Nia Faith Betty is an activist, entrepreneur, and fashion designer. The Howard University senior initially founded Révolutionnaire with a mission to democratize and revolutionize skin-toned apparel and accessories. At 12, Nia was accepted to train in various dance programs across North America including the American Ballet Theatre, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, and the Joffrey Ballet. Later that year, she moved to Los Angeles to spend her summer training with the Joffrey Ballet School. Two years later, Nia accepted an offer to continue her training full-time with Joffrey in New York City. After training in this pre-professional environment, Nia decided to attend Howard University and is now continuing to foster her love for dance through Howard's BFA program while leveraging her academic education and experiences as a young activist to build Révolutionnaire. Inspired by their love for outreach and activism, Nia and her sister, Justice Faith Betty have evolved Révolutionnaire into a broader movement to empower young people to use their dreams to fuel revolutions through a social network for changemakers. She has been featured in Forbes, Essence, WWD, Black Enterprise, Dance Magazine, and more. Nia and Justice have also been recognized as women of the year for Bay Street Bull, and among the top 25 most influential women in Canada.

Justice Faith Betty is the co-founder of Révolutionnaire. Justice was inspired by her sister Nia's journey and the question of what it would look like if more young people with a dream of making the world a better place had access to the tools, networks, and information necessary to scale their impact. Justice is an alumna of the Dual BA Program Between Columbia University and Sciences Po Paris. She graduated from Columbia as valedictorian with degrees in political science and law. Justice is also the Co-Chair of the City of Toronto Anti-Black Racism Advisory Committee, and the co-founder of Building Blocks (a social entrepreneurship workshop that has taught 300+ students across four continents). Previously she was a management consultant at McKinsey and Company, a youth delegate to the United Nations, and an intern for Arianna Huffington. With a longstanding commitment to service, she is a champion for underrepresented voices in the political sphere and is particularly passionate about issues related to the racial wealth gap, access to education, and youth empowerment. She has been featured in Forbes, Essence Girls United, WWD, Black Enterprise, REVOLT, Fashion Magazine, Toronto Star, Top 25 Women of Influence, and more.

Kennedy Kreutzwieser (She/Her) is the Intercultural & Anti-Racism Education Coordinator at the Saskatchewan Intercultural Association and is an enthusiastic practitioner in working to build more equitable and inclusive communities. Kennedy holds a bachelor’s degree in Human Justice with a minor focus in Anthropology, these disciplines have allowed for the continual study of social justice issues across diverse cultures. Kennedy has a passion for lifelong learning and connecting with others in the practice of reconciliation and anti-racism. Along with her team at SIA, Kennedy strives to create a non-judgmental space where true growth in these areas can take place.

Tamica Small (She/Her) originates from Jamaica. She has a bachelor’s degree in Teacher Education and has taught for over ten years at the elementary level. A teacher by profession and nature, Tamica believers every child has the capacity to learn, given equal opportunity to maximize their abilities. Tamica also holds a master’s degree in Educational Foundations from the University of Saskatchewan which focused on Inquiry-Based Learning as the Vehicle for promoting Education for Sustainable Development. Tamica has worked with newcomers to garner the knowledge and employability skills to equip them to integrate successfully into the Canadian workplace and culture. As the Equity and Inclusion Coordinator at SIA, Tamica works to cultivate collaborative discussion on equity, inclusion, diversity and reconciliation which are integral for all to live in a society that engenders respect, dignity and a sense of belonging for all.

KSAMB Dance Company

Founded in 2009, we are a collaboration of co-directors Kyle Syverson and Miki Mappin. Our work is site-specific and frequently performed outdoors for diverse audiences and events. We perform ensemble improvisation, and some of our extreme performances border on 'dance survival'. Generated from our practice of Contact Improvisation, we ground our work in attention to sensation, inspired by our close relationship with the environment.

Our classes and training include contact improvisation, ballet, modern, and somatic practices. Sometimes the work is emotionally or physically risky; we endeavour to create safer, braver spaces for learning and performing using consent-based approaches.

We offer training and dance events to people with both dance and non-dance backgrounds, of all ages and abilities. We practice for a joyful, sustainable life. Our vision is that dance will engage the senses and the imagination and free us from disconnect and complacency — creating a more present, loving and resilient society. To dance is a radical act. We value authenticity and sustainability. We work to build connections in community with accessibility and inclusivity. To conceive of a future after capitalism is to have hope. For KSAMB, dance is both a question, and an answer.

Tim Poitras (62 years old) is a member of Muscowpetung First Nation and currently resides on reserve. Tim is Lakota/Dakota and enriched with ceremonial customs and traditions, and a widower of his late wife for 35 beautiful years together. They have two sons, ten grandchildren, and three great grandchildren together. Tim lives a sober lifestyle and is a 4th generation residential school survivor (10 years in the institution). Tim is a retired Sundance Chief. He has taken the time to learn and earn the Seven Sacred Rites of the Lakota Oyate as a Lakota/Dakota man. Tim has successfully completed his Diploma in Business Administration at SIIT in Regina, SK. Tim practices his traditional lifestyle and provides ceremonial guidance of his enriched Lakota culture. He continues his teachings through community engagement by facilitating traditional life skills. Tim has traveled across the nation and south of the medicine line to share his ancestral knowledge. He is a funny and honest man who uses his life story and life experience through his teachings.

In Saskatchewan, Adams served as Executive Director of Sage Hill Writing Experience from 2010 to 2015 before becoming Programme Consultant at SK Arts. Currently he is responsible for the Independent Artist Dance, Theatre, and Multidisciplinary streams as well as the professional theatre companies in the province.

Adams used to a theatre rat unwilling to leave the ship. Now it is more like being a theatre dog, skulking around the edges of theatre snapping up the scraps of the good work being produced. He has been a part of the province's theatre community, directing and dramaturging productions in Saskatoon, Moose Jaw, Regina, and throughout the southern communities along the Red Coat Trail. He has worked from coast to coast to coast and as the Artistic Director of two theatre companies. He has served as a dramaturge two scripts that were nominated for a Governor-General's Award, and one that won the GG.

Artistic Director of KasheDance and Program Manager at Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO), where he delivers, presents as well as curates EDI programming for artists and organizations clients include the National Ballet of Canada, Canada’s National Ballet School and Luminato Festival. Finalist for the Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize2021, he is a recipient of Canada Council for the Arts’ Victor Martyn Lynch – Staunton Award, an Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Fellowship, and Toronto Arts Council Cultural Leaders Fellow.

Kevin A. Ormsby has performed in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean. He has been featured in works by Marie-Josée Chartier, Allison Cummings, Patrick Parson, Ronald Taylor, Ron K. Brown, Menaka Thakkar, Mark Morris, Bill T. Jones, Garth Fagan, Liz Lerman, Bageshree Vaze, and Lemi Ponifasio, among others.

Faculty member of Centennial College’s Dance Performance Program he has been a Guest Artist at Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts - University of the West Indies (Mona), University of Wisconsin – Madison, Northwestern University, and the University of Texas - Austin. His research and creative practice exists in constant interrogation and navigation of Caribbean cultural nuances towards a methodology of understanding space in creation, research, and presentation.

He’s on the Boards of Dance Collection Danse, Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts, and previously Canadian Dance Assembly, Prologue to the Performing Arts, and Nia Centre for the Arts, where he was Chair of Canada’s first professional multi-disciplinary centre for African-Canadian art.

Dana Lance (She/Her/Elle) is a Filipinx/Japanese dancer who resides on Treaty 1 territory, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. For 10 years, she has been training in Hip hop amongst other styles of dance such as house, break dancing, vogue, and freestyle. Dana brings her passion of dance through mental health and has worked amongst the community, specifically working with youth for the last 9 years.

Being on teams such as Kellavoration (Kelvin Highschool), 393 dance troupe (Studio 393), and illicit dance crew has given her many opportunities to perform. Her love of hip hop has led to participating in several battles such as Can you dig it? (Maribeth Tabanera), Floorigins (Gago Brothers), and King of the Hill - All styles (Muse dance studio).

Through mentorships such as Wall to Wall she has gained experience in opening up shows for artists such as Kimmortaltheartist, Cellse7en, Bonjay, Cartel madras and headlining for the Nuit Blanche x Wall to Wall finale from 2017 to 2019. Dana has found a love for teaching and can be found at the dance school with the CCFM (Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain) as the Hip hop instructor there.

Robin Poitras, C.M. is one of Saskatchewan’s most prolific dance and performance creators. Creating dance, performance and installation works, she has been actively engaged in contemporary dance practice since the early 80s. For many years Robin has traversed the formal worlds of dance and performance art. She co-founded New Dance Horizons in 1986, with Dianne Fraser where she continues to act as Artistic Director. With an interest in research into diverse fields of artistic and somatic practice she has developed a unique interdisciplinary approach. Robin’s works have been presented across Canada, in Spain, France, Germany, Mongolia and Mexico. She is a 2019 recipient of the Order of Canada, 2016 Lieutenant Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2006 Mayor’s Awards for Business & The Arts’ Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2004 Women of Distinction Award for the Arts.

My practice is rooted in a physical world comprised of choreography, dancing and actions/acts. My performance works often involve the use of found or formed objects, texts, images, sound and/or other media. I am curious about relationships and resonance among the worlds of art, science and nature and in exploring how these worlds feed back and forth in mythical, mysterious, elusive and sometimes obvious ways.

Edward Poitras is a member of the George Gordon First Nation and resident of Treaty Four Territory. He is an artist who has always recognized his mixed heritage – Métis/Cree/Saulteaux – as a powerful source of energy, creativity and contradiction. Poitras was born in 1953 in Regina. In 1974 he studied with Sarain Stump at the Indian Art Program at the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan where he was introduced to diverse artistic and philosophical approaches that continue to inform his art practice. In 1975–76, Poitras attended Manitou College in La Macaza, Quebec, where Mexican Aboriginal artist Domingo Cisneros imparted an experimental approach to materials and introduced Poitras to the Quebecois performance art scene. Following this time in Quebec, Poitras taught at the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College and at the University of Manitoba. During much of the 1980s, he taught at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, University of Regina (now First Nations University of Canada). Poitras worked as a graphic designer for New Breed Magazine in the 1980s. Poitras has since remained connected to his community, exhibiting with and mentoring emerging artists through his involvement with groups including Tribe Inc. (Saskatoon), Sâkêwêwak Artists’ Collective (Regina), and New Dance Horizons (Regina).

Since the early 1980s Poitras’ “artistic benchmark [has been] his masterful ability to combine seemingly contradictory materials”[1] such as fiberglass, circuit boards and magnetic tape with bone, horse hair and rawhide. His work examines complex issues of history and identity, and their connection(s) with place. As critic Nancy Tousley observes, his “family and regional history are [often] interwoven with references to the story of Aboriginal people in the Americas.”[2] Themes of colonization, assimilation, integration, genocide, displacement, migration, survival, nationalism and transnationalism permeate his work as he explores tensions, contradictions, narratives and interactions.

Poitras has exhibited extensively across Canada, as well as in the United States and Europe. His selection as the first Aboriginal artist to represent Canada at the prestigious Venice Biennale marks a recognition of his distinctive contribution to the questions of “Identity and Alterity,” the theme of the 1995 Biennale. His other solo exhibitions include: Qu’Appelle: Tales of Two Valleys, Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon (2002); RESIG/NATION, Galerie Le lieu, Quebec City (2000); The Politics of Land, an earthwork at Wanuskewin Heritage Park, Saskatoon (1998); Jaw Rez, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau and MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (1996); Marginal Recession, Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina (1991); Et in America Ego, Art Speak, Vancouver (1989); and Indian Territory, Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon (1988). Among group exhibitions, nearly every major contemporary Native art exhibit since 1980 has featured his work, notably: New Work by a New Generation, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (1982); INDIGENA, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau (1992); and Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years, Plug In ICA, Winnipeg (2011). Internationally, his work has been shown in Santa Fe, Paris, Munster, Havana, New York and Tampere, Finland. His work may be found in the collections of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, MacKenzie Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, and National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC), among others.

Throughout his career, Poitras has been instrumental in organizing, producing, and participating in performance art, dance, and theatre works. He has created a number of sets, costumes and light designs in collaboration with various artists, including: Floyd Favel Star, Richard Martel, Benoit Lachambre, Jocelyn Montpetit, Bill Coleman, Boye Ladd, Bruce LaBruce, and Robin Poitras. Edward Poitras is a recipient of the Governor General’s Award in Visual Arts (2002), the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan Arts Award for Innovation (2005), and a Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art (2009).

In November 2020, Edward joined Robin Poitras C.M. as the Co-Artistic Director of New Dance Horizons.

Alèn Martel is a dancer, scholar, university educator, and performing arts centre (PAC) professional working in Moh-kíns-tsis / Wincheesh-pah / Kootsisáw, Treaty 7 Territory (Calgary, AB). His current and immediate research includes methodologies in creative process, including play, improvisation, and movement analysis as creative contributor; pedagogy in dance history and ethnochoreology, including foundational principles for looking at dance equitably and to root research and analysis in the reality of the practices themselves; and, dance and technology, specifically asynchronous and accessible technology for use in dance creation. He has his Bachelor of Arts in Dance from the University of Calgary in Canada (2012) and his Master of Arts in Ethnochoreology from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick in Ireland (2014).