For what seemed like several years, I trained very hard to become a professional dancer. I trained 6 to 7 hours a day 5-6 days a week at the School for Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University (SFU) near Vancouver, Canada. After being hired for a part in a dance production by Noam Gagnon and Dana Gingras with their dance company the Holy Body Tattoo, I was quickly fired from my first ever paid dance job for being "technically deficient." I tried to keep a stiff upper lip as the life of a performing artist was bound to have set backs, and followed that immediately with a year of rigorous technical training at L'Ecole de Danse de Quebec in Quebec City.
In Vancouver, I worked with some exceptional teachers and classmates, and my most memorable dance training was with Judith Garay, Cheryl Prophet, Albert St. Albert, Grant Strate, Earl Kraul, and Barbara Bouget. In Quebec, I studied with other great teachers including Lucie Boissinot, Carmon Bouchard, Lynne Binette, Johanne Dor, and Joelle Turcott to name a few. Some of my classmates went on to great fame as performing artists, most notably Tong Chong - now an accomplished dancer, choreographer, and arts director, Cori Caulfield - who already ran her own dance school, and now has her own dance company, Anik Bouvrette - now an award-winning choreographer, Elena Kaufman - now a famous actress in Europe and Canada, and dance company director, and David Usher - who is now a famous indie-label rock star in Canada!
Promotional postcards for shows I performed in.
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