Daina Ashbee, Justine A. Chambers, and Vanessa Goodman have just been selected to participate in the Yulanda M. Faris Choreographers Program. 

The program is a Dance Centre initiative designed to mentor and support choreographers who are ready to make a significant leap forward in their work, providing artists with the tools and opportunities to reach a national and international context, through exchanges, networking, mentoring, and professional skills development. It runs from July 2017 to September 2018.

The program will combine visits to partner organizations in Montreal, Ottawa, Italy, and the Netherlands, with mentorship, workshops, and consultations in areas like rehearsal direction and working with technical staff. It also includes studio space for the development of creative projects.  

Nanaimo-born, Montreal-based Daina Ashbee is known for radical performance works that tackle such subjects as female sexuality, Métis identity, and climate change. She is the artist-in-residence at Agora de la danse in Montreal until 2020, with plans to present her work at the Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis, the Dance Biennale in Munich and Tanzdage an International Dance Festival in Potsdam, at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, at the Festival TransAmériques in Montreal, and at The Venice Biennale, as well as elsewhere. Daina has undertaken residencies and mentorships at Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique, at Montreal, arts interculturels, and at Studio 303 for the creation of Unrelated. She has danced for Raven Spirit Dance Society and has trained at Modus Operandi.

Justine A. Chambers is known for works that explore everyday social choreographies, as she did in Family Dinner and Family Dinner: The Lexicon. Justine’s work has been presented everywhere from Agora de la danse and Canada Dance Festival to Dancing on the Edge and Vancouver Art Gallery: FUSE. She is a founding member of project bk and is currently artist in residence and associate artist to The Dance Centre. She's collaborated on projects including COPY with digital video artist Josh Hite, Homemade Again with visual artist Evann Siebens and We’re Making a Band with musician Ben Brown. As a dancer, she has worked with troupes including battery opera, Company 605, Tara Cheyenne Performance, Oded Graf and Yossi Berg, Wen Wei Dance, and Mascall Dance. She also teaches contemporary dance technique at Arts Umbrella, Modus Operandi Training Program, Kidd Pivot, and Ballet BC, and she works as a rehearsal director with Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Tara Cheyenne Performance and Ballet BC.

Vanessa Goodman holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University and is the artistic director and choreographer of Vancouver-based dance company Action at a Distance. She was the recipient of the 2013 Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award from the Dance Centre. She spent 10 years as a company member of dancers dancing, under the artistic direction of Judith Garay, and cofounded The Contingency Plan collective. Independently she has danced for companies like plastic orchid factory, Wild Excursions Performance, Jennifer Clarke Projects, dumb instrument dance, Mascall Dance, Holly Small, and Judith Marcuse. Vanessa has been commissioned to create works for the Dancing on the Edge festival, the Gwaii Trust, Vancouver Biennale, Lamon Dance, Modus Operandi and the SFU Dance Program, with work presented by such events and facilities as the Canada Dance Festival, the Magnetic North Festival, the Dance Centre, Small Stage, the Firehall Arts Centre, the Modulus Festival, and the Chutzpah Festival. Action at a Distance's latest work, Wells Hill, is based on the work of Canadian luminaries Marshall McLuhan and Glenn Gould. The premiere will be presented by DanceHouse and SFU Woodward's in November 2017. 

The choreographers were selected by a panel of project partners including the Dance Centre, National Arts Centre, Dance Victoria, Netherlands' Apropic, and Montreal's Circuit-Est following an open call for submissions. In addition to these organizations, partners contributing to this program are B-Motion Festival (Italy), Canada Dance Festival (Ottawa), and Dansbrabant (Netherlands).