Julia Taffe
Artistic Director

Julia Taffe is a choreographer, performer and rock-climbing guide. Since 1999, she has created dances on 14 buildings, in six theatres, and on various BC cliffs and mountains. Before founding Aeriosa, Taffe performed nationally with Winnipeg-based Ruth Cansfield Dance and internationally with the aerial company Project Bandaloop under the direction of Amelia Rudolph. As a solo artist, Taffe collaborated with filmmaker Janet Roddan on the mountain-dance shorts Stone Soup and Granite Ocean. Both films premiered at the Banff Festival of Mountain Films and received screenings at mountain culture film festivals in Canada, USA and Europe. In 2002, the Banff Centre for Mountain Culture commissioned Taffe to create On Earth, a vertical dance stage performance to celebrate United Nations International Year of the Mountains. On Earth was created in residence at Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, the Banff Centre, and The Dance Centre in Vancouver.

Taffe’s site-specific choreography projects include the 5th Taipei International Arts Festival, Vancouver Library Square, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. Her recent film credits include choreography for the Aliens in John Woo’s Lost in Space, the Wendigo in WB’s Supernatural and an animatronic collaboration with puppeteer Guy Himber as the Hero Wolf in the feature film Trick or Treat. Her recent dance performance highlights include guest appearances on skyscrapers in New York and São Paulo with Project Bandaloop. In 2003, the international NGO The Mountain Institute honoured Taffe as a mountain culture hero.

Please note: If you click on the cropped thumbnails on this page, you'll see larger and complete versions of the images.

Colin Zacharias
Safety Rigging Coordinator/Mountain Guide

Colin has been a certified Mountain and Ski Guide (IFMGA, ACMG) for the past 20 years. Besides rigging for Aeriosa, Colin has rigged for film sets, stunts and the EcoChallenge Race in Morocco, Borneo, Fiji and Argentina.

Colin specializes in mountain and avalanche safety and enjoys working with Aeriosa’s dancers whether on the mountain cliffs or in the dance studio. Colin’s company Quixotic Adventures offers guided adventures to exotic destinations around the world. Visit Colin on the web at: http://web.mac.com/quixoticadventures .

DANCE ARTISTS

Scott Buffett
Dance Artist/Teacher

Scott Buffett started dancing in Coquitlam, BC at the age of thirteen to complement his gymnastic training. He went on to join the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Professional Program in 1983, and the School of Toronto Dance Theatre in 1986. He joined Dancemakers as a company member in 1987 and also worked as a guest artist with the Danny Grossman Dance Company for three years. In 1995, Scott took a hiatus from dance to study yoga in Sydney and Byron Bay Australia.

Scott’s new yoga vocabulary, his previous dance training and his experience as a recreational climber, made him a valuable addition to Julia Taffe’s new aerial dance creation on the Scotiabank Dance Centre Building. Scott continued to work with Julia and to develop his aerial skills during a two-week residency with Cité des Arts du Cirque, dancing on the Cirque du Soleil Building. At the end of these rehearsals, he made his vertical mountain dance debut, performing on the 1500’ granite headwall of the Squamish Chief. He then returned to the stage combining his new aerial abilities and modern dance background in a new creation called On Earth, which premiered at the International Mountain Summit at the Banff Centre. Following the Banff performance, Scott danced on buildings in Vancouver, Nanaimo, and Taipei. Scott continues to teach dance and yoga in Vancouver and abroad.

Julia Carr
Dance Artist

A graduate of Arts Umbrella and the Ballet BC Mentor Program, Julia Carr also holds a B.Sc. Biology from Acadia University, and MA in dance performance from Limerick University in Ireland. Formerly Assistant to the Director of MainDance in Vancouver (2005-2007), she is currently Assistant Artistic Director of Dancestreams, a pre-professional youth dance company based in Parksville, BC.

Meanwhile, she continues to pursue her dance career in Vancouver and has performed in the works of Kathleen McDonagh, Peter Bingham, Caroline Liffmann, Sara Coffin and others. Her own choreography has been presented in 12-Minutes Max, Co-Opted, Bloom, Launch Pad, Inter-tidal Arts Festival, and by Dancestreams. Julia recently completed an apprenticeship with EDAM Dance for their 2007/2008 season, and is presently delighting in her first year working with Raven Spirit Dance, and Aeriosa.

Theresa Carroll
Dance Artist

Theresa Carroll is a dancer, visual artist and climber. She graduated in 2002 from Simon Fraser University with a BFA in Dance and Visual Arts. While there, she performed choreography by artists Judith Garay, Barbara Bourget, and D-Anne Trepanier, and danced in the Off Centre Performance Company. Her movement experience started off with 14 years of competitive gymnastics, and evolved through dance training in contemporary, ballet, and jazz.

Theresa's sport climbing background is invaluable to her dancing with Aeriosa; in 1998 she competed at the World Youth Climbing Championships in Austria as a member of the Canadian National Youth Climbing Team. Theresa first performed with Aeriosa in Dance Allsorts, 2004, with other performances including the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and FUSE at the Vancouver Art Gallery. She has continued to be fascinated by exploring the world of vertical, site specific movement on each new building and dance location. Theresa also works in the visual arts field as a program coordinator and develops educational curriculum for schools at the Burnaby Art Gallery.

Michael Flynn
Technical Director and Rigger

Trained at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School for nine years, Michael toured and performed with the company from the age of 12. After apprenticing with the Alberta Ballet in 1998, he went on to dance with Ruth Cansfeld, Ballet BC, the Toy Castle, along with many independent projects.

As a member of Aeriosa he has combined a love of climbing and dance. As well as being a dancer, he has taken on rigging roles with the company. This is a double role he continued to play in his work with Cirque Phoenix, Sharum Borum Circus, and The Caravan Stage Barge. Most recently Michael returned to Vancouver after spending two seasons at the Banff Centre as a stage and scenic carpenter.

Lisa Gelley
Dance Artist

Lisa is a versatile performer, teacher and choreographer in contemporary and urban dance. She received her training in her hometown of Vancouver, Canada and abroad in Belgium, France and Italy. Lisa has worked with independent Vancouver choreographers including Martha Carter (MMHop), Brock Jellison (Ruckus Company Productions), Josh Beamish, and Shay Kuebler. During the 07/08 Season, Lisa trained at Le Groupe Dance Lab in Ottawa and was a guest interpreter for the In-House Process, monitored by Peter Boneham and Tony Chong.

Now back in Vancouver, Lisa is working with the response. (Amber Funk Barton), and she is co-artistic director of The 605 Collective, a collaborative group of emerging dance artists who integrate many forms of movement into a contemporary dance setting. The collective's most recent work includes their first full-length piece, AUDIBLE, which premiered at Dancing On the Edge Festival 2009, as well as a commission piece, new animal by Dana Gingras (Animals of Distinction). This is Lisa's first season working with Aeriosa, and she is excited to be experiencing dance from a new perspective. Thank you to photographer Marc Bjorknas

Meghan Goodman
Dance Artist

Originally from Toronto, Meghan Goodman graduated with a BFA in dance and a minor mathematics from Simon Fraser University. She is an active performer, creator and teacher in Vancouver. As an independent artist, Meghan has performed numerous times with the Choom Hanna dance company and The Society for Public Spontaneity. She has apprenticed with choreographers Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, Cori Caulfield, Alvin Tolentino and Peter Chin.

Meghan has shown her own work in such venues as Dances for a Small Stage, 12 Minutes Max, Bloom, NextFest, and the Powell Street Festival. This past year Meghan has had the privilege of working with choreographers Lydia Wagerer, Justine Chambers, Jennifer Clarke and Rob Kitsos. In addition to performing, Meghan teaches yoga to students across the city, and has choreographed and instructed for the stART Dance Company. Meghan is excited to be working with Aeriosa, expanding her artistic skills and practice through aerial dance.

Chandra Krown
Dance Artist

Chandra Krown was born and raised in Vancouver, BC. As a child she competed at a national level in gymnastics. In her early twenties, Chandra joined the Main Dance professional training program where she trained in ballet, modern, contact improvisation, and other techniques. Later, Chandra performed with the Vancouver Moving Theatre, Mortal Coil Performance Society and Joe Ink. She diversified her skills to include stilt dancing and fire spinning and launched XtravaDance Productions – a company dedicated to providing entertainment to the special events industry.

In 2000, Chandra studied modern dance with Kathleen Hermesdorf. In 2001, she taught Modern Release Technique and yoga at the UBC and the Dance Centre in Vancouver. During this time she performed trapeze and hoop for the Stanley Park Rainforest Train. In 2002, she studied aerial dance with Flyaway Productions in San Francisco (via a Canada Council grant). During this internship she presented the dance/vocal piece Home at the ODC Theater and created a video entitled X becomes Y, utilizing natural settings for the dance. In 2004, at the invitation of Julia Taffe, Chandra performed in On the Fly and Dance Allsorts with Aeriosa.

Keely Sills
Dance Artist

Keely's springboard in performing started off at Main Dance where she trained in modern dance. She danced her way on tour throughout the States with the Caravan Stage Barge and thereafter found herself working for three years as a magician's assistant. She has also successfully tried her hand at mascot work and as a showgirl. Her thrill for heights and delight for extreme physicality brought her into the circus arts as an aerialist, into stunt work, and into high rise window washing, where she met her husband, Nathan.

She greatly enjoys balancing out her performing career with the technical work of rope access and entertainment rigging. She recently had the honour of performing as an aerialist in the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympics. Keely is thrilled to be working again with vertical aerial dance company, Aeriosa.

Cara Siu
Dance Artist

Cara Siu is a movement artist and emerging choreographer and movement facilitator, engaged in exploring performance research and community dance. Her passion to share expression, physicality and imagination with audiences have fueled many diverse dance experiences. After acquiring her modern dance training in Vancouver, BC at Simon Fraser University, she continued her dance training in the US, winning scholarships to both Jacob�s Pillow Festival in Massachusetts and Lewitzky Dance Company in Los Angeles. Upon returning to Vancouver, she became captivated by the emerging form of dance theatre and apprenticed with Lee Eisler of Jumpstart Performance. As a collaborator/performer, she has contributed to the creation of dance theatre productions for Gambling Soles, Donna Redlick Dance Theatre, Link Dance Foundation and Raven Spirit Dance.

In 2004, Cara participated in workshops, labs and coaching at Implustanz as a DanceWeb scholarship student. There, she expanded her movement interests to contact improvisation and in recent years furthered the scope to mixed ability, site-specific performance, rehearsal directing and aerial dancing.

Abby Watkins
Dance Artist/Rigger/Teacher

Abby Watkins is an accomplished dancer and teacher as well as being an ACMG Climbing Guide and professional climber. Her combined skills and athletic abilities have made her sought-after by aerial choreographers in three countries. In fall 2002, Abby participated extensively in On Earth, working as a performer, a rehearsal assistant, and a rigger. In May 2002, she travelled home to Australia to work with choreographer Jillian Pierce and her company Y Space from Natimuk. Over a ten-day period, the company created a site-specific aerial dance installation named Colony, a work that saw the performers living and dancing daily on the Arts Centre Spire in Melbourne.

Previously, Abby had worked with Y Space on Pieces of E, with Julia Taffe for the Scotiabank Dance Centre Opening Ceremonies and with the vertical dance troupe Project Bandaloop in California. Abby received her dance training at the University of California, Berkeley, where she attended on a Full Athletic Scholarship for gymnastics. She had received this scholarship as a member of the Australian Gymnastic National Team, but gave up competition in order to explore a deeper passion for the language of dance and her then newly acquired love for rock climbing. In 2000, Abby moved to Canada and currently resides in Golden, BC. She looks forward to performing in the 2007/8 season of Aeriosa Dance.

Charlie Wilson
Dance Artist

Hailing originally from the Northwest coast of England, Charlie moved to Canada in 2000 looking for adventure. She lived in Inuvik then Whitehorse until Summer 2009, when she relocated to Vancouver on a sailboat.

Charlie is a performer and creator with many passions. As a musician she writes and plays traditionally based dance music; as a theatre artist she was very involved in the professional and non-professional theatre scene in Whitehorse, a recent highlight being her work with Ynklude, a collective of mixed abilities performers; and she is currently reviving her acrobatic skills exploring circus arts in Vancouver.

Charlie was introduced to Aeriosa through the 2007 Way Up Here Dance Project in Whitehorse and loved aerial dance immediately, finding it to be a natural fit based on her background as a competitive gymnast, sport climber and martial artist (she practises Aikido). While feeling very much at home with the phys ical rigour and the flying-spinning-through-the-air aspects of aerial dance, Charlie loves the challenge of finding softness, subtlety and expression as a dancer. Charlie is delighted to be working for a second year with Aeriosa.

Jude Wong
Dance Artist

Jude was afraid of heights and fast rides, from a long way back; but her work with Aeriosa has pretty much cured that for now, as much as she would ever want it to be cured.

Jude currently lives and works as a creator, performer, instructor, and producer of dance in Whitehorse, Yukon. In addition to her own work, she also teaches independently and for Leaping Feats Creative Danceworks Ltd, serves on the Board of Extremely Moving Youth Society and performs regularly with Aeriosa.

Since moving North in 2002, her most memorable projects there have included Yukon Dance Ensemble, Parka Ballet Company, and the Way Up Here (Aerial) Dance Project.

In early 2009, her latest solo works were presented by the Yukon Arts Centre, and she co-founded Society of Yukon Independent Dance Artists, to continue to support the growth of dance in the Yukon.

OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS

PRESIDENT
Jean MacRae

CO-TREASURERS
Natasha Tony & Dominic Schaefer

DIRECTORS-AT-LARGE
Catherine Young
Annette Ruitenbeek
Shannon McInnes