Creative & Technical Residency Program

2023-2024 Artist in Residence:

Diana Lopez Soto

Diana is an award-winning multidisciplinary Mexican/Canadian artist, mother and land caretaker. She has presented and exhibited her work nationally and internationally in France, Panama, Mexico, Costa Rica, the USA and Canada. She creates, co-creates and performs site-specific work, vertical dance, art installations and experimental film.  Her interest in sustainable practices informs the direction of her collaborations and offerings. Some of her latest achievements are her participation at the Guapamacataro Art and Ecology residency, the Vancouver International Vertical Dance Summit and the ‘Ritual de las Aguadoras’ with the Tirindikua family from the Barrio de Santo Santiago Michoacan. Diana is the co-creator of Land Embodiment Lab with Coman Poon, an artist associate of Vanguardia Dance Projects and collaborates with Hercinia Arts, Femme du Feu, Look Up Theatre and Victoria Mata.

2022-2023 Artists in Residence:

Mammalian Diving Reflex

We’ve named ourselves after a reflex found in mammals, which increases the chances of survival when we’re plunged into a cold watery environment. For us, this is a metaphor for surviving difficult times, not through a comprehensive rational plan, but by getting the mind out of the way and letting the body do its job. With our work, we’re always trying to overwhelm ourselves and our audience with ideas and sensations so that we’re abandoned by the intellect, allowing intuition to lead the way. We trust we’ll get through this century in one piece, we just have to get out of the way and let our natural tendencies of generosity unlock and redistribute the world’s abundance.

Artistic Statement Mammalian creates performances by looking for contradictions to whip into aesthetically scintillating experiences. We create site and social-specific performance events, theatre productions, participatory gallery installations, videos, art objects and theoretical texts to foster dialogue and dismantle barriers between individuals of all backgrounds by bringing people together in new and unusual ways.

2019-2020 Artists in Residence:

Anne White

Anne White is a Nogojiwanong/Peterborough-based artist, learning how to live and work respectfully on land and waters governed by the Williams Treaties. With a background in physical, collaborative and devised theatre, she makes live performance works, frequently developed and performed outside of traditional theatre spaces.

Anne’s work explores institutional structures of power (social, cultural, historical, technological, etc.) and how these structures constitute our spatial, temporal, aesthetic, embodied and emotional experiences of a place. By making these structures of power visible through art, we can explore strategies for questioning and subverting them.

She has her BA (Honours) in Theatre Studies and History and has trained with Zuppa Theatre Co., Adam Paolozza, and Quote Unquote Collective, among others. She is a recent recipient of Theatre Ontario’s Professional Theatre Training Program and has been commissioned by local festivals including Artsweek (2018). Anne is a co-founder of the arts collective Ring O’ Rosie and regularly collaborates with artists from other disciplines.

2018-2019 Artists in Residence:

Roshanak Jaberi

Roshanak is an Iranian-Canadian artist and activist based in Toronto. She creates inter-disciplinary dance works that are thought provoking, emotionally driven and politically charged. The stories and lived experiences of racialized women motivate her artistic inquiry, as do her frequent travels and unique collaborations with artists, scholars and activists. She has spent the last two decades cultivating her practice which now focuses on the intersection of art and social justice. Roshanak is interested in re-envisioning traditional dance aesthetics, integrating multiple art forms and experimenting with different avenues to creation. Her work is grounded in a research informed artistic practice that reflects her commitment to ethically and authentically share the stories, experiences and cultures she draws inspiration from. Roshanak’s work has been supported by all three arts councils, and has been presented in Canada, US, and Europe.

Brandy Leary

Brandy creates contemporary performances through the body: active as a dancer, choreographer, aerialist, writer, arts advocate, community cultivator, space maker, Artistic Director, educator and curator. Her performance works have been produced and performed in Canada, Europe, India, South Africa and the USA in theatres, urban environments, festivals, museums, art galleries and isolated landscapes.

She has lived between Canada and India for the past 17 years training, collaborating and creating (both explicitly and implicitly) in the traditional Indian performing languages of Seraikella and Mayurbhanj Chhau (dance), Kalarippayattu (martial art) and Rope Mallakhamb (aerial rope). In Canada she works with western approaches to aerial rope, the bridge discipline of Axis Syllabus, post contemporary dance/circus practices and psychic/shamanistic explorations to create performances.

She founded Anandam Dancetheatre as an umbrella structure for her performance projects (www.anandam.ca) and is its Artistic Director. She is a founder and Co-Director of Collective Space (an alternative performance and rehearsal venue in Toronto’s west end), Founder and Co-Artistic Director of CCAFT (Contemporary Circus Arts Festival of Toronto), developer of Anandam’s Audience In Residence Program and curator/co-producer of the Body Brake dance series at Theatre Passe Muraille. She is a driving force in the evolution of contemporary circus practice in Toronto as a choreographer, performer, curator and festival director working from values of experimentation, discourse development, curiosity and collaboration.

2017-2018 Artist in Residence:

Brian Solomon

Brian Solomon is of Anishinaabe and Irish descent, born and raised in the Northern Ontario community Shebahonaning-Killarney. Solomon is passionate about helping people relearn about their forgotten bodies, and take back the space those bodies occupy. Solomon’s residency was supported by Trent University and the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies.

Nogojiwanong Rite of Spring is a site-specific dance performance created by Brian Solomon and members of the community during his residency. The performance wass a re-envisioning of the 1913 early modern ballet, Rite of Spring, via a contemporary Anishinaabeg lens, featuring Igor Stravinsky’s seminal score reimagined by Melody McKiver. It was performed by community members and professional dance artists, taught via an open rehearsal/workshop process over the duration of Brian Solomon’s six-week artistic residency with Public Energy. It took place on a downtown Peterborough parking lot that is an Anishinaabe burial site.

During Brian Solomon’s six-week residency at Public Energy, he taught a series of workshops with the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies. He also lead an additional six movement workshops for community organizations in Peterborough, including: Nogojiwanong Friendship Centre, Yes Shelter For Youth And Families, LOFT Downtown Youth Space, and the New Canadians Centre in partnership with Voice of A Nation.

2015-2016 Artist in Residence:

Lara Kramer

Lara Kramer is the artistic director and choreographer Lara Kramer Danse, a company based in Montreal. Kramer received her BFA in Contemporary Dance at Concordia University, Montreal (2008). Kramer is a First Nations dancer and choreographer whose work is intimately linked to memory and her Aboriginal roots. Working with strong visuals and narrative, Kramer’s work pushes the strength and fragility of the human spirit. Her work is political and potent, often examining political issues surrounding Canada and First Nations Peoples. Kramer has been recognized as a Human Rights Advocate through the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre. Her new creation NGS (“Native Girl Syndrome”) received a commission from The Canada Dance Festival, and a creation residency at Studio Marie Chouinard and at Conseil des arts de Montreal.

2014-2015 Artist in Residence:

Bill Coleman (right) and Gordon Monahan

Bill Coleman’s work has transcended the usual theatrical settings to include work on Mountain tops, Rainforests, prairies, and construction sites often collaborating with a variety of community groups, including Russian WW11 veterans, Aboriginal communities, fishing villages and ranching communities. His work has been presented at the Tramway in Glasgow, New York’s Dance Theatre Workshop, Place Des Arts, Montreal, Alexeandrinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, and others. His site-specific series is a bold collection of large-scale works where Coleman proves himself a pioneer in the world of dance. These site-specific performances, often in unusual settings use dance as a means to unite the community within its natural environment. The result is a happening that becomes a celebration of life and community and constitutes, as such, some of the choreographer’s most unusual and exceptional work. He has performed with among others: The Martha Graham Dance Company, Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Toronto Dance Theatre, Fondation Jean Pierre Perreault and is a long time faculty member at Centre for Indigenous Theatre.

Gordon Monahan’s works for piano, loudspeakers, video, kinetic sculpture, and computer-controlled sound environments span various genres from avant-garde concert music to multi-media installation and sound art. As a composer and sound artist, he juxtaposes the quantitative and qualitative aspects of natural acoustical phenomena with elements of media technology, environment, architecture, popular culture, and live performance. Gordon Monahan is the recipient of a 2013 Governor-General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. Monahan divides his time between studios in Meaford, Ontario, and Berlin, Germany. “Gordon Monahan produces sounds we haven’t heard before.” – John Cage, American Composer