Executive Director
Gillian is responsible for the strategic and artistic leadership of Dance Victoria. Three years ago, she returned to Victoria after living in the U.S. and abroad for almost 15 years. She is delighted to be working with Dance Victoria’s amazing team, and raising her family in the city she loves.
Before joining Dance Victoria, Gillian was Associate Executive Director at Edmonds Center for the Arts in Edmonds, WA, where she programmed a multi-disciplinary series of 25 performances. Previously, Gillian was Director of Interpretation at SALT, an arts and cultural institution in Istanbul, Turkey, where she designed multi-disciplinary arts programming for students, educators, and families.
In 2019, Gillian had the opportunity to participate in the Jacob’s Pillow National Dance Presenters’ Forum in Becket, MA. The Forum invited 20 emerging dance presenters from across the U.S. to spend an unbelievable week seeing world-class dance companies, discussing timely issues in dance presentation, and exploring new models for community engagement. This experience sparked Gillian’s excitement to present dance exclusively… and ultimately led her to Dance Victoria!
Gillian enjoys traveling, cooking, walking her sweet pit bull mix Margie, and seeing as much dance as she can. A career highlight was presenting the 2018 premiere of Love Heals All Wounds by Lil Buck & Jon Boogz / Movement Art Is. The piece was opened by youth dancers from Northwest Tap Connection, a race and social justice-oriented tap studio in Seattle. “Seeing the connection between professional artists and young people always inspires me – it was powerful to watch the dancers interact, and to experience the conversation their work sparked for the audience.”