A.D.C.I.D. FACILITORS BIOGRAPHIES
Jennifer Jimenez
Lead Facilitator/Co-Director
A scenographer and theatre-maker, Jennifer seeks artistic projects rooted in devised collaborative processes where all elements can play an active role in creation. This can take the form of integrating lighting and design into the rehearsal and creation process. Other times, this involves working with community members to create a performance piece or devising an audience interactive piece where those present are actively involved in meaning making. She has participated in training workshops in collaborative creation with Ariane Mnouchkine’s Teatre Du Soleil, and in Image and Forum Theatre facilitation at centres for the Theatre of The Oppressed in London, Toronto, and New York. She is the co-founder of Aiding Dramatic Change in Development (ADCID) – an organization creating inspirational experiences for people to influence and transform the world around them. To learn more about the organization, go to www.adcid.org.
In addition, she has designed lights for various theatre and dance companies in Canada and the UK including the Shaw Festival, The MT Space, InterArts Matrix, The Circus Space, and the Arcola Theatre. Her work has been seen in Germany, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Furthermore, she has also assisted lighting designers for Robert Lepage’s Ex Machina, The Shaw Festival, Canadian Stage Company and Volcano Theatre. She is a past recipient of a Chalmers Award, and has been twice nominated for the OAC Pauline McGibbon Award in Design. She is also an ADC member.
Stephen Sillet
Lead Facilitator/Co-Director
Stephen is the co-executive director of Aiding Dramatic Change in Development (ADCID). Through ADCID projects and in partnership with other social actors, he is exploring approaches that engage community members in conversations, consciously orientated to maturing visions of the future. Stephen has over 12 years experience engaging community members through participatory theatre for development. In 2004, he co-created the InFusion Performance, a multi-disciplinary, audience immersive event that involved music, dance, spoken word and video in London, UK. This proved a key experience in his exploration into how artists from different art forms relate to theatre performance aesthetically, logistically and culturally. It is still an experience informs his work. This was the seed for ADCID’s InFusion Lab.
He has worked with deep rural communities in South Africa, setting up the Zisize drama group in Ingwavuma that toured schools facilitating workshops and forum theatre on peer influence for 6 years. He also trained staff and developed projects in South Africa with Tholulwazi Uzivikele (Empower Yourself through Knowledge) to engage community members around water issues. He approaches all his community development projects through an asset-based lens. Therefore, he recognises the strengths and assets that lie within the experience and knowledge of the community members.
His focus in Toronto has been inclusion and community building. The last six years, he has been on a creative journey with a group of community members who have Cerebral Palsy and use alternative forms of communication. This has evolved into the Imagining Possibilities Project where the group are developing ways of creating and expressing their stories through performance arts. With ADCID he recently begun a series of Roots to Passionate Community Building workshops out of Artscape Youngplace, as part of the CrossGEN: initiative in Toronto – working towards a more inclusive and welcoming community.
Mariuxi Zambrano
live scenography
Mariuxi is a Toronto based multidisciplinary artist. Her passion and commitment to the arts lie on her idea that art is a tool for social change. Therefore, she seeks to encourage change by providing information and social awareness through art. Mariuxi is the Artistic Associate for IFT Theater. She is the Storyboard Artist and Props and Costume Designer for their current project “Motherland/Because I love you”. Furthermore, she has worked with Chinedu Ukabam as Set Designer and Photographer for “Afrotropolis in Wonderland”, a multidisciplinary fashion and art project that was presented during Black History Month in Toronto. She has also worked as a Set and Costume designer in recognized projects such as “My Name is Rachel Corrie” (Best Director, Best Design, Best Actress Nomination by My Theater Award/My Entertainment World), and in “Tender Napalm” at SummerWorks, (outstanding designer by NOW magazine (NNNN)).
Additionally, she has trained at Lynda Rayno Dance academy in Victoria, Toronto Dance Theater, and at Broadway Dance Center in New York. Mariuxi holds an Honours degree in Visual Arts from the University of Toronto and a Diploma in Psychology from Camosun College. Mariuxi has also coordinated seven outstanding exhibitions at A Space Gallery, and worked at aluCine Latin Film+Media Arts Festival as the Operations and Outreach Manager. At Festival, she coordinated four Media Arts Exhibitions.
Marsha Coffer
Musician
Marsha has been working with the Imagining Possibilities Leadership Team as a musician. She looks at percussive approaches and innovative ways to develop the soundscapes to compliment the Envisioned Scenography process used by ADCID. She is excited to be able to get involved in the Engaging Possibilities aspect of the work. She is also thrilled to contribute to creations for the “Coming to the Edge” immersive and interactive performances.
Marsha is a Dora Mavor Moore Award-winning composer, and has 30 years professional experience creating music for theatre, dance, television, and film. She has now completed over 70 scores for C.B.C. Radio Drama. In 1997 she went to Halifax as Composer/Producer for VISION TV, writing and producing 200 editorial music videos. Other select works in Television and Film include SONGS IN STONE, Directed by John Houston, TALES OF A PSYCHIC MEDIUM, directed by Charles Doucet and AMBER AND ELIOT, directed by Deepa Mehta. Marsha has also written numerous scores for Theatre Companies across Canada.
From 1982 till 1996, Marsha was a part-time resident composer for Denmark’s internationally renowned Tukak Theatre, a Greenlandic Inuit theatre and the world’s first professional Aboriginal theatre company. Her work for Tukak Teatret has toured throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. Marsha has also been heavilly involved with Native Theatre and Dance, both in Canada and Internationally. She has written many scores for Native Earth and De-Ba-Jeh-Mu-Jig Theatre. Marsha received a DORA MAVOR MOORE AWARD for outstanding music for her score for RAVENS (Native Earth). She also received DORA nominations for her scores for SON OF AYASH (Native Earth) and for The War Of The Roses series (Dream in High Park). Furthermore, Marsha, with co composer Ian Tamblyn was nominated for best musical score at HOT DOCS 2000 for SONGS IN STONE and a GOLDEN SHEAF AWARD for THE YORKTON FILM FESTIVAL for the score for NULIAJUK MOTHER OF THE SEA BEASTS.
Yvonne Ng
Movement
Yvonne was born in Singapore and is of Peranakan Chinese descent. After a decade of dancing for some of Canada’s best choreographers, Ng has created several commissioned choreographic works. She has also created choreographies for her company, Tiger Princess Dance Projects. Yvonne’s current focus is on working with the symbolic meaning of movement more than inventing a choreographic vocabulary. Writers describe her work as ravishing, paradoxical, immediate and hard-edged, like painful memory.
Yvonne began her training with Madam Goh Soo Khim at the Singapore Ballet Academy. Even before completing her BFA at York University, she had co-founded the dance company Dance Allegro and was in demand in the Toronto contemporary dance community. After a year in the Danny Grossman Dance Company, she left to work with choreographers including Bill James, José Navas, Marie-Josée Chartier and Peter Chin. Her commissioned choreography and performance have earned her eight Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations and taken her to Australia, Singapore, and across Canada and the USA. Marking the start of her transition from performer to choreographer, Yvonne travelled to Beijing to train and research Chinese traditional and minority dance forms. She also studied Arabic singing at the Beijing Dance Academy and Central University for Nationalities in 1996.
Furthermore, Yvonne is the 2007 recipient of the prestigious Ontario Premier’s Emerging Artist Award, the 1996 and 2003 Chalmers Performing Arts Training Award, the 2003 Chalmers Arts Fellowship and New Pioneers Arts Award, and the 2002 K.M. Hunter Dance Award. Yvonne Ng’s intensity, grace, and mesmerizing presence have made her an unstoppable force on the Canadian and international dance scene. Founded in 1995, her company, Princess Productions, supports the work of two divisions. First, Tiger Princess Dance Projects for Yvonne Ng’s activities as a performer, choreographer, arts educator and producer. Secondly, dance: made in canada/fait au Canada, started in 2001, a presenting division that produces a biennial festival of contemporary Canadian dance works
Frank Hull
MovemenT and wheelchair dance
An established, professional artist who proudly lives with cerebral palsy and madness, embraces his Mi’kmaq heritage, and celebrates his gay identity. Over the past fifteen years, Hull, originally a choir vocalist, has distinguished himself as one of Canada’s most prominent power wheelchair choreographers and dancers. He more recently expanded his repertoire to include live and digital performance. Hull’s artistic practice is multidisciplinary, consisting of varied, vibrant works in dance, theatre, music and media arts. His artistic vision is to reveal the impacts of trauma and oppression on the body while positioning “deviant” bodies as a source of aesthetic appreciation, beauty and enrichment.
Gary Kirkam
Video designer
Gary is a playwright, actor and video designer. His plays include Falling A Wake, Pearl Gidley, Queen Milli of Galt, Rage Against Violence (with Dwight Strorring), and Pocket Rocket (with Lea Daniel). Gary is an artistic associate of MT Space and has worked in collaboration with the company on several shows including The Last 15 Seconds, Seasons of Immigration, Body 13, and Occupy Spring. For the last 6 years he has helped run the MT Space Newcomer Theatre. Gary has created video designs for CAFKA, UnSilent Night, The MT Space, Summerworks, NightShift, The Randolph Academy, Canadian Arab Theatre, Greenlight Arts and Cactusbloem (Belgium). He was the 2017 Artist in Residenceat Idea Exchange.
Gary says he has “always been fascinated by special effects before the digital revolution, where worlds were created using miniatures, painted glass and various optical illusions. I love the tactile authenticity which digital effects cannot replicate. And rather than recording them and projecting on a screen, I plan to create them live and project on 3D objects, floors, and bodies so that, at some point, the audience does not know whether what they are looking at is real, a projection or both.”
His awards include: Fuse (theatre Calgary) KW Arts Award, Bernice Adams Award, Samuel French Playwriting Award, The Tom Hendry Comedy Award (short-listed twice), and KM Hunter Theater Award (short-listed).
Luciano Iogna
Artist
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