for the Family Health Team.

Laura moved back home in 2018 and continues to practice Family Medicine, while dabbling in local theatre as a performer, and is a passionate supporter of the local arts community.