National accessArts Centre + Mathieu Hérard

After one year as a student, Kathy M. Austin joined the Ensemble and is now the longest standing member. Kathy is a talented visual artist with works exhibited internationally in Dubai (2019) and Vienna (2012). Global Affairs Canada has since collected these works. A freelance writer for 25 years, she titled the 2015 show I Didn’t Wear My Raincoat from a piece of poetry she had written. Kathy also choreographed and performed Scramm, a solo work in The Mind Palace, which also included improvised poetry and live painting each performance.

A member of the Ensemble since 2017, Alicia Morrison has expanded her own creativity, learnings and repertoire exponentially through her time with the Ensemble. Dancing a pivotal role of a shape-shifter in the 2017 performance of The Mind Palace, she also helped co-create this piece and her solo in the Ensemble’s film, Moving Pictures, Pictures Moving. Off the stage, she regularly nurtures her artistic practice through community dance classes and visual arts. Alicia shares her love of dance through assisting The Roots of Jazz alongside Dinou Marlett Stuart, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks Alumni, and in her own class, Gratitude Gogo. She expresses her love of writing, storytelling and song through Act One, a collaborative program between the NaAC and the Calgary Opera.

Hank “Dommix” Round started rehearsing with and joined the Ensemble in 2018, performing in the full-length production The Mind Palace. He was a member of the NaAC’s premiere Queer Accessible Arts Cabaret and took the stage in a powerful expression of drag. He has also performed with Fake Mustache Drag King Troupe and appeared in the Ensemble’s film, Moving Pictures, Pictures Moving. A triple threat, Dommix is working towards being a television star, radio host, performer, and singer.

Meg Ohsada is a 27-year-old artist, contemporary dancer, Special Olympics gold medal winning figure skater, rhythmic gymnast, and model who happens to have Down syndrome. A natural performer, Meg has performed with figure skating greats like Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir and Patrick Chan in Rock the Rink, and has competed in Los Angeles, Austria, and Korea. A new member to the Ensemble, Meg recently modelled for the Radical Beauty Project, an art project about challenging opinions about beauty in contemporary culture.

James Silcock began dancing with MoMo in 2009. He has since began teaching and joined the Ensemble, performing in Imaginary People, The Mind Palace and the ensemble’s dance film Moving Pictures, Pictures Moving. Not only does James bring a great deal of rhythm and funk to the Ensemble and his classes, he is also exploring his choreographic and spoken word talents, bringing his characters to a new level. James can’t wait to be on stage once again in the near future!

Director of Maven Movement, providing professional-level inclusive performance and training opportunities has been Ashley Brodeur’s focus for the past eight years. With professional performance credits including the Dubai Shopping Festival, Toronto Fringe Festival, TIFF, BravoFact!, Loreal, Labatt and XBox, and the Much Music Video Awards, she is motivated to ensure that professional performance opportunities are available to all, especially those traditionally underrepresented. An attendee of the BFA Dance Program at York University, the Commercial Dance Program at George Brown College and the Professional Training Program at Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, she has trained with AXIS Dance Company, Parable Dance, and around the world.

With a background in various dance styles, Chawna Exner has had a life-long relationship with dance. After pursuing her BFA in the University of Calgary Dance program, Chawna discovered the art of burlesque and has since established herself as a prominent burlesque artist as Eva Angel. Burlesque has brought her to many stages in Calgary and across Canada, including the Calgary, Vancouver, and Edmonton International Burlesque Festivals, Wild Mountain Music Fest, and Calgary’s High Performance Rodeo. In 2018, Chawna began work with an accessible dance company, Momo Movement (now National accessArts Centre), and has sought to discover ways to bring equity and accessibility into dance and burlesque ever since.

Cassieopeia Holmes is a theatre artist, designer, creator, and collaborator based in Calgary. She recently graduated with her MFA in Design and Technical Theatre at the University of Calgary. Her research primarily focuses on accessibility in live performance and lighting diverse skin tones. Cassie is also an advocate for the queer community, and you may have seen her performing in drag under the stage name Struggle Bussy.

During the exploration of icons, the ensemble artists have created characters to ground their stories and movement. Each ensemble member has developed a character with a rich backstory, some even creating a whole universe for them. In the dance work, these characters explore their identities, collide, and grow. The fullness of the characters is respected in the structure of the performance. Having the ensemble members set key moments of choreography allows them the freedom to constantly explore the expression of their characters. The removal of traditional choreography allows the artists to approach the performances as if it was a living organism that is allowed to grow, converse, and change. The work requires the artists to be fully present, not to replicate movement but to constantly explore.

Originally from Eastern France, Mathieu Hérard rubs shoulders with the world of theatre from an early age while learning about the visual arts. Wishing to pursue professional artistic training, his career takes him to the Conservatoire de Strasbourg alongside Virginia Heinen, Francis Viet, and Jean-François Duroure from the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. Always passionate about theatre, which he continues to practice assiduously, he then joins École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, where he has the opportunity to travel through different physicalities and to develop powerful links between text and movement, which is particularly close to his heart. At the same time, he plays in several plays in which he has the pleasure of embodying various characters with the most exhilarating speeches. Driven by humour and the need to make those around him laugh, Mathieu is building more and more bridges between dance and theatre, and wishes to pursue his career between these two disciplines.

Originally from Corsica, Raphaëlle Renucci studies classical music (cello and piano) at the conservatory from an early age. She later discovers contemporary dance and integrates the Conservatoire de Bordeaux in her early twenties. After, as she is doing a university degree in kinesiology, she takes off, thanks to this program, for a one-year student exchange in Montréal in the UQAM dance department. The following year, she integrates École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, from which she graduates in 2018. Since then, Raphaëlle collaborates as a dancer and musician with various artists and companies, such as Cirque du Soleil, the Sursaut dance company, Sylvain Émard Danse, Morgane Letiec, Idan Cohen, Francine Châteauvert, Liliane Moussa, Manon Oligny, Compagnie Voix, Andrew Skeels, the Flamant collective, Stefania Skoryna, Stéphanie Fromentin, Rebecca Lazier, Mathieu Hérard, and the French band Kolinga. Throughout her career, Raphaëlle also choreographs her own pieces in different contexts: Scènes Ouvertes at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux (2014), Passerelle 840 at UQAM (2015), Cégeps en spectacle, national prize (2016), the orchestra Ensemble Volte (2019), and Kolinga’s music video for “N’guya Na Ngai” (2020). In 2023, Raphaëlle develops an attraction to circus arts when she collaborates with Rebecca Lazier as an aerial dancer in the hybrid project Noli Timere. That year, she also takes on the role of assistant choreographer for Jacques-Poulin Denis and of rehearsal director with Mathilde Heuzé in a multidisciplinary project mixing dance, circus, VJing, and music.