June 26th-30th, 2023

9am-5pm daily

918 Bathurst|Culture, Arts, Media and Education Centre

918 Bathurst St., Toronto, Canada

The beautiful main space at 918 Bathurst. Smooth wood floors, ambient light. Changerooms and washrooms on site.

ABOUT THE INTENSIVE

  • Welcome, dance artists.

    Join us for our 1st ever week-long, full-day summer creation intensive. This workshop is lead by Tkaronto based Dance Artist Kylie Thompson, with special guests Jaz ‘Fairy J’, Amara Barner, Emily Spearing, Rodney Diverlus and Keith Morino.

    Don’t miss out on the ONLY full creation intensive we will be hosting this year.

    This workshop is geared towards emerging and current professional dancers as well as current dance students. It is a safe and welcoming space for all.

    Not sure if this workshop is a fit for you? Send us an email with a recent video of you dancing and a short letter of intent.

    5 days of intensive contemporary dance theatre training so that you’ll head into the summer feeling inspired with new tools and thought processes, and new connections in our industry. We will train with a focus on floorwork, partnering, composition and other tools for the current contemporary dance theatre industry.

    We are happy to be offering TWO STREAMS for this Intensive:

    STREAM ONE: Morning sessions only; 9:15-11:15am Monday-Friday with different guest faculty each day.

    STREAM TWO: Morning guest workshops PLUS afternoon creation period and final studio performance, with creation lead by Kylie Thompson.

    The performance will take place on Friday June 30th at 5pm and will be open to the public. This performance will be professionally filmed and footage will be distributed to participants within two weeks of the performance.

  • MONDAY June 26th: Soft Chaos with Amara Barner

    TUESDAY June 27th: Guest workshop with Rodney Diverlus

    WEDNESDAY June 28th: Gaga and Repertoire with Keith Morino

    THURSDAY June 29th: Experiemental Creation with Emily Spearing

    FRIDAY June 30th: Guided Session with Jaz Fairy J

    SEE BELOW FOR WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS

    DAILY SCHEDULE:

    9am-9:15am, arrival into space, self warm up.

    Monday through Friday, 9:15am-11:15am workshops with Guest Faculty

    LUNCH 11:15am-12pm

    12pm-5pm* Creation process with Kylie Thompson, including 15 minute break.

    *on Monday, June 26th Creation will be from 12-4pm.

    *On Friday, June 30th creation participants will perform their work for the public from 5-6pm.

  • The intensive will take place inside the beautiful main space at 918 Bathurst Centre.

    918 Bathurst St.

    Toronto, ON

    TTC: 5 minute walk from Bathurst Station

    Parking: paid parking directly in front of building (between 10am-4pm), free parking on side streets in the area (check signage!)

    Amenities: Cafés and food in the area.

  • We are happy to be offering TWO STREAMS for this Intensive:

    STREAM ONE: Morning sessions only; 9:15-11:15am Monday-Friday with guest faculty.

    Cost: $119+HST (10 hours of guest workshops)

    STREAM TWO: Morning guest workshops PLUS afternoon creation period and final studio performance, with creation lead by Kylie Thompson. (20 spots available)

    Regular Price: $449+HST (Current Students: $409+HST)

    NEW: Registration is now conducted through this website. Payment forms accepted are credit card or paypal. Kylie Thompson Creative is a registered business and HST will be applied at checkout. Payment must be received in order to reserve your spot. Once payment is received it is non-refundable, but can be transferred (must be arranged by the student).

    Keep your receipt! Tuition is eligible for partial reimbursement through the CADA-East Training Subsidy Program.

  • What if I sign up but then book a job or something else comes up? Can I get a refund?

    We cannot offer refunds due to the fact that renting of space and booking guest instructors is costly and we must secure a committment from participants to ensure the feasibility of these workshops. You may, however, transfer your reservation to someone else, but this is your responsibility. We will be accepting registration up until the start of the intensive, but cannot guarantee space will be available.

    What happens if I miss part of the creation period? Can I get a partial refund?

    For reasons mentioned above, no partial refunds are available. We would like for students to treat the creation period like work; and request that everyone make an effort to attend in full. However, we know life happens and if you are unable to make a certain portion of the intensive, just let us know.

    Can I sign up for workshops with individual faculty members?

    Initially, no. We prioritize registration for full participation. Check our instagram the week leading up to the event, as we sometimes advertise drop-ins if space allows.

    What if a faculty member is unable to attend? Can I get a refund?

    The nature of our industry is that work may come up last minute and we respect our faculty’s right to accept other work. We cannot give refunds in this scenario. We promise we will do our utmost to ensure a wonderful replacement faculty is found.

Kylie Thompson (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary performer, creator and educator residing in Toronto, Ontario (Treaty 13 territory).  She considers herself an ally to the BIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ communities and is committed to ongoing education, conversation and action towards equality and decolonisation of Western Dance practices.  She believes that dance is simply movement language; and holds a unique perspective in the dance industry as she continues to train in street dance forms as well as contemporary theatre/ballet based techniques.  She has a wealth of experience in both contemporary spaces as well as the commercial industry; some of her credits include Dance:Made in Canada, TIFF, DanceWorks, Barenaked Ladies, Kiesza, and more. She has been teaching floorwork and partnering to professional level students for 5 years. She has trained in the US, Austria and Italy with such companies as Alias Dance Project, Gadfly, Ultima Vez and Vim Vigor. She has been hosting various sizes and lengths of community workshops in Tkaronto since 2017. She is so grateful for community and is ecstatic to be offering another event in this beautiful city.

Artistic Statement: Kylie Thompson

"We’ll be developing something brand new together, working for 5 hours daily - what a glorious challenge to create something whole in just one week! I’m interested in and working on dancing that seamlessly moves from improvisational to choreographed. I’m interested in using personal writing to develop movement and also score. I aim to create environments where all participants feel equally responsible; and can feel confident to take ideas and run with them. Transcribing individual movement into partnered movement will be in focus. Autonomy, tactile sensation and the use of one’s voice will be in focus! I consider myself, in this type of scenario equal parts choreographer/facilitator/mentor. I am very much looking forward to bringing this new group of dancers together for an inquisitive creation period and leading them through to the public performance at 918 Bathurst!”

Amara Barner is a multidisciplinary artist from Minnesota, who currently resides in Montreal (Tiohtià:ke) Quebec. As a teenager she traveled as an assistant to the choreographers of The Pulse On Tour, Intrigue Dance Convention, as well as Emma Portner. Barner was the youngest dancer hired for local company, RUBBERBAND and worked with the group from 2016-2021. She toured internationally with the company's show Vic’s Mix, and also danced in the company's premiers and following international tours of Ever So Slightly/Vraiment Doucement, including the KOTV TeleQuebec adaptation of the show for television. Amara went on to the work of artists such as Anne Plamondon in Counter Cantor, Dana Gingras' Creation Destruction, and multiple works by Elon Höglund of Tentacle Tribe. Amara performed in Tentacle Tribe's short films Metamorph, Touch, and Terra. As well as the live performance of DiRT for Festival Quartier Danse. Barner also performed in the TVA show Chanteurs Masqués in seasons one and two. As well, Amara has danced in music videos such as La Force’s All That I Am, Aisha Bahdru’s Lazy River, and Make Believe by sickxsense. She presented her first multidisciplinary solo entitled “mongrel” in 2021 at the VAV Gallery, adapted into a gallery exhibition in 2022. Her second exhibition, "the interconnected network of everything and anything" was on display at the FOFA Gallery for a month in early 2023. Amara Barner is currently a student at Concordia University in Montreal, majoring in Fibres and Materials.

///WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: Soft Chaos is a movement practice inspired by chakra cleansing. It begins in guided improvisation with a body scan in an upwards path of liberation. Throughout this process, we create energy upheavals that release the old, and make space for the new. We will allow disorder to open new potential pathways. We layer momentum with interruptions that redirect our body in space. We groove, we fly, and we traverse the lengths of the room with enlivened spirits. We then travel downwards through the path of manifestation. Taking control of our decision making, agency, and the curating of our bodies in space and relation to others. The path of manifestation provides an opportunity to affect change and consciously inhabit the body. You will be encouraged to challenge the lengths of form, stamina, and presence. You will be encouraged to utilize the floor. You decide your limitations. You free yourself. We will conclude the class with phrase work to unite our centred focus.

JAZ “FAIRY J” SIMONE is a Barbadian-Canadian multi hyphenate artist based in Toronto ON. She started her career in 2007 and for the past 15 years has been building her career as a performance artist, choreographer, movement director, dancer, singer/musician, outside eye/creative mentor, group facilitator and more recently, handmade skincare small business owner. She has created over 30 original dance works around the world.  She made her debut as a movement director and choreographer for theatre in 2011, working with such companies as Soulpepper Theatre, Obsidian Theatre and Canadian Stage; and having choreographed for both Stratford and Shaw festivals.

///WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: a playful session that follows an improvised pathway through movement, sounding, speaking, breathwork, games, storytelling and journaling. It is a warm invitation to be playful and to find deep joy and pleasure in the surrender of the body to itself and to our imagination; encouraging the energy of spontaneity by trusting the intuitive flow, tickling the senses and having fun both on a collective and individual level.

Rodney Diverlus (They/Them) is a Haitian-Canadian multi-hyphenate art-maker whose practice straddles modalities: dance, theatre, film, multidisciplinary performance, and public arts-based political interventions. A vagabond, their work presents, at times, flaunts emergent representations of blackness, queerness, and diasporic life and freedom.

Described by the Toronto Star as "one of Toronto's fastest rising dance talents," Rodney has presented original works for Toronto Dance Theatre, Art Gallery of Ontario, SummerWorks Festival, Irie Music Festival, Toronto Metropolitan University, Tapestry Opera, Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, Tableau d’Hôte Theatre (Montreal), Annual Alberta Dance Festival. They danced with Decidedly Jazz Danceworks  (Calgary) during their 2014-2018 seasons and has performed for Peter Hinton/Denise Clarke [Canadian Opera Company], Natasha Powell [Holla Jazz], Noémi LaFrance (Montreal), Darryl Hoskins [Dietrich Group],  Canadian Stage, Stratford Festival, to name a few. They are the recipient of the 2019 Canadian Stage Award for Direction and 2020 Montreal English Theatre Awards Best Choreography Nominee.

Beyond their artistic practice, they moonlight as a community activator and writer. They are a co-founder of Black Lives Matter—Canada and the Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism, whereby they co-curated a series of large-scale public installations that blur the lines of protest and performance, most notably Muffins (2020), Pineapple (2020), Wont Back Down (2017), #BlackPride (2016)

///WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: Afrikanic Approaches to Movement: Rhythm, Community, Agency

Part movement, part personal reflection, we will examine african approaches to dance beyond the esthetic; musicality and personal groove, shared rhythm, and bodily autonomy as sites of exploration.

Keith Morino was born in Toronto, Canada. He joined Canada’s National Ballet School at the age of 10 years and graduated the professional dance programme in 1987. He began his professional dance career with the Nederlands Dans Theatre II in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1988 until 1991. From 1991 until 1998 he worked in Barcelona, Spain with Catalan choreographer Ramon Oller in his contemporary dance company ‘Metros’. 

From 1998 until 2001 Keith combined freelance performing with choreography for dance, theatre and opera, and teaching in different European companies and conservatories. 

In 2001 he joined the staff at the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona, beginning as rehearsal assistant for the young pre-professional dance company ‘IT Dansa’ before joining the faculty of the Professional Dance Conservatory “Escola d’Ensenyament Secundari i Artístic, Conservatori Professional de Dansa”, (EESA/CPD) as a contemporary dance teacher. From 2009 – 2018 he was the Artistic and Academic Director of this Conservatory.

In September of 2018, Keith joined the teacher training program in the movement language method of Gaga, in Tel Aviv, Israel. He became a certified Gaga teacher in June of 2020. 

He is currently part of the contemporary dance faculty of the EESA/CPD in Barcelona, and the artistic faculty of Canada’s National Ballet School in Toronto.

///WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: Gaga/dancers deepens dancers’ awareness of physical sensations, expands their palette of available movement options, enhances their ability to modulate their energy and engage their explosive power, and enriches their movement quality with a wide range of textures. The classes are built on the same principles as Gaga/people classes but also employ the specific vocabulary and skills that are part and parcel of a dancer’s knowledge. The layering of familiar skills with Gaga tasks presents dancers with fresh challenges, and throughout the class, teachers prompt the dancers to visit more unfamiliar places and ways of moving as well, unlocking the endlessness of possibilities. Dancers are guided to connect their effort to pleasure and to discover the virtue of silliness.

Following the Gaga session dancers will learn some of Keith’s own Choreographic Repertoire.

Emily Spearing (she/her/they) was born and raised in London Ontario. They graduated from the School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s professional training program in 2016 and has worked as an independent artist since with various companies, independent choreographers and collectives. Emily has been apart of Nostos Collectives for many years being one of the creative leads inside the group. They have trained in various prestigious intensive programs such as Springboard Danse Montreal and B12 Berlin Workshop Festival.

She then went on to attend the post-graduate International Choreographic Exchange Program at Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD) in Austria. After completing the program they were invited for a year long Artistic Residency at SEAD where they were able to continue developing their choreographic practice. Emily has been able to present her own professional choreographic works at New Faces New Dances Festival (Austria), Dance Ontario’s Dance Weekend, Dance Works Co-Works, Edmonton’s NextFest, New Blue Dance Festival and London Fringe Festival as well as several self-produced performances through Nostos Dance Collectives. 

///WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: Experimental Creation

My interests as a creative lie in making art that speaks to the human experience; arousing emotions and offering an audience a sense of reflection. Pulling inspiration from personal experiences and offering insight of who we are, where we are and how we are affected by the world around us. I aspire to push boundaries, research curiosities and connect with others through movement, performance, words and emotions. I put as much value on performance as I do on movement, always considering my relationship with an audience. I am interested in the blend of theatre and performance with dance, bringing in the use of text, theatrics and often humour. I feel it’s a necessity for me to make art because I have so much I need to say and share and without it the world is a smaller place.

In this workshop we will take a look inside what my creative practice looks like. We will do exercises in automatic writing and text generation, movement and theatrical based improvised tasks, and movement invention and crafting. We will write, play, laugh a lot, make fools of ourselves, share thoughts, opinions and ideas and most of all dance.