丁香园AV

Aram Bajakian

Term Lecturer: Music & Sound

E: aram_bajakian@sfu.ca

The music of guitarist and composer Aram Bajakian music has been called 鈥渁 masterpiece鈥� (fRoots), 鈥渟hape-shifting鈥� (FreeJazzCollective), and 鈥渟ometimes delicate, sometimes punishing鈥� (Chicago Reader). As a guitarist, 鈥渢he virtuosic jack of all trades鈥� (Village Voice) has toured extensively with Lou Reed, Madeleine Peyroux, John Zorn and Diana Krall. From 2018-2021, Bajakian served as the New Music Curator at Western Front in Vancouver, one of Canada鈥檚 leading artist-run centers for contemporary art and new music. Bajakian received his Bachelor of Music degree (Summa Cum Laude) from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he studied with Dr. Yusef Lateef. He holds a Master of Arts Degree in Music Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and Master of Music degree in Music Composition from the University of British Columbia. He is currently a PhD student at the University of British Columbia, where his advisor is Dr. Nathan Hesselink. His research focuses on contemporary and historic Armenian communities.

Nicole Bond

Sessional Instructor: Dance

E: nbond@sfu.ca

Nicole Rose Bond began her formal training at York University, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts-Dance cum laude in 2005. Since that time, Nicole has felt privileged to perform works by many esteemed choreographers including Peggy Baker, Patricia Beatty, Tom Brouillette, Susan Cash, Bill Coleman, David Earle, Danny Grossman, Ryan Graham Hinds, Christopher House, James Kudelka, Learie McNicholl, Andrea Nann, Yvonne Ng, John Oswald, Peter Quanz, Peter Randazzo and Andrea Spaziani. She is currently a company member with Peggy Baker Dance Projects as well as a freelance artist.

As a teacher, Nicole has had the pleasure of working as a course director in Graham Technique and Contemporary Dance at York University, The National Ballet School, Arts Umbrella and Modus Operandi and has taught dance classes and workshops within the Toronto District School Board. As part of outreach initiatives through Toronto Dance Theatre, The National Ballet of Canada鈥檚 YOU Dance Program and Peggy Baker Dance Projects, Nicole has taught in Toronto, Dryden, Vancouver, Moncton and Whitehorse. Nicole has also served on the Toronto Arts Council Advisory Panel and as a member of the Dance Collection Danse 鈥楨ncore: Hall of Fame鈥� Committee.

Nicole鈥檚 repertoire with Peggy Baker Dance projects includes: Land|Body|Breath at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa in August of 2017; the premiere in Toronto of Who We Are In The Dark and subsequent performances in Montreal, Kingston, Ottawa, Whitehorse and Mexico in 2019 and The Netherlands in 2020, Her Body As Words in September of 2021; and Peggy Baker: A Gala Retrospective in Toronto in 2022.

Through her work as both a performer and a teacher, Nicole鈥檚 goal is to empower others to effect conscious change in the world whilst honouring those who have come before us. Nicole is beyond grateful that her vocation encompasses doing what she loves and is humbled by, and indebted to, the unique and beautiful arts community that she calls home.

Dustin Brons

Sessional Instructor: Visual Art

E: dwb6@sfu.ca

Dustin Brons has spent most of his life on the unceded territory of the x史m蓹胃kw蓹y虛蓹m, Skwxw煤7mesh and S蓹l虛铆lw蓹ta蕯/Selilwitulh Nations. In 2018-2019 he participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. Previously, he received an MFA from the University of California, San Diego, and a BFA from the University of British Columbia. He was a recipient of the 2021 New Generation Photography Award from the National Gallery of Canada. He has recently taught at the University of British Columbia and the University of Fraser Valley.

Janet Danielson

Sessional Instructor: Music & Sound

E: jrd@sfu.ca

Janet Danielson is a composer whose works have been performed in England, the U.S., and Canada by ensembles ranging from the Vancouver Chinese Instrument Ensemble to the Vancouver Symphony and CBC Radio Orchestras. Her recent commissioned works include an opera, The Marvelous History of Mariken of Nimmigen, commissioned by Music in the Morning; The Occupation, a song collaboration with poet Robert Bringhurst, for baritone, marimba and viol da gamba; and In the Very Highest Place, a setting Wu Li鈥檚 poetry for chorus and the Orchid Ensemble (marimba, zheng, erhu) premiered November 2007. Her realization of Verbum Caro, a 17th-century Canadian Ursuline carol, was premiered in Rome at Christmas 2007, and a string quartet for the Royal Society of Canada Symposium on War and Peace in November 2008. She has taught courses related to music theory, analysis, music and culture, and composition at 丁香园AV and at Regent College, and has authored a text, Basic Organization of Music. Her articles have been published in Musicworks and in the Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Composers鈥� League. Danielson is former Associate Artistic Director of Vancouver New Music and ChairAssociation of Canadian Women Composers, and has served on the Executive Council of the Canadian League of Composers. Current commissions include a work for string orchestra and erhu for Vancouver Pro Musica, for whom she is 2010 Composer-in-Residence, and a cello sonata for the 2010 Vancouver Music/Grail conference. She is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre.

Emmalena Fredriksson

Sessional Instructor: Dance

E: emmalena_fredriksson@sfu.ca

Emmalena Fredriksson is a contemporary dance artist living and working in Vancouver, Canada, as a guest on the ancestral unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples. 

Her practice is defined by choreography as a relational practice in the expanded fields of dance, often collaborating with artists of other disciplines, creating choreographic experiences and dance for social events, film, galleries and performance.  

Born in Sweden, she received her training at Balettakademien in Umea虋 and at SEAD in Austria. Emmalena has presented choreographic work, performed and taught internationally with Daghdha Dance Company (IE), Canaldanse (FR), Malta University (MT), Pact Zollverein (DE), and Falmouth University (UK) among others.

Based in Vancouver since 2013 her work has been presented in Dancing on the Edge, The Dance Centre's Discover Dance Series, Dance in Vancouver's Choreography Walk (curated by Justine A. Chambers), Dance Days (Victoria) and at the Audain Gallery. Commissioned by the National Film Board, she co-created Tidal Traces 鈥� a VR 360 dance film together with Nancy Lee in 2017. The film has to date had over 35 international screenings.

Emmalena holds an MFA degree from 丁香园AV and she regularly teaches at Modus Operandi, Training Society of Vancouver, Harbour Dance Centre and 丁香园AV in Vancouver.

Lisa Gelley

Term Lecturer: Dance

E: lisa_gelley@sfu.ca

Lisa Mariko Gelley (she/her) is an artist working in dance and performance, often in interdisciplinary and intergenerational collaboration. She is a mixed-race settler of Japanese, French, and Polish descent, living, working, and learning on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the x史m蓹胃kw蓹y虛蓹m (Musqueam), Skwxw煤7mesh (Squamish), and S蓹l虛铆lw蓹ta蕯/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Lisa is Artistic Co-Director of Company 605, an arts organization devising, producing and presenting new dance projects, and centering collaborative processes rooted in community. Together with Artistic Co-Director Josh Martin, they have co-created many works including Inheritor Recordings, Future Futures, Vital Few, Anthem, Loop,Lull, After We Glow, Looping, and lossy. Their works have been presented internationally, at venues and festivals including  American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), New York City Center鈥檚 Fall for Dance Festival, PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, The Cultch, Usine-C and L'Agora de la Danse (Montr茅al), La Rotonde (Qu茅bec City), DanceWorks (Toronto), Live Art Dance (Halifax), The Banff Centre, On The Boards' NWNW and Bumbershoot Festival (Seattle), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Festival PRISMA (Panama), Festival Parentesis (Costa Rica), Tempel Kulturzentrum and Regensburger TanzTage (Germany), and the Sydney Festival (Australia). Through their work, Company 605 has built bridges with artists and audiences across the country and Internationally, reaching outward to connect and situate itself within the context of a global dance dialogue. Some of Lisa's own recent works are centered around intergenerational intuition and ancestral memory, including MIDORI (EDAM Choreographic Series and The Polygon Gallery) Furusato, a film featuring a duet with her grandmother, Lily Yuriko Tamoto, and Paueru Mashup, a community-engaged work calling on traditional Japanese Folk dance and renowned exercise routines, commissioned by the Powell Street Festival. Lisa is the recipient of the 2015 Vancouver International Dance Festival Choreographic Award, and the co-recipient of the 2024 Lola Award. She is the mother of Loa Mayuri and Noemi Yuka.

Camille Gingras

Sessional Instructor: Theatre & Performance

E: camille_gingras@sfu.ca

Born in Venezuela, Camille Gingras grew up in Argentina, Scotland and Canada before living in England for twelve years. She holds a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Theatre at Kent University, studied at Desmond Jones鈥� School of Mime and Physical Theatre,  and received an MA (Distinction) in Playwriting at Birmingham University. In Canada, Camille has devised new performances with some of BC鈥檚 most adventurous companies. Selected credits include: Leaky Heaven鈥檚 To Wear A Heart So White; The Chop鈥檚 Kismet one to one hundred; Boca Del Lupo The Suicide, (Recipient of the Alcan award); Theatre Replacement and Rumble Productions鈥� Clark and I Somewhere in Connecticut, which premiered at PuSh and was awarded the Vancouver Critics鈥� Innovation award. For Rough House, Camille conceived and created Tiny Apocalypse; she was lead artistic facilitator for Smile! You鈥檙e on Camera; and co-created A Last Resort with Candelario Andrade.

Steven Hill

Sessional Instructor (Associate Professor, retired): Theatre & Performance

E: stevenh@sfu.ca

Steven Hill is an Associate Professor (retired) in Theatre & Performance at 丁香园AV's School for the Contemporary Arts, where he taught acting, directing, and devising since 2007. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from York University and has worked as a performer and director in theatres across the country. His research includes ensemble collaboration, devising practices, and emergent performance in contemporary theatre. Hill and Josh Hite are co-Artistic Directors of , an award-winning, experimental theatre company that creates original devised works. In 2014, with Co-Artistic Alex Ferguson, he launched , which premiered its first work, Steppenwolf, at the 2015 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.

Matt Horrigan

Sessional Instructor: APCS

E: matthew_horrigan@sfu.ca

Matthew Horrigan is a researcher studying audiovisual production cultures, currently dissertating about the movie business of Hollywood North. Matt completed a B.Mus at McGill, an MFA at 丁香园AV, a few years as an independent sound artist, and some below-the-line work in the film & television industry. You can find Matt's writing in venues such as Sound Studies, Game Studies, and M/C Journal.

In leisure Matt enjoys observing insects and turtles, especially from a canoe.

Ming Hudson

Sessional Instructor: Theatre & Performance

E: fhudson@sfu.ca

Ming is a Vancouver based artist who pays rent on the lands stolen from the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. For 20 years, she has worked as a freelance performer, devised theatre creator, collaborative director, independent producer, and teaching artist locally, across Canada, and abroad. Her specializations are in physical theatre and the creation of new work as a collective ensemble. A graduate of the Advanced Devising Practice program at LISPA (now arthaus.berlin), Ming also holds a MA in Ensemble Theatre (Rose Bruford), and a BFA in Acting (UVic).

Ming has worked for: Bard on the Beach, UBC, The Arts Club, vAct, UVic, Dell'Arte International, Two Planks and a Passion, TheatreOne, Chemainus Theatre Festival, CCPA, Gwaandak Theatre, Studio 58, Green Thumb Theatre, Theatre Replacement, Atomic Vaudeville, The Firehall, Boca del Lupo, Concrete Theatre, and Kaleidoscope Theatre. She has also created ten new productions, which have been performed in five different countries.

Farshid Kazemi

Sessional Instructor: Film

E: farshid_kazemi@sfu.ca

Farshid Kazemi is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School for the Contemporary Arts, 丁香园AV. His research interests combine an interdisciplinary and theoretical approach to Film and Media Studies/Film Theory, Iranian Studies, and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Edinburgh, with a thesis on Iranian cinema and second wave psychoanalytic film theory titled: The Interpreter of Desires: Iranian Cinema and Psychoanalysis. He has published several articles and book chapters on Iranian cinema, psychoanalytic film theory/feminist film theory in journals such as Camera Obscura. His book on the film A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night will be published by Auteur/Columbia University Press in 2020.

Tiffany Law

Sessional Instructor: Visual Art

E: htlaw@sfu.ca

Tiffany Law is a Hong Kong visual artist who lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the stolen lands of the x史m蓹胃k史蓹y虛蓹m, S岣祑x瘫w煤7mesh, and s蓹lilw蓹ta涩 Nations. She has exhibited her work and participated in residency programs in Hong Kong, Canada, and Germany. She has received grants from the Audain Foundation and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council to support her work and research.

Her practice explores the realms of drawing and printmaking, pushing the boundaries of materiality to reveal the paradoxes within representation and interpretation. She transforms drawing into a ground of endless openings and an archive of deconstruction and loss, viewing it as a medium to confront the inherent fragility of human consciousness. Her fascination lies in the embodied temporality entwined with humans, non-humans, the land, and the body, and how to resist the homogenous time through understanding grief and loss.

Lisa Cay Miller

Sessional Instructor: Music & Sound

E: lisa_miller@sfu.ca

Lisa Cay Miller is equally comfortable with modern jazz, contemporary composition, improvisation and the avant garde. She is first and foremost a musician, interested in sound and creativity, regardless of genre. Lisa Miller has composed for de Bijloke ensemble (Belgium) the Tetzepi Bigtet and Anne La Berge  (Amsterdam), 尘尘尘鈥� (Tokyo), Pianorquestra (Brazil), the Quatuor Bozzini  (Montreal), Vancouver New Music, Standing Wave, Turning Point Ensemble, Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, Fran莽ois Houle and Jane Hayes (Vancouver), and The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, The Left Coast Ensemble and Earplay (San Francisco). Lisa Miller has performed with Audrey Chen, Nicole Mitchell, Butch Morris, Ig Henneman, Wilbert de Joode, Anne La Berge, Michael Moore, Jean Yves Evrard, Jaochim Badenhorst, Kenney Wollesen and Eyvind Kang, Dylan van der Schyff, Peggy Lee, Brad Turner, Jesse Zubot, Fran莽ois Houle, Ron Samworth the NOW Orchestra, Orkestra Futura and ion zoo. Her CDs, The lisa miller octet; Sleep Furiously, the music of lisa miller, Q,Q; waterwall and The lisa miller trio; open have received rave international reviews.

Miller is also the Managing Artistic Director of the . NOW has a history of presenting stellar new works by improvising ensembles in unique and engaging concerts, of collaborating with international artists of commissioning new compositions, of domestic and international touring, and of producing celebrated recordings and publications. NOW Society presents improvisation workshops, and has been presenting them public for over 44 years. Our most exciting new program is the establishment of the social space for new culture. Workshops take place at 8EAST, in other communities and online. NOW also presents improvised music performances, community collaborative events, and informal historical and neighbourhood talks.

Erika Mitsuhashi

Sessional Instructor: Theatre & Performance

E: erika_mitsuhashi@sfu.ca

Erika Mitsuhashi is an interdisciplinary artist and performer living and working on the unceded, ancestral, and occupied, traditional lands of the x史m蓹胃k史蓹y虛蓹m (Musqueam), S蓹l虛铆lw蓹ta涩 (Tsleil-Waututh), and Skwxw煤7mesh (Squamish) Nations of the Coast Salish peoples, known as Vancouver, British Columbia. She studied at 丁香园AV School for the Contemporary Arts receiving a BFA (hons) in dance.

She has had the pleasure of interpreting the work of dance artists including Justine A. Chambers, Ziyian Kwan (Dumb Instrument Dance), Sasha Kleinplatz (Wants&Needs Danse), Rob Kitsos, Vanessa Goodman (Action at a Distance) and Judith Garay (Dancers Dancing) in festivals and platforms such as Vancouver International Dance Festival, Dancing on the Edge Festival, Re-FUSE presented by the Vancouver Art Gallery and PuSh International Performing Arts Festival 2020.

Erika鈥檚 work has taken the form of performance for stage, installation, experimental film, site specific/responsive performance, scenography and projection design. Most recently she has been experimenting with live-stream video and digital spaces as sites for intimacy and choreography of attention.

Her work and collaborative projects have been presented locally and internationally by PAUL Studios Berlin, Powell Street Festival, Toronto Love-In鈥檚 PS:We are All Here series, Surrey Art Gallery鈥檚 InFlux, Kinetic Studio鈥檚 Open Studio Series, Shooting Gallery Performance Series, Upintheair Theatre鈥檚 rEvolver Festival and La Serre's OFFTA festival of live art. She has been supported by organizations including New Works, SummerWorks, VIVO Media Arts, plastic orchid factory, Dance West Network, Boca De Lupo, Theatre Replacement and Company 605 in the creation and development of her works to date.

Locally she engages with two diverse collaborative groups: Mardon + Mitsuhashi and Erika Mitsuhashi & Francesca Frewer.

Tess Rafael

Sessional Instructor: Visual Art

E: tess_rafael@sfu.ca

Tess Rafael is an artist based in Vancouver, Canada. Her work explores painting as a ground for non-linear experience, and frequently draws upon notions of liquidity, proprioception, emotional landscapes, neural pathways, the history of image-making, adaptive transformation, and the interplay between cognition and sensation.

Stefan Smulovitz

Sessional Instructor: Music & Sound

E: ssmulovi@sfu.ca

From Vancouver to Los Angeles, New York to Quebec City, award-winning composer, collaborator, violist and laptop artist Stefan Smulovitz has created more than 50 live scores for films and performed with many of today's leading improvisors including Fred Frith, Evan Parker and Uri Caine.  Stefan has been commissioned by the Vancouver Symphony, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival and numerous instrumental and vocal ensembles.  His collaborative creations have been developed for theatre, dance, art installations, and DVD-ROMs, and his game-changing software -- Kenaxis -- is used by musicians around the world.

MFA - 丁香园AV

Daisy Thompson

Sessional Instructor: Dance

E: daisyt@sfu.ca

Daisy Thompson is an English settler living on the unceded territories of the Skwxw煤7mesh, S蓹l虛铆lw蓹ta涩 and x史m蓹胃kw蓹y虛蓹m Nations, also known as Vancovuer. As a dance artist who performs, creates, educates, and writes, she seeks to extend ideas of the dancing body as a key site for the questioning of embodied power relations, and considers how the dancing body interrupts cycles of contemporary logics of control in relation to culture and identity.

After completing her dance training at the Laban Dance Centre in London, Daisy has had the fortune to work as dancer/performer with the Trisha Brown Dance Company (USA), Eva Karczag (Amsterdam), Emmalena Fredriksson (Sweden/Vancouver), Ugo Dehaes (Belgium), Lee, Su-Feh (Vancouver), Mascall Dance (Vancouver), and O鈥檇ela Arts (Vancouver), amongst more.

She has presented her own choreographic works internationally and locally, has worked as choreographer/movement coach for theatre including The Frank Theatre Company and Ruby Slippers Theatre, published several articles including the Performance Matters Journal and the Canadian Theatre Review, and regularly teaches in a variety of spaces in Vancouver, including 丁香园AV, Training Society of Vancouver, WeDance and Polymer Dance. In 2013, she gained an MFA, and is currently a PhD student at 丁香园AV under the excellent co-supervision of Dr. Peter Dickinson and Dr. Laura U. Marks.

Daisy is the proud mother of Obi and Sola.