Apprentices

Jess Ames

Jess was born and raised in Terrace, British Columbia. She trained as an artistic gymnast for seven years before her studio dance training at Sophia’s Dance Studio. She started her profressional dance training with the Arts Umbrella Professional Program in Vancouver, British Columbia under the artistic direction of Artemis Gordon. Jess holds a diploma in dance attained from Vancouver Community College. She has had the privlege of working with world renound choreographers such as Roberto Campanella, Andrea Miller, Steven Shropshire, Gioconda Barbuto, Wen Wei Wang, Aszure Barton, and Lesley Telford. She danced as an apprentice for Noord Nederlandse Dans, in Groningen, The Netherlands, The Response with Amber Funk Barton in Vancouver and she is thrilled to be in the creative process of “Dark Room” with Body Narrative Collective.

Jennifer Aoki

Jennifer is a Canadian contemporary dancer and choreographer. She holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University and is Co-founder of Triadic Dance Works. Jennifer has had the privilege to perform in Barbara Lindenberg MFA project and Carlos Sandoval’s site-specific Parasite Intervention Project in Berlin. Jennifer has trained with German dance companies COCOONDANCE and Sasha Waltz & Guests and has studied contact improvisation intensively with Peter Bingham on a scholarship at EDAM. She is currently apprenticing with Body Narratives Collective and dancing with MMAM Improv Collective.

Olivia Davies

Olivia is an independent dance artist who explores the realm of story telling through movement. Past collaborations include fashion shows, music video choreography, and performances in theatres and street festivals. Co-founder of MataDanZe Collective, Davies believes in accessibility of dance.

Jen Dunford

Jen is an emerging artist in the Vancouver community. She has recently created works for two site-specific festivals and is presently finishing a BFA at SFU. She hails from Alberta where she began her career in dance and visual art.

Juan Carlos Villegas

Juan is an emerging artist with a degree in industrial design and is currently completing a diploma in dance at Simon Fraser University.

In 2012 he joined Kinesis Dance Somatheatro. Juan is also a free lance designer and teaches yoga and a Pilates around Vancouver.

Kyra Jacques

Kyra is a 4th year student in the Simon Fraser University Contemporary Dance Program, and is based in Vancouver. She has trained under artists such as Rob Kitsos, Farley Johansson, Shauna Elton, Judith Garay, Megan Walker-Straight and many more. Prior to her apprenticeship with Body Narratives Collective, she was an apprentice with Mascall Dance. Jacques has performed extensively, and has been featured in new works choreographed various artists including Paras Terezakis, Tiffany Tregarthen and Tara Cheyenne Friedenburg.