Artistic Director of REAson d'etre dance and Dance Artist
Kathleen Rea danced with Canada’s Ballet Jorgen, National Ballet of Canada & Tiroler Landestheater (Austria). She fell in love with contact improvisation 22 years ago & has been involved in the community ever since. She has choreographed over 40 dance works and has been nominated for 5 DORA awards. Kathleen has a learning disability, which means writing takes 6 times longer than average. It is one of life’s mysteries that despite this struggle she loves writing and is a published author (The Healing Dance). She has a Master’s in Expressive Arts with a minor in Psychology. She is a certified teacher of the Axis Syllabus and Buteyko Breathing. She is the director of REAson d’etre dance, a Toronto not-for-profit dance company that is contact improvisation based and produces a weekly jam, a Film Fest, and dance theatre productions. She has autism & works to educate the world about neurodiversity. She developed the well-read REAson d’etre Dance Jam Guidelines (download here) which over the past 20 years have influenced consent culture in the contact improvisation worldwide community. She also is the founder of the Contact Improv Consent Culture Blog. Kathleen Rea's Demo Reel
Dance Artist
Nancy has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from York University where she studied Dance Therapy. She worked with children in residential care, taught Child and Youth Work at George Brown College and then trained as a psychotherapist using mindfulness and body-based approaches. Nancy is Certified in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and worked as a psychotherapist for over 30 years in private practice. She is a dedicated student of the Axis Syllabus and a long time practitioner of Contact Dance Improvisation.
Dance Artist
Harrison Argatoff is a Toronto-based saxophonist, composer, and dancer. His music, described as “Somewhere between Bach, BL!NDMAN and Mark Turner” (Jazz Halo, 2020), strives to combine the study of jazz, and classical, and free-improvised music to cultivate an enthusiastically eclectic, yet distinctly personal sound. His study of movement began with street dance, before a chance encounter lead him to contact improvisation, and then, through Kathleen Rea's teaching, to the axis syllabus.
Dance Artist
Adrian is a performer, kind of by chance. He has trained in contemporary dance and theater. He has collaborated with Kinesfera, a mixed-ability dance company based in Peru with strong foundations in Contact Improvisation. He also collaborated with theater maker Maloka Rincon's Teatro del Vinagre. He has performed in contemporary dance festivals in Perú, Germany and Cuba.
Now based in Toronto, he has been training and collaborating with Kathleen Rea's REAson d'etre dance, where he is diving into Axis Syllabus and Contact Improvisation. As a performer, he is interested in crafting meaningful stories and exploring the poetry of movement.
Adrian believes that meaningful stories have a transformative power, and that through the poetry of movement and the word, we unveil the invitation to participate in life more deeply.
Dance Artist
Berkan Gorgun is a dancer and choreographer with a strong foundation in both performance and teaching. He graduated from Ankara University State Conservatory with a BA in Stage Arts – Modern Dance and worked extensively with the Turkish State Theatre, performing and choreographing in numerous productions over more than a decade. Now based in Toronto, he is actively involved in dance education, teaching creative movement and contemporary dance—while continuously learning, researching, and deepening his practice through movement, improvisation, and interdisciplinary exploration.
Dance Artist
Kunji Ikeda (池田 勲二 he/they) plays with physical communication to grow physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing within his communities. Using dance, theatre, clown, and contact improv their fearless political work explores our communities most pressing political ideas and has earned multiple awards and nominations for performance and choreography. Ikeda has trained intensively with One Yellow Rabbit and is honoured to be pursuing a life of connection and empathy in Tkaronto.
Dance Artist
Samantha (she/her) is a dancer, teacher, and choreographer. She has taught ballet, hip hop, jazz, and acro classes for ages 2-10 at Dance in Style. In addition, she ran the dance program at Triple Arts Bright for 2 years. Samantha first started with ballet, contemporary, and hip hop at Dance in Style Studios in Woodstock, Ontario. She continued with ballet and passed the RAD syllabus grades 6-8 exams, intermediate, advanced, 1, and discovering repertoires: level 4 at Burford dancers. At George Brown College, Samantha performed their winter show, In Hause and end-of-year show, Unleashed, as part of their certificate in dance performance preparation. She had explored the Axis Syllabus and CI, which led her to intern with REAson d'etre dance. In the 2023 Contact Dance international film festival, she performed Are a Mesh choreographed by Kathleen Rea.
Dance Artist
Dance artist-scholar and educator Mika Lillit Lior holds a PhD in Culture and Performance from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her creative practices include contact improvisation, composition, samba, capoeira and dance film. Ogum’s Story, Lior’s screendance collaboration with Afro-Brazilian ritual elder Dona Cici, featured in the International Eco-Performance Film Festival in São Paulo. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at York University’s Department of Theatre, Dance and Performance and a teacher candidate of the Axis Syllabus.
Dance artist-scholar and educator Mika Lillit Lior holds a PhD in Culture and Performance from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her creative practices include contact improvisation, composition, samba, capoeira and dance film. Ogum’s Story, Lior’s screendance collaboration with Afro-Brazilian ritual elder Dona Cici, featured in the International Eco-Performance Film Festival in São Paulo. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at York University’s Department of Theatre, Dance and Performance and a teacher candidate of the Axis Syllabus.
Dance Artist
Suzanne Liska (MFA Dance Choreography, Certified Alexander Technique Teacher) specializes in choreography, performance-as-research, somatics, dance kinesiology, East Asian dance/theatre and contact/ensemble improvisation. Her artistic and scholarly practices are shaped by her diasporic mixed-Asian Canadian cultural background and somatic dance theatre practices. She is thus committed to exploring the interrelatedness of mind, body, and identity and the role of movement in questioning, inhabiting/embodying, and transforming intergenerational reverberations. Suzanne has received grants and awards through CCA, TAC, OAC, York University and SSHRC; and is contract faculty for York University’s Dance Department and George Brown College’s Theatre School. Suzanne has performed multiple roles as a company dancer, teacher, and co-choreographer for Kathleen Rea and grateful to continue this research. www.suzanneliska.com
Dance Artist
Marina Robinson (she/her) is a Vancouver born movement artist, choreographer and teacher. She has trained extensively with the Vancouver training program, Source Dance Company, and expanded her repertoire through various intensives across Vancouver and Montreal. Robinson made the move to Toronto in January 2022 and most recently performed in Sarah U’s contemporary dance work titled Liminal Bodies for Common Ground Dance Festival. She presented her first full length work, Unfurl at Toronto Fringe Festival in 2023 and continues to immerse herself in the Toronto arts community. Robinson specialises in contemporary floorwork and is currently expanding her foundational knowledge of breakdance.
