The program offers professional guidance and gives valuable learning opportunities to Canadian dance artists who create works in a variety of genres and forms. Throughout their stay, the visiting artists will build meaningful connections and have access to rich sources of inspiration to guide them in their artistic practices and creation.
The program enables artists to take part in various activities including attending an array of performances, engaging in conversations with other visiting artists to share knowledge and expertise, and meeting with professionals from different departments within the National Arts Centre.
The goal of the Visiting Dance Artist program is to advance Canadian artistic practices by encouraging artists to investigate creative processes and take risks that lead to the development of unique works destined to connect with the public.
2021-22 Artists
NAC Dance, with the ongoing support of the Canada Council for the Arts, has appointed two Indigenous performers to the 2021-22 Visiting Dance Artists Program.
Learn more about Brian Solomon and Josée Bourgeois, and the work they are developing during their residency with NAC Dance.
2020-21 Artists
Learn more about Jean Abreu and Naishi Wang’s international collaboration, Deciphers
Visiting Dance Artists
Brian Solomon
Brian Solomon is of Anishinaabe and Irish heritage, born in the remote community of Shebahonaning, located in the Manitoulin district of Northern Ontario. His ancestors have been on this land for a very long time, and this heritage greatly informs his artistic work. Brian followed first in the tradition of visual art in the region working as a portrait artist in his teenage years in Sudbury. It was there he discovered theatre, traditional and contemporary dance, moving then to Toronto... read more
Josée Bourgeois
Born in Ottawa, Josée Bourgeois is an Algonquin First Nations from Pikwakanagan, ON. She is an accomplished dancer, actor and model, who began her training as a gymnast and contemporary dancer. At the age of 16, she was signed to the Ford International modelling agency and began a lengthy journey as one of Canada’s only First Nations high fashion models. It was during her teenage years that she learned about her father’s Algonquin heritage. Her father was a Sixties Scoop... read more
Jean Abreu
Born in Brazil, Jean Abreu moved to London in 1996 after receiving a scholarship to study at Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance. In 2003, he was awarded the Jerwood Choreography Award for the creation of his first choreography, Hibrido. Since then, his work has toured throughout the U.K., Europe, Brazil and China including performances for Dance Umbrella, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Royal Opera House and Southbank Centre in London. Creative & digital technology has consistently... read more
Naishi Wang
Born in Changchun, China, Naishi Wang began his training at Jilin College of Art before moving to Canada in 2004 to attend The School of TDT. He was a company member of Toronto Dance Theatre for nine years, and in 2015 embarked on an independent career. As an award-winning performer and independent choreographer, Naishi’s development aligns with his belief that the performing arts offer an imaginary perspective, and is interested in pushing the art form in the 21st century. He has... read more
Justine A. Chambers
Dance artist living and working on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Her movement based practice considers how choreography can be an empathic practice rooted in collaborative creation, close observation, and the body as a site of a cumulative embodied archive. Privileging what is felt over what is seen, she works with dances ‘that are already there’–the social choreographies present in the everyday. Her choreographic... read more
Laurie Young
Berlin based Canadian choreographer and dancer whose work focuses on the embodiment of unauthorized histories and their representation. Her work brings into focus how relationships are choreographed between human and other than human beings in the theater, museum and city. Along with her own choreographies, Laurie has been busy with interdisciplinary projects between arts and science and is a triple fellow of Volkswagen Foundations Arts and Science and Motion. Her work has been presented at the... read more
Dana Michel
Dana Michel (b. Ottawa, Canada) is a choreographer and live artist based in Montreal. In 2006, she graduated from the BFA program in Contemporary Dance at Concordia University in her late twenties. Prior to this, she was a marketing executive, competitive runner and football player. She is a 2011 danceWEB scholar (Vienna, Austria) and is currently an artist-in-residence at Usine C (Montreal, Canada) and a Visiting Dance Artist at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Her first extended-length... read more