Ruth Douthwright was raised in London dancing with her mother, at Swan Studio and Beal Dance. In 2002 Ruth joined Ardent Body Communications Dance Collective based in Marseille, France and in 2005 started creating and performing with L'Inattendue Compagnie in Bruxelles, Belgium.
Ruth co-founded the all dance project, performing and teaching dance in diverse venues in the UK, France, Belgium and Canada. Her choreographic projects have been presented in various venues: Aichi Bunka Kaikan & Kyoto Arts Center (Japan), The Canada House (London UK), Meeting Point (Bruxelles), Los Talleres (Mexico City), Aeolin Hall (London, ON). Ruth graduated from Les Ateliers de Danse Moderne de Montreal and is a certified teacher of the Axis Syllabus. She is presently teaching in London at the Practice Loft. www.ruthdouthwright.webs.com
Heather Hargraves began her informal dance experience in 1997 after discovering rave culture. Mystified by the ecstatic movements of those on the dance floor, Heather started moving her body and her passion for movement hasn’t stopped since. Over the next few years she spent a brief time in some break dancing circles, but has always tended to move to her own beat on the dance floor. She also enjoys spinning poi, hula hooping, knitting, weaving, spinning and dying yarn, felting and sewing. Heather is a yoga instructor and has recently launched her new studio, Practice Loft, in London Ontario. www.practiceloft.ca
Simone Moir is a Gestalt psychotherapist and yoga teacher. In her video, performance and installation works she has explored individual and collective means of negotiating identity and the tension between commodity, sexuality, freedom and space. Her public performance interventions include VideoStoreMakeout, Freeplay and Unison Union. Her most recent installation The Parlour of Twilight was created with Corwyn Lund for the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. She has toured internationally as a member of PME Art in the production of Unrehearsed Beauty / Le Génie des Autres, an experimental theatre show that proposed to turn the theatre into a public forum for the expression of political and personal ideas.
Mariana Munoz is from Bogota Colombia, where she has been studying, teaching and performing over the last several years. She took her first dance classes five years ago and was so amazed with the expression and poetry in movement that she decided to fully dedicate herself to dance. In Bogota she studied at CENDA, investigating Butoh and learning contemporary movement, and at ZAAR, with Monica Gracia, where she learned Belly Dance. Mariana came to London, Ontario with her family five months ago. While in London, she has been practicing yoga at the Lotus Centre and taking Pilates with Sally Morgan and Axis Syllabus with Ruth Douthwright. Mariana’s experience at The Lotus Centre has ignited interest in furthering her studies in body awareness, expression in movement, dance theatre and performance
After earning her Honors BFA in Film/Video/Performance and Sculpture from California College of the Arts (San Francisco/Oakland, CA), Eroca Nicols accepted a scholarship from Ballet Creole's Professional Training Program in Toronto. After studying at Ballet Creole, she trained at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. Eroca founded Lady Janitor Productions in the fall of 2008. She is currently a Toronto-based choreographer, dance filmmaker, dancer, and producer.
Since arriving in Canada from California in 2004, her work has appeared at: Nuit Blanche; The Cube (Bristol, UK); Dance in My Backyard (DIMBY); Dance Matters; Fresh Blood and Toronto's International Dance Day. In August 2009, her BravoFACT – Ah! Mes Synchronettes! (co-created with Toronto filmmaker Andrew Munger) – aired on the BRAVO channel. Eroca has recently danced in works by Pam Johnson, Kaeja d'Dance and Timea Wharton. In addition to being thrilled to producing DIMBY 2010, Eroca is very much looking forward to presenting Ah! Mes Synchronettes!, the live version, at the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival this June. Eroca is the 2010 recipient of Dance Ontario's Dance Innovation Award.
Dorit Osher is a dancer and psychotherapist in London, Ontario. Dorit has had a career as a professional contemporary dancer with Jazzart (South Africa), Batsheva Dance Company (Israel), Ballet Rambert (London, U.K) and then worked as an independent dancer with choreographers in Amsterdam, Paris, Toronto, Johannesburg, and Vancouver. Dorit received a BF.A in dance from York University with a specialization in dance therapy and dance ethnography. During that year she danced for a Trinidadian Dance Troupe, Canboulay Dance Theatre and developed an interest in Authentic Movement and the expressive arts therapies. Dorit has done graduate work in Theory and Criticism with a focus on trauma and the metaphors of the body in recovery and she has her Masters of Clinical Social Work. Dorit continues to study and integrate dance, mindfulness and somatic oriented psychology in her work as a psychotherapist where she specializes in addictions and eating disorders.
