Welcome to Dust and Soul Dance Projects

 Aya found a love for dance at age five and started her training with the Alberta Ballet School in Edmonton. She later joined the professional program with intensive focus on ballet, modern, jazz and pointe. She moved to the Edmonton School of Ballet for her graduating year where she danced many leads in their junior performing company. Upon graduating, Aya joined Ballet North and toured Alberta, B.C. and Russia. A year later, Aya moved to Jonquière, Quebec, where she started teaching ballet, pointe, variation and modern at L'École de Danse Le Prisme Culturel. In 1996 she joined Ballet Jörgen Canada in Toronto, where she stayed for the next twelve years, touring all over Canada and the United States. Since retiring from her dance career in 2008, Aya has been teaching mostly ballet and pointe at various studios. With her extensive professional stage experience, Aya excels at getting dancers to find freedom in their movement in order to awaken their inner artistry, while maintaining a strong technical base. In 2022 Aya gently came out of retirement to continue pursuing her love of movement in a project based freelance capacity.   

 Kate Kamo McHugh is a dance and theatre artist from the Region of Waterloo. She is interested in artistically exploring concepts such as migration, belonging and the intersection of art and care - all themes she feels intimately connected to in her everyday life. Highlights for Kate over the past year include working with Dancemakers and CanAsian Dance, acting in a workshop of Julie Tamiko Manning’s new play Mizushōbai (Tableau D’Hôte Theatre), and dancing with Tara Butler's company Dust and Soul Dance. Currently she is working on her own show 20 Grains of Rice, an exploration of Japanese Canadian identity - cultural loss, retention and creation. Kate holds a BFA from Toronto Metropolitan University in Theatre Performance Dance.   

 Jianna Neufeld (she/her) is a queer, Tkaronto-based, dance and theatre artist, who was born and raised at Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway. She is a graduate of the Victoria Academy of Ballet (2017), and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre (2020), where she was honoured co-valedictorian and the two-time recipient of the Walker Wood Bursary. She also holds a BFA Hons. in Choreography/Performance from York University, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2023. Neufeld is currently working as an independent artist across Turtle Island, having performed for Frog in Hand, Adrian de Leeuw, Caroline Bentley, Dave Wilson, Newton Moraes, The Bentway Conservancy, and Maria Isabel Salgado, among others. In addition to performing, Neufeld is passionate about the outdoors and works as an outdoor educator and wilderness guide for youth in and around the GTA. 

  Willem Sadler is a street styles and contemporary based artist from Toronto, Ontario. Willem has had the opportunity to perform and show his work internationally, most recently in New York City. Willem defines himself as a versatile dancer/creator and strives to squash the separation of ‘styles’ in hopes to present dance as movement without restrictions. Throughout his career Willem has performed and collaborated with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Mirvish, Dusk Dances, CCDT, Dance Collection Danse, Zata OMM, ProArteDanza and Côté Danse. He has also performed works by Jennifer Archibalt, Guillaume Côté, Colin Connor, William Yong and Robert Lepage.  In his commercial dance career he has performed for the Pan American Games, Roots Canada, Shoppers Drug Mart, Artists in Motion Dance Company and has taught at Toronto’s leading studios such as Run The Flex and StudioNorth Toronto. Willem has most notably performed in Côté Danse’s X(Dix)as part of the 20th Fall For Dance Festival at the New York City Center. Willem is grateful to have the opportunity to express freely as an artist and contribute towards enriching the Toronto dance community. 

 Viktoria began her training at Carousel Dance Centre, finding her love for dance in ballet, jazz and modern classes, performing in year end productions. Continuing her studies in dance, Viktoria attended Eastwood Collegiate Institute for the Integrated Arts Program, performing in countless Eastwood shows including Gala’s, Floor Is Yours’, Senior Dance Show’s, and End Of The World Senior Drama show performances. Through Eastwood, Viktoria achieved the opportunity to perform Swan Lake in the Thorgy & The Thorchestra show. When graduating, she was presented with a Passion For Dance award. Viktoria has performed local participant roles for Canada Ballet Jorgen’s The Nutcracker production in 2019 and 2022 and is the Local Participant Rehearsal Director in Kitchener/Waterloo for the 2023 CBJ Nutcracker at Centre in The Square.   Viktoria was introduced to contemporary dance in her last year of high-school, translating her story into emotional pieces of movement. . Viktoria will continue to flourish in her dance career with renowned choreographer Tara Butler, Canada’s Ballet Jorgen, choreographing for Out Of The Box Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and proceeding to spread the joy found in dance." 

 A fierce advocate for regional theatre artists, Lisa O’Connell (she/her) is the founding Artistic Director of Pat the Dog Theatre Creation, a catalyst for New Works of Theatre and producer of PlaySmelter Northern New Works Festival (Sudbury) and Femme Folks Fest (Waterloo Region). Artists receiving dramaturgy by O’Connell have received and/or been nominated for the Governor-Generals Award (Drama), RBC Tarragon Playwright Award, the Carol Bolt Award, RBC Directors Award, among others. Work created at PTD has been presented across Canada and the UK. O’Connell is the recipient of numerous awards, most recently an Award of Excellence by the Creative City Network of Canada for her work building creative ecologies. O’Connell divides her time between her artistic homes in Waterloo, ON and Sudbury, ON.