Aurora Dance: Palma has been dancing since early childhood. In 1992 she discovered flamenco, and subsequently became a professional dancer and teacher. She is a former member of the Flamenco Rosario company, and was also a regular performer at Kino Cafe for five years. Although Palma is currently kept quite busy with her wonderful three-year-old daughter, she recently co-founded Aurora Dance with fellow dancer Karen Pitkethly. Their first presentation (October 2005) showcased the distinctive style of dance they call “brio”: the use of flamenco movement to interpret non-flamenco music. Palma is looking forward to sharing a bit of brio at the In the House Festival in June!

Kokoro Dance: Taking its name from the Japanese word kokoro - meaning heart, soul and spirit, Kokoro Dance creates deeply evocative and provocative performances. Inspired by the Japanese modern dance form known as butoh, Kokoro Dance fuses the aesthetics of East and West.

Barbara Bourget was born in Port Alberni, BC. Her early dance training was under the tutelage of Mara McBirney under whom she passed the advanced exams of the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus. At the age of sixteen she became a scholarship student at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School that she attended for two years and performed with the RWB in works by Agnes de Mille and José Ferran among others. From 1969 to 1972, Barbara performed with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and was in the original cast of the rock opera ballet Tommy. From 1974 to 1978, Barbara was the resident artist of Mountain Dance Theatre. In 1979, she joined the Paula Ross Dance Company where she met Jay Hirabayashi. After working again with Mountain Dance Theatre, Judith Marcuse, Karen Jamieson, Savannah Walling, and the Vancouver Opera, in 1982, Barbara, Jay, Peter Bingham, Ahmed Hassan, Lola MacLaughlin, Jennifer Mascall, and Peter Ryan joined together to form the collective EDAM. In 1986, Barbara and Jay left EDAM to form Kokoro Dance. Barbara received a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Simon Fraser University in 2003.

Jay Hirabayashi was born in Seattle, WA. His early training was in athletics and he spent several years racing downhill skiing. He moved to Vancouver in 1973 to attend graduate school at the University of British Columbia where he received a Masters Degree in Religious Studies in 1978. He began to dance at the age of thirty to rehabilitate his knee after surgery for a ski-related injury. He was hired as a professional dancer in the Paula Ross Dance Company after just a year of study in 1979. In 1982, Jay was one of the original members of the Karen Jamieson Dance Company and also became a founding director of EDAM. With Barbara Bourget, after the formation of Kokoro Dance, Jay has studied with many of the leading butoh artists of the world. In 1995, Jay won the Canada Council’s Jacqueline Lemieux Prize and was given a grant to study in Japan with butoh founder Kazuo Ohno.

The Tomorrow Collective: The Tomorrow Collective is Mara Branscombe, Katy Harris-McLeod and Jennifer McLeish-Lewis, three Vancouver-based contemporary dance artists. Together they produce, promote, create and perform new dance and multidisciplinary work.  The collective is committed to evolving and exposing contemporary dance to the unacquainted audience. The Tomorrow Collective produces the popular showcase Brief Encounters.  This is an artistic performance lab which pairs artists from different genres and gives them two weeks before showtime to collaborate and create.  Look for The Tomorrow Collective performing the work of choreographapher Susan Elliott in this years Dancing on the Edge Festival.For more info: tomorrowcollective@yahoo.ca

Colin Trickey representing NON (Now or Never): Colin started B-boying since a very young age. With inborn power and flexibility, he is able to literally “fly in the air” without problems. He joined N.O.N in 2004, and has been playing a significant role in helping the crew constantly win awards in major competitions. Due to his insane skills in B-boying, he soon made himself well-known and also became one of the top B-boys in Vancouver. Aside from his craziness in break dance, Colin is also a talented graffiti artist. Just like the way he dances, his graffiti works are also powerful in shapes, and stylish in design.

David Cox: David Cox is a dancer/teacher/choreographer, whose goal in life is to inspire tap dancers of all ages. At the ripe age of 2 he found himself with this wonderful art form at his feet. Growing up he has learned from some of the best dancers in the world: Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, Dr. Jimmy Slyde, Dr. Henry LeTang, Micheal Minery, Ayodele Casel, and Heather Cornell just to name a few. Among his achievements are awards such as the (YTV) YAA! Award, 3X gold medalist at the World Tap Dance Championships, sharing the stage along side Gregory Hines in "Bojangles", and the first Canadian to perform with "STOMP". He hopes that Tap dance will touch others in the same way it has in his life. Here's to the second balcony!

http://www.myspace.com/shaboobieboobarella

Shaboobie Boobarella: Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Shaboobie Boobarella is an animated performer of Burlesque, Go-Go, Disco, Polynesian, Cabaret, Shimmying and a touch of tap! With twelve years experience under her sequined belt, she is also an 'every now and then' pin-up model and burlesque poetess. She arrived on the shores of Vancouver with a suitcase full of costumes and a yearning to discover her First Nations heritage. Beading and PowWows, Sequins and Burlesque. Shaboobie loves it all!

Mya Mayhem: Singer Actor Dancer Model Burlesque Performer and soon to be Fire Breather... you'd know me to see me as I'm probably the only gal in vancouver crazy enough to wear neon dayglo 80's spandex daily! I sing with Thrash band Life Against Death and Punk band The Draft but can't get enough of those jazzy showtunes so you can also find me performing with the Screaming chicken Theatrical Society (vaudeville Burlesque at it's best!!) or centre stage of a roaring rockopera.

Adrian Sumpthin Sumpthin: Adrian Sumpthin Sumpthin, the ecentrisexy Boylesque sensation, draws on years of stored up sexual energy repressed during years of Presbyterian-ation. To maintain partial sanity while abstaining from various pleasures, he learned to channel all his energies into his sacrum and surrounding pelvic and buttock regions. Now as a Boylesque dancer, he therapeutically unthaws this erotic icecubed sex-battery for all to see.

Miss Fixx: Social activists by day, burlesque misfits by night, Miss Fixx and Mademoiselle Jezebel are known for their potent blend of old and new, mixing vintage costumes with neoburlesque music.  Miss Fixx and Jez got their start at the Creole Kitty show, producing and dancing in a burlesque benefit for HIV in Haiti featuring Sweet Soul Burlesque and other fabulous Vancouver performers.  After the Creole show, our illustrious super mamas have been regulars at Lick's many Dyke March ‘Hot and Horny’ fundraisers.  They have also performed at East Van's In the House festival, The Vancouver International Burlesque Festival’s Heartbreaker Revue, the Sistahood Festival’s St Paddy’s Day Cabaret and Sweet Soul Sassacre at the Red Room.

Madamoiselle Jezebel: Social activists by day, burlesque misfits by night, Miss Fixx and Mademoiselle Jezebel are known for their potent blend of old and new, mixing vintage costumes with neoburlesque music.  Miss Fixx and Jez got their start at the Creole Kitty show, producing and dancing in a burlesque benefit for HIV in Haiti featuring Sweet Soul Burlesque and other fabulous Vancouver performers.  After the Creole show, our illustrious super mamas have been regulars at Lick's many Dyke March ‘Hot and Horny’ fundraisers.  They have also performed at East Van's In the House festival, The Vancouver International Burlesque Festival’s Heartbreaker Revue, the Sistahood Festival’s St Paddy’s Day Cabaret and Sweet Soul Sassacre at the Red Room.