Creative Team
Carol Anderson
Carol Anderson has enjoyed a long and diverse career as a dance artist – her performance, creation, teaching and writing activities span fifty years. She started her performing career in 1970 with Canadian pioneer Judy Jarvis’ first dance-theatre company. One of the founding members of Toronto’s Dancemakers, she danced, choreographed and took on directoral roles with the company from 1974-89. Carol has taught and choreographed in professional, educational and community settings throughout Canada. She holds a BFA and MA from York University, and was an Associate Professor in the Department of Dance from 2002-2016. An avid writer, she has chronicled Canadian dance and dancers since the late 1980s in biographies, articles, notes and online resources, and on other cultural matters, has published an historic cookbook and two volumes of poetry. Carol is a certified Pilates matwork and GYROKINESIS® instructor, with a special interest in animating older movers. Current creative pursuits include dance installations for galleries and gardens, such as “Dance in the Garden” events at PEC’s Oeno Sculpture Garden in 2017 and 2018. An award-winning choreographer, Carol has created dance for concert stage, non-traditional venues, theatre and film, and in 2013 was honoured to be a recipient of the Queen’s Jubilee Medal. She has summered in Prince Edward County since 1995.
Kristen Foote
Originally from Toronto, Canada, NYC-based dancer, performer, teacher, Limón reconstructor, and coach, Kristen Foote joined the Limón Dance Company in 2000 - where she was a principal dancer until 2017 - and Dance Heginbotham in 2011. Hailed by the New York Times as “marvelously versatile” and "especially captivating”, Foote has been recognized as Dance Magazine’s “Featured Artist” and one of the “Most Amazing Performers”. In 2015, Foote’s solo project, “The History of Her” had its international premiere in Paris, France and US premiere at Jacob’s Pillow, while also featuring solos at the Chicago Dancing Festival, American Dance Festival, NYC’s Joyce Theater and Lincoln Center. Foote was a Radio City Rockette, performed with Mark Morris Dance Group, and was a guest artist with Solange Knowles’ “An Ode To” performance at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She has featured in numerous music videos/films including Rashaun & Silas’s “Tesseract” (directed by Charles Atlas). Awarded a NYU Tisch School of the Arts Dean’s Fellowship, Foote received her Master of Fine Arts in 2019. She has presented her graduate research on Reconstruction & Masterwork Preservation at NYU, the NYC German Consulate, and at the 2019 Corpo Nel Suono Conference in Rome, Italy. Foote is a recipient of grants from Tisch’s Initiative for Creative Research Graduate & Graduate Student Organization Funds, the Bay & Paul Foundations and Enoch Foundation. She is currently teaching Limón technique full-time at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts.
Arwyn Carpenter
Arwyn Carpenter (they/them, settler) is a queer trans dancer, choreographer and educator from Tkaronto (Treaty 13 territory) who grew up on the shores of Lake Ontario on Salmon Point, Prince Edward County. Throughout their career, Arwyn has served as faculty at Canada’s National Ballet School, York University and 25 years at CCDT, formerly the Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre. They hold an MFA in performance and choreography from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and a BEd from U of T’s OISE. Their inquiry as a choreographer has explored Truth and Reconciliation, climate justice, artist Emily Carr, anti-racism and incarceration. A well-loved educator, Arwyn spent 10 years teaching in the Toronto District School Board. Their tenure and accolades have been highlighted through OISE’s Excellence in Elementary/Intermediate Education Award (2010) and the Elementary Teachers’ of Toronto’s Arts Teacher of the Year Award (2017). Organizing their time between the city and Prince Edward County, Arwyn is an active member of the PEC Arts Council and a community dance artist with the Department of Illumination where they develop projects including Safety Dance and online Rainbow Dance Parties welcoming BIPOC, 2SLGBTQ+ and all bodies. Arwyn’s current artistic venture investigates land “ownership” and the landscapes and shorelines of the County through an Indigenous-informed worldview.
Sophie Dow
Winnipeg-born Sophie Dow is a multidisciplinary artist inspired by dance, music, collaboration and her Métis-Assiniboine and settler roots. An avid adventurer, Sophie has a passion for busking, yoga and traveling on top of holding a degree in Dance Performance and Choreography from York University.
In 2018 and 2019, Sophie toured across Turtle Island, highlights of that journey including choreographing and performing in opening ceremonies of BC’s Shambhala Music Festival, filming with Vero Films and teaching dance in many rural and urban school contexts throughout the mountains and prairies. Sophie has had the great fortune of working with some of Canada’s wonderful dance innovators, including Chimera Dance Theatre and Kaeja d'Dance, and her unique reservoir of experience deeply impacts her personal creative process. As a creator, Sophie is consistently nurturing and evolving an inventive voice. Life-changing opportunities to choreograph with diverse ranges of movers continue exploding boundaries of Sophie’s ongoing compositions and curiosities. Presenters of her ideas to date include: Paprika Festival, Workman Arts, WindDown Dances, NightShift (Citadel & Compagnie), Buddies in Badtimes Theatre, Festival of Recorded Movement (FORM) and many festivals, stages and outdoor sites. Sophie is currently Artistic Associate of Chimera Dance Theatre, writes music with The Honeycomb Flyers, and is a licensed practitioner of traditional Thai Massage.
Jordana Deveau
Independent dance artist, gardener & seed saver Jordana Deveau (she/her) is a first generation settler based out of Tkaronto, Canada who works as an interpreter, producer, educator, administrator, rehearsal director and project coordinator. She is Co-Artistic Director of JDdance, a multifaceted dance theatre collective that she co-founded with Jesse Dell in 2009. Jordana is the co-author with Donna Krasnow, Ph.D., of ”C-I Training: Conditioning with Imagery for Dancers”. She has trained in Toronto, Guelph, Vancouver, New York and Vienna, and performed in the U.S., Europe and across Canada interpreting works by notable choreographers including Carol Anderson, Julia Aplin, Peggy Baker, Sidra Bell, David Earle, Sylvain Émard, Kate Franklin, Margie Gillis, Louis Laberge-Côté, Andrea Nann, Roger Sinha, Holly Small, Santee Smith, and Gerry Trentham.