Anne Plamondon Productions

Anne Plamondon is a choreographer, performer and teacher. Before starting her career as a solo artist, Anne was a key member of the RUBBERBAND company. She joined the company as a performer in 2002, and acted as its codirector from 2006 to 2015. With choreographer Victor Quijada, she participated in creating more than ten works for the stage and three short films. In that context, she was involved in developing and teaching the RUBBERBAND Method. Her stint as a performer with the Kidd Pivot company also had a profound effect on Anne’s career, as she took part in four creations by award-winning choreographer Crystal Pite, including the duet A Picture of You Falling (2016 Olivier Award).

Since 2012, Anne has been working as an independent choreographer, creating the solos Les mêmes que toi (2012) and Mécaniques Nocturnes (2017) with director Marie Brassard. In 2018, she founded Anne Plamondon Productions to carry out her own creative projects and foster new artistic partnerships: at the Fall for Dance North festival, she created the duet Counter Cantor (2018) with Emma Portner, as well as Fiddle Embrace (2018), a work for 18 students from the Ryerson School of Dance. She has also choreographed works for Alberta Ballet and Arts Umbrella Dance in Vancouver, and made the short film Espaces vitaux (semi-finalist at the Paris Play Festival) for the A Shared Solitude project initiated by the Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur.

In 2021, Anne was guest choreographer for the creation of Vanishing Mélodies, a large-scale piece set to the music of Patrick Watson by Ballets Jazz Montréal. Seulement toi (2020), a duet with dancer James Gregg, will premiere in spring 2022 at Usine C.

Anne’s choreographic approach has been forged by the personalities who have left their mark on the international dance scene. She made her debut with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens before joining Nederlands Dans Theater 2 (1995–98) and then Gulbenkian Ballet (1998–2000). During this period, she performed the works of more than 30 renowned choreographers, including Jiří Kylián, Ohad Naharin, Hans Van Manen, Angelin Preljocaj, Gideon Obarzanek, Paul Lightfoot and Sol León. Upon her return to Canada, she worked with James Kudelka for the Coleman Lemieux company, as well as with Marie Chouinard and Marcos Moreau in the production Triptyque by Les 7 doigts de la main, blending dance and circus. In 2016, she participated in the creation of Corps Amour Anarchie, a tribute to poet Léo Ferré by PPS Danse.

Keenly interested in the challenge of transmitting dance to the next generation, Anne teaches at several training institutions—École supérieure de ballet du Québec, École de danse de Québec, École de danse contemporaine de Montréal and Arts Umbrella—and has been the dance curator at Domaine Forget de Charlevoix since 2018.

As one of the most prominent young voices in the movement industry, Emma Portner has become widely known for her inimitable quality, gender fluidity, and dedicated passion to dance. The dancer and  choreographer has been recognized for her unique ability to shift the space around her since she was a teenager. In 2012, Portner moved to New York City to study at The Ailey School and soon thereafter became the youngest woman in history to choreograph a musical on London’s West End. Before she was 20 years old, she had already garnered millions of international views through dance on film and worked with the Music Industry’ s biggest names.

The New York Times calls her “beguiling” and Paper magazine listed Portner in “PAPER Predictions;100 people to watch in 2019”. She was nominated for Arena Dance Competition’s “Best Female Dancer” of the year and is one of very few dancers who graced both the covers of Dance Spirit and Dance Magazine. Dance Magazine writes, “ anyone who has seen her dance can recognize the ferocity with which she throws her body and seemingly her soul”. Dance Spirit declares Emma is “changing the dance world”. Capezio affirms that Emma is “challenging the standard of mediocrity” and has given her the title of Capezio Athlete. Her most recent work includes collaborations with Apple, Netflix, The Guggenheim Museum, Vogue, Jacobs Pillow, The Norwegian National Ballet, Sony Studios, and indie music stars, Maggie Rogers, Blood Orange, and Sylvan Esso. She is highly sought after by renowned companies, training facilities, and fellow artists in various fields beyond dance alone. Forever a student, she looks forward to utilizing the intersections of her knowledge through movement.

Amara Barner is a multidisciplinary artist from Minnesota, and currently resides in Montreal (Tiohtià:ke) Quebec. As a teenager she traveled as an assistant to the choreographers of The Pulse On Tour and Intrigue Dance Convention. Among opportunities for professional development, Amara was granted opportunities to perform and teach at workshops in Australia, Mexico, England, and Italy. After moving to New York City at 15, Amara worked commercially for television including dancing backup for Sia on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, and music videos like Cardinal's Pride: Masterpiece. Barner was the youngest dancer hired for local company, RUBBERBAND and worked with the group from 2016-2021. She toured internationally with the company's show Vic’s Mix, and also danced in the company's premiers and following international tours of Ever So Slightly/Vraiment Doucement, including the KOTV TeleQuebec adaptation of the show for television. Amara performed in Tentacle Tribe's short films Metamorph and Touch for Festival Quartier Danse 2020/21 seasons alongside Elon Höglund. Barner also performed in episodes three, ten, and eleven of the TVA show Chanteurs masqués season one. Amara is featured in Dance Magazine’s July 2020 issue as an “On The Rise “ artist", and has also been interviewed for the podcast Artistic Roots, and the digital magazine Black Lights. Barner joined 'Hit The Floor' in 2021 as a judge for their competition in Gatineau, Quebec. She presented her first multidisciplinary solo entitled Mongrel at the VAV Gallery in 2021. Amara Barner is currently a student at Concordia University in Montreal, with a major in Fibers and Materials. 

Belinda McGuire is an American-Canadian dancer, choreographer, filmmaker and Artistic Director of Belinda McGuire Dance Projects, based in Brooklyn. Her choreography has been presented across the United States, Canada, Mexico, France and the Dominican Republic. A former student of the Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, she completed her formal education at Juilliard.

Through BMDP, Belinda has commissioned and performed in world premieres by Kate Alton, Sylvain Émard, Andrea Miller, Sharon Moore, Idan Sharabi, Doug Varone, and Emio Greco | Pieter C. Scholten. She was co-awarded The Chrystal Dance Prize (2019) and recognized as a sponsored artist of USArtists International (2019). Belinda has performed as a company member for Doug Varone and Dancers, Gallim Dance, and The Limón Company, among others, appearing on stages across Brazil, China, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United States.

Residencies include ICK Amsterdam, American Center for Art and Culture Paris, National Ballet of Canada and The Yard, among others.

She has taught and choreographed for Juilliard, Harvard, The Limón Institute, Marymount Manhattan, Canada’s National Ballet School, NYU Tisch, and SUNY Purchase, among others.

As a filmmaker, Belinda created the groundbreaking interactive dance film, Order in the Eye of the Beholder (2021).

As a producer, Belinda launched four one-woman shows, and four iterations of Offset Dance Fest (Brooklyn).

Colorado-born, Oklahoma-raised. James Gregg is now an international choreographer. He has created choreographic works on Whim W’Him, Danceworks Chicago, Dark Circles Contemporary Dance, Ballet X, Northwest Dance Project, Nashville Ballet's Emergence, Springboard Danse Project Montreal, River North Dance Company, Elements Contemporary Ballet, Cirque du Soleil at Sea and L’École Supérieure de Danse de Quebec.Most recently, James was the recipient of the prestigious 2015 Princess Grace Choreography Fellowship Award. He was also the winner for Ballet Austin's 2014 New American talent choreographic competition, a finalist in Milwaukee Ballet's 2013 Genesis Choreographic competition, and in 2011 the winner of the International Choreographic Competition at Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur.

As a performer, James has worked with Rubberband Dance Group, Bodytraffic, Les Ballet Jazz de Montreal, Aszure & Artists, and River North Dance Company. Throughout his career he had the opportunity to do the works of many renowned choreographers including Victor Quijada, Barak Marshall, Aszure Barton, Crystal Pite, Rodrigo Pedernieras, Frank Chauves, Danny Ezralow, Mauro Bigonzetti, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Cayetano Soto, and more. James also has been featured in several music videos, feature films, and in TV documentaries and specials. Elton John, Lyon, Kresha Turner, Ils Dansent, On the road, and Soul Survivors are a couple of examples of this. These experiences to work with such a variety of artists and different artistic avenues has given James the tools to create his own language and helped mold his choreographic voice and vision.

His biggest interest is to create movement from the inside out and exploring different paths and routes through which the body can move. Discovering how these various avenues can evoke emotion and how those emotions translate throughout the body.