Dance Talks

Join us for our Patio Choreographer Talks — an open-air conversation series happening June 13, 14, 15, and 21 at 5pm on the beautiful Firehall Arts Centre patio. In a relaxed, welcoming setting, featured choreographers will share insights into their creative processes, inspirations, and the ideas driving their work in this year’s festival. Doors @ 4:30pm.

June 13 @ 5pm - Rebecca Margolick

Rebecca Margolick’s creations have been presented in over ten countries. She recently returned back to her hometown of Vancouver, B.C. after living in NYC for well over a decade. She was named one of Dance Magazines Top 25 to Watch in 2021 and has received fellowships and residencies from Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab, Banff Centre, Derida Stage, Centro de las Artes San Luis Potosí, The Dance Centre, BC Movement Arts Society, and more. She has been commissioned to create original works on Oregon Ballet Theater, La Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, Arts Umbrella, NW Dance Project’s MOVE, Ballet B.C.’s Annex, and more. She has freelanced with many choreographers and was a company member of Sidra Bell Dance New York from 2012-2016 and UNA Productions from 2015-2023. She is currently dancing with Josh Martin/Company 605, Charles-Alexis Desgagnés, Jason Martin, and Andrea Peña & Artists.

June 14 @ 5pm - Lesley Telford

Lesley Telford is a choreographer and the Artistic Director of Inverso Productions based in Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Her work has been performed in dance companies internationally and has been described as having “a profound way of tapping into deep recesses of our emotional and intellectual landscapes”. She began her career with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, worked with Nacho Duato at Compañia Nacional de Danza in Spain and spent over a decade dancing and creating at Nederlands Dans Theatre 1, where she worked with choreographers such as Jiri Kylian, Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, William Forsythe, Ohad Naharin, Johan Inger, Crystal Pite and others.

As a choreographer, she has created 3 works for Ballet BC as well as commissions for Ballett Bern, Netherlands Dans Theater 1, Zfin Malta, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Ballet Vorpommern, Hubbard Street Dance Company 2, Compañia Nacional de Danza 2, and more.

She is the founder of Inverso Productions, through which she has choreographed and produced 4 full evening works which have been presented the Netherlands, Spain and Canada. Inverso also produces Performance Research Project annually, a creative mentorship platform for emerging professional dancers to connect to choreographers. She has a Master of Arts in Cultural Production from the University of Salzburg.

June 15 @ 5pm - Manu Badás

Manu Badás pursues their Higher Education in Contemporary Dance in France, at the schools of Vendetta Mathea (Aurillac) and James Carlès (Toulouse). They have directed La Inquiquinante since 2008, producing and presenting pieces in Spain, Mexico and Europe. They have received the Oh! Award from Asturias for Best Show of the year 2011 with “Folias” and in 2012 his piece “Sebastián” was chosen by the newspaper El País as one of the seven best dance proposals of the Madrid season. In December 2018, “Eurídice sin Orfeo” premiered at the Teatro de la Laboral in Gijón, a long-running piece in which they rewrites the myth of Orfeo and Eurídice from a gender perspective and intersects with intragender violence. This piece has been presented at the III Festival Escèniques LGBTI at the Sala Carme Teatre in Valencia and has made they share the stage with Pamela Palenciano at the Jornadas contra la Violencia at the Filarmónica theater in Oviedo in November 2019. In 2024 they won the Public Award with “Muchos Cisnes // Cygnus Falconeri” in the Territori en Dansa contest of C.C. Teixonera. Research and conferences: In 2019 they presents the performance “Bestiario affectivo sexual” at the 3rd Conference Non Monogamies and Contemporary Intimacies in Barcelona. In 2020 “Identity Hortera, I want to dance” is selected at the II International Congress of LGTBIQ+ Studies “Maricorners” in Madrid. Also in 2020, a research project on gender and contemporary dance “Gender in movement, what is not seen” begins, which will be awarded with the “Scholarship for research and innovation in the fields of visual arts, in our creative sectors.” , of the performing arts, of music and thought” of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia. They is currently researching the concepts of beauty and repertoire within the history of dance, from theoretical and artistic practices at the same time and with the body and gender as the backbone.

June 21 @ 5pm - Lina Cruz

Montreal choreographer Lina Cruz is a two-time Dora Mavor Moore Award recipient for Outstanding Original Choreography (2012 and 2017) and was nominated for the same award in 2015. She has recently received the news of her 2025 Dora nomination for Outstanding Original Choreography and Outstanding Performance by an Individual, the ceremony will take place in Toronto on June 30. Earlier in her career, she received a second place award in the 1998 international choreographic competition of the St-Sauveur Arts Festival (Quebec).

Cruz founded her company, Fila 13 Productions, in 2003. She has presented her creative work in festivals and events at local, national and international levels. Her background draws from ballet as much as modern/contemporary styles and is marked by her interest in martial arts and various forms of stage expression. She has created works for independent artists as well as dance companies and institutions of professional dance training. Cruz is also often involved in theatre and opera projects. In her works, she explores detailed body language, sound and vocal expression, composing characters and sketches which portray an unsettling strangeness, but always hand in hand with a mischievous playfulness.

Before dedicating herself to exploring her own creative work, she was a passionate dancer of avid interests and versatility, working with various choreographers in Canada, Spain and Colombia (her country of origin).