Jontae McCrory, Brian Mendez, Chivengi & G Mako

Jontae McCrory (they/them) is a Detroit-born, Montréal-based multidisciplinary artist working at the intersections of contemporary dance, filmmaking, and mythology. Their embodied storytelling practice explores Black queer futurity, transformation and ritual through movement, media, and community. McCrory began formal dance training at Western Michigan University and later joined the BalletBoyz Dancer’s Course in London. They’ve trained with artists such as Kyle Abraham, James Gregg, Frank Chaves and Azure Barton, and performed with RUBBERBAND, Andrea Peña & Artists, and Decidedly Jazz Dance. Their choreographic and film work has been featured internationally at Festival Chéries-Chéris, BBC Network London, OFFTA, Tangente, and Festival TransAmériques. Their acclaimed film GODLIN has earned multiple nominations, and Dulce is currently part of Tangente’s Tri-City Project (2024–2026). McCrory also serves as Kiki Father of the House of Louboutin – Montréal Chapter, a leadership role in Ballroom culture that informs their broader artistic practice centered on community, ritual, and visibility.

Born in Montréal to Panamanian parents, Brian Mendez is a vogue dancer who began his training in street dance. At 20 years old, he attended the Montréal urban street dance studio Urban-Element Zone, where he took hip hop, waacking, and dancehall classes. From 2014 to 2016, he pursued a pre-university program in contemporary dance at Collège Montmorency, then completed this first training at École de danse contemporaine de Montréal from 2016 to 2019. There, he discovered voguing, a style born in the 1970s in Harlem within the Latino-American and African-American LGBTQ+ communities, which became his preferred form of expression. After graduating, he continued to study voguing and its culture in order to share his knowledge in Montréal. Since 2021, he has collaborated on the creations of Clara Furey (Dog Rising and Unarmoured).

G Mako is a Haitian queer DJ and artist based in Montréal, quickly making his mark with vibrant, textured selections spanning house, deep Afro house, jersey club, vogue beats, and more. Drawing from Afro-diasporic sounds and influences, he creates kaleidoscopic experiences for dance floors, festivals, and radio. Active in Montréal’s ballroom scene as both performer and DJ, he channels community, liberation and rhythm into every set. With a growing presence and a sound that bridges cultural heritage with forward-thinking energy, G Mako is an exciting presence in the city’s artistic landscape.

Chivengi is a Haitian-Canadian singer/songwriter, producer and multidisciplinary artist based in Montréal. Blending ambient and introspective R&B vocals, she aims to bring audiences to a place of self-examination. Her recent works include Dulce (OFFTA, Toronto Dance Theatre), Mitsubishi (live), continuous play video & Black Gxrl Sesh Collective curatorial work, for which she is the co-founder.

My creative process is rooted in embodied inquiry, cultural memory, and aesthetic experimentation. I begin with movement – intuition before theory – allowing gesture, rhythm and sensation to lead the research. Improvisation, repetition and distortion become tools for uncovering emotional and spatial logic.

I work in fragments, layering movement with image, sound and design until new relationships emerge. The studio becomes both ritual and lab, a space to listen, deconstruct, and reimagine. Influences range from ballroom and surrealism to personal archive and speculative performance practices.

I resist linear development and fixed form. Instead, I return to material in cycles, letting it shift and evolve. Movement becomes language. Clothing becomes architecture. Film becomes memory.

My work thrives in the in-between, where awkwardness becomes elegance and the body transforms into a site of resistance, memory, and radical potential.