PRESENCE
a site-specific series.

Premiering alongside Beautiful Renegades from September 20 – October 2, 2022, PRESENCE takes place at Lisgar Park located at 45 Abell Street in Toronto. This two-week site-specific series features commissioned outdoor dance works from four wildly independent choreographers working in Toronto today: Renee Smith, Kiera Breaugh, Eilish Shin-Culhane, and Pulga Muchochoma.

Check out the artists’ bios and artist statements below, and we also invite you to watch a virtual pre-show chat from Peggy that draws together all the threads connecting the company’s final 3 projects: PRESENCE, Beautiful Renegades and Choreographic Gems.

PRESENCE was curated by: Phylicia Browne-Charles, Aria Evans, Tia Ashley Kushniruk, and David Norsworthy.

Week 1: September 20 - 24 @ 7:30pm & September 25th @ 3:30pm - Kiera Breaugh and Renee Smith - click here for the full program!

Week 2: September 27 - October 1 @ 7:30pm & October 2 @ 3:30pm - Eilish Shin-Culhane and Pulga Muchochoma - click here for the full program!

It came to me at age 11 that dancing, teaching, and most of all being a choreographer is my destiny. My goals are to become a well-rounded and versatile dancer and choreographer in order to develop enough information to tackle any job opportunity or

Renee Smith

It came to me at age 11 that dancing, teaching, and most of all being a choreographer is my destiny. My goals are to become a well-rounded and versatile dancer and choreographer in order to develop enough information to tackle any job opportunity or performance. There is never an end period to learning and I know there is information still to be found within my creative process. I just spent 4 years at Ryerson University for Performance Dance and was honoured to be one of the consistent student choreographers for all Ryerson’s shows. I have learnt a lot about myself through all my choreographic practices and I continue to seek as many chances as I can to work with artists that will bring that much more out of me. As a young, 22-year-old, black and métis woman from Whitby Ontario Canada, all the stories I’ve told so far have been of my past self. Now coming into a new light after all that has happened in the last year, I have grown so much as a person, an artist, and as an observer. I am hungry for diving deep within not only myself but other creators to share experiences with one another and create magic for the future.

Photo: Aidan Tooth

Photo: Aidan Tooth

Kiera Breaugh

I am a professional dancer and choreographer whose specialty lies at the intersection of contemporary and hip hop. I love incorporating text and spoken word into my pieces. My work often explores themes such as racial identity, female upward mobility, and other ideas that aim to empower the unheard. As a woman who identifies as both Black and biracial, I use dance, choreography and spoken word as a tool to explore my identity, as well as cope with the trauma that I have experienced because of it. As a dancer whose style lives at the intersection of contemporary and hip hop dance, my choreography is very expressive, emotional, and human..

Photo: Aidan Tooth

Photo by Aidan Tooth

Eilish Shin-Culhane

Eilish Shin-Culhane (she/her) is a Tkaronto based artist, dancer, and choreographer of Korean and European descent. She received her BFA in Dance from Marymount Manhattan College. Eilish's choreographic work explores the nuance of authenticity through both abstracted and highly physical gestures - playing with emotionality, theatre, vocalizations, exhaustion, and connection. She has presented works at Marymount Manhattan’s ‘Dancers at Work’, NYU’s ‘Choreofest’, Aeris Körper's 'PROSPECTS', and Dance Ontario’s ‘Show & Share Sessions’. Her choreographic mentors have included Bonnie Kim, Elisabeth Motley, Linda Garneau, and Alyssa Martin.

Photo: Aidan Tooth

Pulga Muchochoma

I am a contemporary Black dancer, originally from Quelimane, Mozambique. After performing with Montes Namuli Dance Company in Mozambique, and Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT), under the artistic directorship of Christopher House, for the last 11 years, I have begun investing in my own creative work that focuses on fusing traditional African dances with contemporary dance, which connects me to my Mozambican roots, and builds a new movement vocabulary that has not yet been explored. As an emerging choreographer, I’ve had works commissioned, including “Inkosi”, a trio presented by Art Starts and the Neighbourhood Arts Network, the first 5-minute incarnation of my solo “Ngoma” presented by the Wasa Wasa Festival, “On the Hill”, with New Harlem Productions, directed by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, and “Path” for Kaeja d’Dance’s Porch Views festival. As a choreographer, I want to create and perform work that speaks to and reflects my personal and cultural background.

Photo: David Choi