National Council
2024 - 2025

David Warburton (김모세)

David Warburton (김모세) is the Executive Director of The Port Theatre, a leading community performing arts centre located on the traditional territory of the Snuneymux First Nation on Vancouver Island. He is also the Vice President of the Canadian Dance Assembly, a national arts service organization that provides a strong voice for Canadian dance and supports the development of resources for the dance sector through its various programs and advocacy efforts.

Warburton is the former Managing Director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Company (RWB). He joined the RWB in 2013 as Company Manager and before stepping into the role as the Director of Touring and Business Development and then Managing Director. He served an integral role in reshaping and rebuilding the ballet company. His work at the RWB has taken him around the world including China, Colombia, Argentina, Italy, Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, and many other destinations. He led the RWB to join the Winnipeg Indigenous Accord, a multi-year commitment to answer the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action. In response, the RWB Indigenous Advisory Circle was established as a promise to bring our communities closer together through inclusive, considerate, and accountable action.

In 2015, Warburton co-created the national award-winning play SANGJA, closely inspired by his adoption story as an international transracial adoptee and his search to find his birth family. The play premiered in Seoul and toured multiple times throughout Korea and Canada. He has been invited to guest speak about his work in advocacy in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Seoul. In 2018, he was selected as one of nine emerging leaders for Dance/USA’s Institute for Leadership Training, a program supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, that focuses on shifting patterns of inequity in dance. He was an organizing member of the Korean Society of Manitoba from 2016 to 2022. His work in government advocacy and cultural diplomacy has meaningfully contributed to federal support for the arts and cultural sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has included crucial direct consultations with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and the Prime Minister’s Office.

Edward Esguerra

Edward Esguerra is the Director of Finance & Administration at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. A leading cultural institution, the RWB has earned a national and international reputation for its extraordinary performances and top-class training programs. At the RWB, Esguerra helps with managing project budgets and reporting. Working closely with the CEO and Managing Directors, he has guided the organization through difficult financial periods.

Esguerra has volunteer experience as an English Teacher with Manitoba School Improvement Program, helping newcomers to Canada adapt to their new surroundings. Esguerra also serves as Treasurer for Creative Manitoba.

Harmanie Rose

Harmanie Rose is a disabled dance artist living and working on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She is curious about the choreographic possibilities of the disabled dancing body. Harmanie co-founded iDance Edmonton in 2009 as a way of creating ongoing learning and performance opportunities in dance for people with and without disabilities. Since 2014, Harmanie has been working as a performer, choreographer, and facilitator for All Bodies Dance Project. She is excited to be co-facilitating Ready Dance Youth Project with Danielle Wensley. She has created four outdoor, site-specific pieces for Vines Art Festival and was a featured performer in world-renowned dance artist Alice Sheppard’s short dance film Inclinations. Harmanie participated in UCLA’s inaugural Dancing Disability Lab, which aims to answer questions around the culture and aesthetics of disabled dance. In May 2020 Harmanie was featured in The Dance Current. Harmanie has recently joined the board of directors of CRIPSiE in Edmonton and the InterdepenDance collective of disabled dance artists in BC. She is excited to be a part of the discussion of decolonizing the idea of what dance is and what it can be.

Charlotte Newman

Charlotte (she/her) is a dance artist, teacher, arts worker, and producer with over ten years of experience engaged in the arts in Vancouver. She currently works as the General Manager at New Works, and is honoured to support and collaborate with a diversity of BC dance artists through this role. She is passionate about accessible community building, play and craft as practice, and championing the arts within education. She previously produced a year-long live cross-campus performance series for Simon Fraser University, and has worked with DanceHouse, Eponymous, and Vancouver New Music. She was born and raised in Seattle, is humbled to now call the unceded and ancestral lands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations home. Contact: charlotte@newworks.ca

Marc Lalonde

After training at the École supérieure de danse du Québec, Marc Lalonde danced from 1987 to 1992, mainly for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (J. Kudelka, F. Nault, B. Nijinska), the Calgary City Ballet (J. Léger, L. Lambrou, H. Richard) and Howard Richard Danse.

He holds a combined Major in Philosophy and Economics from Université de Montréal and earned a Master of Business Administration from HEC Montréal.

Successively Director of Development and Marketing for I Musici de Montréal Chamber Orchestra from 1993 to 1996, he then undertook its general management until 1999. He was then appointed Executive Director of the National Circus School, a position he held until his appointment as Executive Director of Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique du Québec in 2015. He has been Executive Director of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens since 2018. 

Co-Founder and long-time Secretary and Treasurer of the presenter Tohu – La Cité des arts du cirque, Marc Lalonde has served on many other boards of the cultural sector, notably those of the Association des écoles supérieures d’art du Québec, the Conseil québécois de la musique, En Piste – National Circus Arts Alliance, the European Federation of Professional Circus Schools (FEDEC),  the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Regroupement québécois de la danse. He is currently a member of the advisory committee of the Carmelle and Remi-Marcoux Chair in Arts Management at HEC Montréal and of the board of directors of Adélard – Visual Arts.

Jose Miguel ‘Miggy’ Esteban

Jose Miguel ‘Miggy’ Esteban is a dance/movement artist and educator based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Miggy’s artistic work develops improvisational practices of navigating mad and queer routes to embody Filipinx remembering and belonging. Currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Social Justice Education, OISE/University of Toronto, Miggy’s research and teaching is oriented through disability studies, black studies, and dance/performance studies. Influenced by disability arts and culture, black radical traditions, indigenous storytelling, and queer performance, Miggy’s dissertation project engages in embodied practices of improvisation to (re)interpret curriculum as a choreographic site for inspiring pedagogies of/through dance. Miggy’s work has been published in Canadian Theatre Review, Disability Studies Quarterly, Journal for Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, Theatre Journal, TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, and in various edited volumes.

Victor Vân Tran/Savage Rock

Victor Vân Tran, known in the underground as B.Boy Savage Rock, is a prominent Vietnamese-Canadian dance artist recognized for his multifaceted work in competing, performing, organizing, teaching, and producing. Specializing in street and social dance practices, Victor is a fresh choreographer focused on transposing these forms onto the stage, bridging genres and audiences. Based between Tiohtià:ke/Montreal and so-called Vancouver, Victor leverages his dual creative bases to elevate national dance expressions. His leadership within the community has helped shape the history of street dance, especially in breaking and hustle dance. As an emerging choreographer, Victor premiered his first full-length production, GRAND SAUT [plastic orchid factory, Vancouver 2024], showcasing three new works that reflect the culmination of his evolving career as it transitions into stage spaces. In addition to his artistic work, Victor serves as the Executive Director at CADA/West, where he advocates for fair standards in dance.

Collette "Coco" Murray

Collette “Coco” Murray is a dance educator, cultural arts programmer, and dance instructor. Her performance background includes Caribbean Folk, traditional West African, and other diasporic dance styles with many Toronto-based dance companies. She is a dedicated dance artist whose creative work spans 20 years in Ontario in communities. Murray creates culturally responsive art programs and focuses on mentorship of emerging Black dancers and an art educator that partners with organizations. Miss Coco Murray is her mobile, dance education business yet Murray is also Artistic Director of Coco Collective, an intergenerational, multidisciplinary team of artists offering projects connecting participants to the knowledge from African and Caribbean arts. This award-winning artist is recognized as one of 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women honouree in 2020 and the 2019 recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Community Arts Award for her significant contribution to working in and for transforming local communities through dance. Murray was the Canadian Dance Assembly’s 2013 recipient of the “I love Community” Dance award in Vancouver, BC. In addition, Murray is a contributing writer published in The Dance Current magazine and Dance Collection Danse. She serves on the Board of Directors for Arts Etobicoke and Dance Umbrella of Ontario (DUO) bringing equity, education, and inclusion lens. Murray is pursuing her Ph.D. in Dance Studies at York University to research on dance education pedagogies and mentorship that supports the Canadian African diasporic dance sector.

Tatum Wildeman

Tatum Wildeman is a Saskatchewan based independent contemporary dance artist and artistic director of The Saskatchewan Dance Project. She is dedicated to advancing safe and professional level dance training and performing opportunities for dancers in Saskatchewan. Tatum is committed to safe dance practice and is in the final stage of completing her Safe in Dance certificate through Healthy Dancer Canada. Tatum also dedicates her time to outreach dance-based programs focused on mental wellness for Indigenous youth living on reserve and is currently working with the community of Wollaston Lake to establish and deliver a permanent dance program. Tatum is a practicing Registered Nurse and is currently working towards a masters in nursing at the University of Saskatchewan focusing on the use of dance to improve mental wellness in Indigenous youth living in northern Saskatchewan. Tatum is passionate about the use of dance to improve mental health and advancing safe dance practice for professional independent dance artists.

Liliona A. Quarmyne

My body is a conduit, a link to past and to future generations. 

It takes me back, it takes me forward, it carries the present. 

My body is story.

Based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), on the powerful, unceded and unsurrendered land of the Mi’kmaq people, Liliona is a dancer, choreographer, actor, singer, community organizer, and activist. Originally from Ghana and the Philippines, she has an eclectic background that has taken her through many performance styles on four different continents. Liliona performs across the country and internationally, creates original works as an independent artist, facilitates community programming, and is the Artistic Director of Kinetic Studio. The scope of Liliona’s artistic work is broad, but is particularly focused on the relationship between art and social justice, on the body’s ability to carry ancestral memory, and on the role the performing arts can play in creating change. Liliona loves to work in collaboration and community, and is mom to two wonderful kids.

Michelle Olson

Michelle Olson is a member of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation and the Artistic Director of Raven Spirit Dance. She studied dance and performance at the University of New Mexico, the Aboriginal Arts Program at the Banff Centre and was an Ensemble Member of Full Circle First Nations Performance.  Michelle works in areas of dance, theatre and opera as a choreographer, performer and movement coach and her work has been seen on stages across Canada. Selected choreographic credits include Gathering Light (Raven Spirit Dance), Mozart’s Magic Flute (Vancouver Opera), The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (Western Canada Theatre/National Arts Centre), Death of a Chief (Native Earth Performing Arts/National Arts Centre). She was the recipient of the inaugural Vancouver International Dance Festival Choreographic Award.She graduated as a Certified Movement Analyst from Laban/Bartenieff and Somatic Studies Canada and is currently teaching at Langara’s Studio 58.