Laura Elliott
A graduate of the Professional Program with the School of Contemporary Dancers in Winnipeg, Laura performed professionally across Western Canada until she shifted her focus to dance education and advocacy in 2010. In addition to her B.A., she received her Certificate of Ballet Teaching Studies through the Royal Academy of Dance in 2012, and plans to pursue her Masters in Dance Education in the near future. She has been an active professional choreographer for almost a decade, producing works on both students and professionals across Manitoba. She also successfully produced her first dance film, “White Noise”, in 2016 as a part of the Winnipeg Screendance Intensive (Constance Cooke, Pamela Jean Millar, and Kayla Jeanson facilitators).
Laura is an active advocate for the advancement and growth of the Manitoba dance community. She sat on the development committee and held the role of Principle Instructor at The Dance College of Manitoba (2015). In addition to being a regular and guest instructor at various studios in Winnipeg and rural Manitoba, Laura currently sits on the Board of Directors for Dance Manitoba and is the director of the Fat Babes Dance Collective, a project aimed at celebrating body diversity and encouraging fat visibility in dance.
Jeremy Fokkens Photography
Corinne Vessey
Corinne Vessey is a dance professional who has been training for over twenty years in Jazz, Ballet, Pointe, Tap, Modern, Character, Contemporary, Hip Hop, Funk Styles (including Locking and Popping), House, West African and Musical Theatre. She has studied at world renowned facilities including the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Shelley Shearer School of Dance, Harbour Dance Centre, The Source Dance Company, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, and University of Calgary where she received her Bachelor of Arts (English, Dance minor) and a Bachelor of Education. Corinne continues to perform professionally and has appeared in "Acquiescence" in Soulocentric Festival, 49th Parallel Dance Company's "Watering Hole," Michele Moss' "Where in the World," The Toy Castle television series, The Source Dance Company's "Stranded," Royal Winnipeg Ballet School's "Peter Pan," and the Juno Awards, to name a few.
Corinne's choreography has won numerous awards, and has appeared in the Soulocentric Festival, multiple Mpact Dance Company productions, Ignite! Festival, Alberta Culture Days, and at the Grande Opening of the Taylor Centre for the Performing Arts, as well as many other venues. Currently, Corinne teaches dance and theatre arts in the Performing and Visual Arts Program at Central Memorial High School, and at the school of Decidedly Jazz. Corinne also is the Artistic Director and founder of Ember Dance Company, a semi-professional contemporary dance company based out of Calgary that has been producing its own feature shows and dance films since its inception in 2012.
CAI GLOVER
In an ever-going discovery and study of dance, Cai Glover has been training, performing and creating in the art form for over 25 years. From 2012 to 2022 Cai was working as a dance interpreter and choreographer for Cas Public and has been a part of 8 creations for the
company. Most recently Cai has been developing his own expression in poetry and in a language of movement putting the dancing body to task in a search of an embodied expression of poetics through the transposition of language into movement under the name of his company, A Fichu Turning.
Cai has had the great privilege, over the course of his career, of working with creators Helene Blackburn, John McFall, Simone Orlando, Lauri Stallings, Edgar
Zendejas, Mathieu Murphy-Perron and many others. He never tires of the search in finding ways to affect audiences through this art form and to appeal to the varied and countless emotional experiences of the human being. As a hard of hearing artist, hearing differently has become a driving force of his artistry and originality as a mover, interpreter and choreographer.