Karen Kaeja (Dancer and Co-creator) is a 2009 Dora nominee for Outstanding Performance. Co-artistic director of Kaeja d’Dance with Allen Kaeja, she performs and choreographs for stage and film. She holds an Honors BFA from York University. Karen is included in 3 Encyclopedia’s -Who's Who, The Canadian and Theatre Dance in Canada, she has won a performance award from Moving Pictures and an innovation award from Paul D. Fleck. She has been in creation residencies, commissioned and presented by dancers, festivals and performance series in Sweden, Venezuela, India, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, Indonesia, England, the US, and across Canada. Distinguished as a “champion of contact dance” in NOW Magazine’s top ten artists and 25th anniversary issue, she is on faculty at STDT and teaches at Conferences and Universities across North America. A featured performer in Allen’s seventeen films for CBC, BRAVO! and Bravo!FACT garnering international awards and a Gemini nomination, they have been screened in over 400 festivals worldwide. They were nominated for the 10th Annual American Choreography Awards and the 2006 Banff World Television Awards. Her first film as a director, “Mika’s Alley”, recently screened at the prestigious American Dance Festival. www.kaeja.org

Suzanne Liska (Dancer and Co-creator) is a dance artist and educator originally from Alberta and now based in Toronto. She is the Co-Artistic Director of Flightworks and has danced for choreographers Pam Johnson, Karen Kaeja, and Kathleen Rea. Suzanne is the co-founder with Karen Kaeja of the aLOFT Project, a Contact Improv performance ensemble. Suzanne specializes in dance improvisation and was first introduced to Contact Improv in 1998. Pilates and the Alexander Technique also inform her instructional style. She regularly teaches Contact Improv dance classes, workshops and Project 5 Star (Dance Improv and Performance) with Karen Kaeja and Kathleen Rea

Teisha Smith (Dancer and Co-creator) began dancing at the age of four, training in Ballet and Jazz at Louise Woodvine Dance Academy in Barbados. Beginning at a young age she participated in many charity shows, pantomime productions and cultural arts festivals. Teisha recently received her degree in Theatre Performance, majoring in dance, from Ryerson University. While at Ryerson, she had the pleasure to work with inspiring choreographers and guest teachers such as Vicki St Denys, Kathleen Rea and Eddison B. Lindsay. Since graduating, she has performed Kathleen Rea's IRE and Long Live, and is presently working with the Collective of Black Artists (COBA).

Lee Walder (Dancer and Co-creator)is originally from Toronto. He spent two years at York University and four years at Winnipeg's School of Contemporary Dancers. He has toured across the USA, stopping in Albany NY, Jacobs Pillow, and Long Beach CA, performing with snappy dance theatre. In 2008 he danced in Kathleen Rea’s Dora nominated Long Live. Recently, Lee has worked with choreographer Sue Lee, and performed in Tino Sehgal’s “The Kiss”, at Art Gallery of Ontario.






Tristan R. Whiston (Dramaturge)has worked extensively in Toronto's queer and independent theatre communities for the past fifteen years as a director, writer, performer, and lighting designer. He is the artistic director and founder of The Boychoir of Lesbos, co-founder of Del ARTiE Productions where he co-wrote and co-directed seven original musical comedies, and he has been the artist-in-residence at Central Toronto Youth Services for the past six years directing Gender Play, a theatre project working with youth exploring experiences of gender identity. Tristan is the writer/director of a two-part radio documentary called Middle C— honoured with the Silver Medal at the 2007 New York International Radio Programming and nominated for the Best New Artist Award at the 2007 Third Coast International Audio Festival —which aired in 2007 on CBC Radio One.  Currently he is working on a film documentary that tells the story of the 2008 Gender Play Production Wake.