2023/24 Artist in Residence
Kiera Shaw (she/her) is a moving, thinking dance artist. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from York University, and often wears many different hats as a dancer, choreographer, lighting designer, stage manager, and educator. Kiera is driven by how these different roles inform her artistic practice as a whole.
A lifelong learner and traveller, Kiera has sought to expand her training through festivals and programs including: TransFormation Danse (Montreal), ImPulsTanz International Dance Festival (Vienna), Batsheva’s Gaga Intensives (Tel Aviv), HASADNA (Tel Aviv), and Vertigo Dance Company Masterclass (Jerusalem).
As a choreographer she’s drawn to cultivating and deepening kinesthetic empathy through dance. In collaborative process, Kiera values rigor, playfulness, curiosity, and challenging the capacity of the human body. These values and interests have shaped her works The Maze, a hidden autobiography, and A Hidden Playground. Her work has been shared at the National Arts Centre (Ottawa) and Dancing on the Edge Festival (Vancouver).
As a dance artist Kiera has worked with choreographers/directors Kathy Lang, Tracey Norman, Michelle Silagy, Julia Sasso, Susan Lee, Holly Small, and Gwenyth Dobie. She was a member of The Garage dance collective (2017-2019) where she both performed works by emerging artists and facilitated workshops. She also performed in 72 Person Ball-Passing (Charles Moulton) at Fall for Dance North.