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The 2021 Summer Company

Projects
Caretakers
Stories in the Woods 2021
Bollywood Monster Mashup 2021

THE COMPANY

Mariana Sandoval-Angel
Assistant Costume Designer

Mariana was born in Colombia and grew up immersed in a very artistic and creative environment. She attended a music academy for 10 years, and here she started developing her passion for costumes. She studied Fashion Design at LCI Bogota, but her creative career really began designing costumes for her music peers. She came to Canada in 2019, pursuing that dream and looking for new opportunities. She is currently a Costume Production student at Fanshawe College. 

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Angela Xu
Production Assistant

Angela Xu (she/her) is a Toronto-based dance artist, actress, and performance technician. She graduated York University with a BFA Special Honours in Dance. In recent years she has collaborated with and performed in Fall for Dance North, Luminato Festival, New Blue Emerging Dance, Social Growl, and Toronto Fringe Festival. Her passions for stage management and lighting design have made their way into Ismailova Theatre of Dance’s Master and Margarita (2019) and York University’s Language of Landscape (2020), amongst others. Angela believes in dance as a form of healing. Her work can be found at angelaxu.com

Ankita Alemona

Ankita is an interdisciplinary artist rooted in Kalaripayattu (the oldest martial art form in the world, from Kerala, India), dance and theatre. She actively trains as a student of Hindustan Kalari Sangam, an internationally renowned Kalaripayattu institution.  She is also the founder of Nautanki Creations, a platform for sharing ideas through artistic forms of expression and for developing opportunities for cross-cultural engagement between artists working in Canada and India. Ankita is a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Theatre and Peace and Conflict studies program and Attakkalari Centre’s diploma program, India’s foremost contemporary dance institution. Her passion lies in the intermingling of classic with contemporary.

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Erin Eldershaw

Erin Eldershaw (she/her) is a multi-faceted performer, creator, producer, and educator, specializing in acting, stage combat, and movement. Erin graduated from George Brown College's Classical Theatre Conservatory program, and has since worked with a multitude of theatre companies across Ontario. She has been nominated for two awards as "Best Supporting Actor" with My Entertainment World, winning in 2017. On screen, Erin has had roles in television series such as Murdoch Mysteries, Reign, Baroness Von Sketch, Nurses, and has been in the television movies; Love at Look Lodge (Hallmark), and Once Upon a Christmas (Lifetime). Erin is certified with the Fight Directors of Canada as an Advanced Actor Combatant and is currently apprenticing to become a certified Fight Instructor under the mentorship of Casey Hudecki. As a dancer and mover, Erin has worked on many devised theatre projects with creators across the GTA and has danced with variantly styled companies including; Tsingory Dance (PanAm Opening Ceremonies), Army of Sass Toronto (multiple shows, incl. the lead in Snow White), and Frog in Hand (Off The Wall, Summer Company 2020, and Summer Company 2021). Erin thanks Frog in Hand for yet another incredible summer exploring movement, storytelling, and art in these difficult times. Thank you to the land that we are so fortunate to be performing on, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

Sierra Goldak

Sierra (she/her) is a freelance dance artist and educator residing in Toronto. She is a member of Lofty Goal Project, an arts collective based in the city, and has enjoyed the privilege of teaching students across the GTA. Previously she has performed with Canada’s Ballet Jörgen and The Parahumans, as well as in events at Nuit Blanche, Dance Ontario and 401 Richmond’s Art Hunt. Sierra discovered her love for art and movement while growing up in Saskatchewan, and has since followed that passion across Canada and internationally. She is delighted to continue this journey with the 2021 Summer Company.

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Annalise Grammacione

Annalise Grammacione (she/her) is an emerging dance artist from Toronto, Ontario, and will be entering her third year at Ryerson University’s Dance BFA program this September. Through her studies, Annalise continues to expand her knowledge and passion for all forms of movement and dance cinematography. Debuting two original dance films at the 2021 Ryerson Choreographic Film Festival titled “Arm’s Length” and “in this space i am…”, Annalise has also worked with many renowned artists including Gabby Kamino, Benjamin Kamino, Kenny Pearl, Robert Glumbek, Ryan Lee, Alyssa Martin, Hannah Keil, Aria Evans and Tomoe Yamasaki. Recent credits include Hannah Kiel’s “Together, Inside-Out” 2020 dance film and Aria Evans’s “Changes” 2020 dance film.

Stephanie Harkness

Stephanie Harkness (she/they) is a dance artist currently based between Mississauga and New York. Stephanie graduated from Etobicoke School of the Arts and trained with the Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre Company. Next spring, they will graduate from Purchase College with a BFA in dance performance and a BA in anthropology. Stephanie is also a recipient of the Adopt-A-Dancer scholarship from the Purchase College Conservatory of Dance. They’ve performed works by Alyssa Martin, Kevin Wynn, Roderick George, and Jose Limon. They are very excited to be working with the 2021 Frog In Hand summer company.

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Daniela Jezerinac

Daniela Jezerinac (she/her) was born in Mississauga (ON), where she began her dance training at a local studio. While continuing to pursue her artistic career at Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, she performed several works by Colin Connor, Carol Anderson and Robert Glumbek. In the fall of 2019, she completed her BFA in Dance at SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance, where she had the honor of performing pieces choreographed by Kevin Wynn, Alexandra Beller, and Hannah Garner. While completing her studies in school she joined Montreal based company RUBBERBAND in the fall of 2018.

Zoe Kwan

Zoe Kwan is an emerging dance artist and creator from Toronto, Ontario, and was most recently awarded the 2021 Orly Watkin Dance award at Ryerson University. Zoe has worked with renowned artists and has danced choreography by Robert Desrosiers, David Earle, Robert Glumbek, Roberto Campanella, Guillaume Côté, and Alysa Pires. In 2020, she created two original works for EnChoreo 2020 and was in “A Gathering": a dance film featured in Fall For Dance North’s 2020 program by Bobbi Jene Smith, Or Schaiber, and Shamel Pitts. She was also in Hanna Kiel's dance film "Together, Inside-Out” and Andrea Nann’s dance film “This is Where I Find Myself Today”. In 2021, she debuted two original dance films at the Ryerson Choreographic Film Festival. Her most recent work “I Woke Up” has been selected to be featured in Bloom Festival 2021 and in the fifth edition of Artists for Peace.

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Maria Riano

Maria is a dance artist based in Toronto, beginning her training in Colombia, before moving to Canada in 2008. Maria has worked with Justine A. Chambers performing digitally for the Vancouver Art Gallery in the beginning of 2021. She has also worked with Dylan Crossman remounting Changing Steps by Merce Cunningham in partnership with Fall for Dance performed at the AGO. Maria is a 2021 graduate of Ryerson University’s School of Performance Dance Program. In 2019, Maria and her partner Dominique created a collective called The Playground Project. Maria has collaborated with many emerging artists and wishes to bridge a gap in the dance industry with her platform.

Kaitlyn Seibold

Kaitlyn Seibold is an emerging artist and dance educator who recently received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Dance Performance Degree from Ryerson University and is now completing her Master of Fine Arts at York University for Dance, Choreography & Collaboration. She was awarded the Lipson Family Endowment Award for the most promising emerging choreographer. Taking part in an ongoing investigation with the moving body in the theatre and alternative performance spaces, Seibold aims to create conversational work while providing stimulating and healthy collaborative experiences. Her most recent works address collaboration between movement and technology while concentrating on engagement within virtual performance platforms. Her studies pertain to discovering boundaries between physicalized theatre and contemporary movement while exploring the meaning of gesture and recognizing physical impulses. Her most recent works include:  Birth of a B featured in the Night Shift platform at the Citadel & Compagine and Meeting at R9 presented at Dance Ontario, Toronto ON.

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Eilish Shin-Culhane

Eilish 미정 Shin-Culhane is a Tkaronto-based queer artist of Korean and European descent. She received her BFA in Dance from Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. Her work plays with theatricality, rigour, and humour in order to highlight human connection and adversity. She wields absurdity as a method of discovering genuine authenticity. Eilish feels equal parts dancer and choreographer - both mover and maker. As a dancer, Eilish has had the privilege to perform in works by Peter Chu, Bill T. Jones, Nicole von Arx, Nova Bhattacharya, Frog in Hand, Anton Lachky, and Adam Barruch. She has additionally trained across the United States, Europe, and Canada with Johannes Wieland, Anouk van Dijk, Ryan Mason, Isadora Wolfe, and Andrea Miller. Eilish's choreographic work oscillates between highly physical and simple pedestrian gestures, in order to find a cohesive movement modality to develop narrative. Her work finds root in text, emotional expression, and heightened physicality. Eilish was commissioned by Peggy Baker Dance Projects to develop a new site-specific work in Fall 2022. She has additionally presented choreography at NYU’s ‘Choreofest’, Aeris Körper's 'PROSPECTS', and Dance Ontario’s ‘Show & Share Sessions’. Her choreographic mentors have included Bonnie Kim and Elisabeth Motley. Eilish’s work has been directly supported by the National Ballet’s Open Space Programme, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

SUMMER COMPANY SUPPORTERS

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