22 The Sinister Waltz

A many-headed collaborative brings a cabaret ghost story to an empty space.

A range of expressive resources — classical piano and cello, rock and cabaret song, plus ballet, Latin and contemporary dance – weave together a story. Some of the artists met at last year’s Night\Shift . Some know each from the University of Waterloo. Some met at the Kitchener Market. All of them have histories in performance, and one is a short fiction writer. Together they will present a multimedia cabaret show using a waltz by Zbiegniew Preisner and several songs by Tom Waits as a backdrop. They will share a story of a personal encounter, and of the back-and-forth between artistic forms.

PERFORMER BIOS

Sarah Tolmie is an Associate Professor in the English department at the University of Waterloo, trained as a medievalist, who publishes on Middle English poetry, logic and embodiment. She is a poet and fiction writer, whose speculative fiction novel The Stone Boatmen came out in April with Aqueduct Press, to excellent reviews. The short story collection NoFood will be published this fall, as well as a chapbook, Sonnet in a Blue Dress and Other Poems . As a contact improvisation dancer she has performed with the Friends of the Floor Dance-Theatre since 2010, concept-designed Susurrus: A Dance Through the Concepts of Hylozoic Ground with architect Philip Beesley in 2011, and co-founded the Raw Nerve Research Group, a collective that uses contact improv as a medium to teach and experiment across arts and science disciplines.

Dawn Parker apprenticed and danced professionally with Milwaukee ballet, Omaha Ballet, Ballet Metropolitan, and Ballet Oregon.  She has been doing ballroom dance (American and International styles) for the last seven years.  She is currently Associate Professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo and Director of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation.

Scott-Morgan Straker is an Associate Professor of English at Queen’s University. He teaches courses on British literature from the Middle Ages to the present, as well as on academic web design. Scott is a trained classical pianist who performed Glass’s Knee Play Four for solo piano and coordinated the musicians for the 2013 Night Shift performance.

Natasha King teaches at the Contemporary School of Dance in Waterloo and holds a BFA in Dance and a BSc in Psychology from Towson University. She studied choreography at Sarah Lawrence College in New York and has performed internationally with Towson Dance Company and CollabArt Creations.

Mateo Galindo Torres is a Toronto based performer, choreographer, and photographer.  He is trained in ballet, contemporary, salsa, jazz, tap, Cuban folk dance, and several martial arts styles.  He currently trains at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, where he has performed in pieces set and choreographed by a wide range of current contemporary choreographers.

Dave Mansell is a performer and music educator who is an active part of the K-W music scene. A graduate from the University of British Columbia with a composition degree in double bass, Dave also has university equivalents in Piano, guitar and voice. Dave teaches Guitar (electric & acoustic), Piano and songwriting at Maxwell’s Music House and leads their Rockstar Public School Program and Rockstar Camp for kids each March Break and summer months.

Lorna Heidt , who holds a BA in Music Performance from Wilfred Laurier University, gives classical and contemporary lessons, performs at public and private functions and does studio work. She can often be seen weekends at the Kitchener market.

Participating members of the University of Waterloo Ballroom Dance Club Alexander Gurevich, Hanna Kazhamiaka, Mikhail Zakharov, Samatha Dupre, Jason Schattman, and Dawn Parker have backgrounds in engineering, math and statistics, and environmental science.  All are trained in both Standard and Latin ballroom dance styles and have competitive experience.  Alexander Gurevich, who will serve as our Master of Ceremonies, has further experience in jazz and classical piano performance and improv comedy.

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