residency Archive
Process+Practice Dance Residency
2023-24 Cohort
Presented by City of Toronto in partnership with TOES FOR DANCE, with support from ĀNANDAṀ
Residency Cycle: August 2023 - November 2024
Inaugural Artists: Rakeem Hardy and Tanveer Alam
Selection: David Norsworthy in consultation with Assembly Hall staff
Residency Components:
Year 1 Residency: July 30 to August 12, 2023
Open Rehearsal: August 13, 2023
Community Workshop, led by Tanveer Alam: August 24, 2024, supported by the Canada Arts Presentation Fund
Year 2 Residency, including Artistic Exchange: August 26-30, 2024
Collective Space Rehearsal Hours (50 per artist): Throughout 2024, supported by ĀNANDAṀ
Production Period: November 4-9, 2024, supported by Toronto Arts Council
Student Workshop, led by Rakeem Hardy: November 8, 2024
Double Bill Performances, including three public shows and one student matinee: November 7-9, 2024, supported by Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Arts Presentation Fund
Photo by Kendra Epik.
Rakeem Hardy
Biography
Rakeem Hardy (they/them) is a black, queer, agender dance artist originally from Toronto, Canada.
They received their BFA and the Thayer Fellowship Award from the State University of New York at Purchase College. They performed works by Ohad Naharin, Doug Varone, Sidra Bell, Norbert De La Cruz III, and Roderick George. They received additional training at the Taipei National University of the Arts, as well at Springboard Danse Montreal where they performed pieces by Crystal Pite, Alejandro Cerrudo, and Aszure Barton.
Rakeem has collaborated and performed with A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, Collectif LA TRESSE, Loni Landon Dance Projects, and Gallim Dance. Rakeem is a current member of the Vancouver-based company, Kidd Pivot.
residency project
running from and towards is an odyssey into the unknown, a dance with the immaterial, a meditation on fear and aspiration. This work is rooted in western contemporary dance.
Choreographer and performer: Rakeem Hardy
Outside Eye: Katherine Semchuk
Photos by Shannon Widdis and Aidan Tooth.
Tanveer Alam
Biography
Toronto-based Tanveer Alam started his Kathak training with Sudeshna Maulik and continued further nuanced studies with guru Sandhya Desai. Alam is a 2019 graduate of Dance Arts Institute of Canada (DAI). Alam has performed in the works of Rina Singha, Lata Pada, Padmini Chettur, Brandy Leary, Harikishan S. Nair, Sashar Zarif, Lucy Rupert, and Peter Chin, to name a few. As an emerging choreographer, he has presented work at SummerWorks Festival, Battery Dance Festival +, MAI - Montréal, arts, interculturels, CanAsian Dance Festival: Grit Short Dances, and Tangente. As an emerging curator, he has supported programming initiatives with Dancemakers, TOES FOR DANCE, and Flemingdon Park Toronto Public Library. Across the 23/24 season, Alam choreographed Moving for the second year students of DAI. He also performed solo presentations at Vilaya Festival (Pittsburgh), The New York Kathak Festival (New York), and Navatman Black Box Baithak (New York).
Residency Project
Muhandis is a new work based on the Indian classical dance form of Kathak. Muhandis draws inspiration from jaali (perforated stone) windows commonly found in Indo-Islamic architecture. It explores the characteristics of Islamic architectural geometry prevalent in South Asia, proposing that dancers are architects of space, collectively crafting intricate geometries to animate and activate their surroundings.
Choreographer: Tanveer Alam
Year 1 Dancers: Genevieve John, Priyanka Tope, Priya Doobay, Sindhu Nair, Sukriti Sharma
Year 2 Dancers: Raghav Monga, Sukriti Sharma, Anjali Tanna, Priyanka Topé
Music composer: Pavithra Chari
Dramaturg: Harikishan S Nair
Rehearsal director: Atri Nundy
Academic consultant: Prof. Heba Mostafa
Additional Funding: Toronto Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, TO Live Explorations Grant.
Photos by Shannon Widdis and Aidan Tooth.
Heartfelt gratitude to the following supporters for making the inaugural Process+Practice Dance Residency possible:
Lindy Green & Sam Chaiton, Cathy Lace, Paul Warder
Process+Practice Dance Residency
2024-25 Cohort
Presented by City of Toronto in partnership with TOES FOR DANCE, with support from Lakeshore Arts and ĀNANDAṀ
Residency Cycle: August 2024 - November 2025
Featured Artists: Boys’ Club Tap Dance Collective and Kiera Breaugh
Selection: Rakeem Hardy, Clarke Blair, and Brandy Leary, with final decisions made by David Norsworthy and Assembly Hall staff
Residency Components:
Year 1 Residency, including Artistic Exchange: August 12 to 23, 2024
Open Rehearsal: August 24, 2024, supported by the Canada Arts Presentation Fund
Intro to Tap Rhythms - Community Workshop, led by Boys’ Club Tap Dance Collective: August 23, 2025, supported by Lakeshore Arts and the Canada Arts Presentation Fund
Year 2 Residency, including Artistic Exchange: August 25-29, 2025
Outreach Events, including pop-up performances and workshops at the Lakeshore Grilled Cheese Festival, Deputy Mayor Amber Morley’s Fall Fest, and Birds & Beans Café: June to October 2025, supported by Lakeshore Arts
Production Period: November 3-8, 2025
Student Workshop, led by Kiera Breaugh: November 5, 2025
Double Bill Performances, including two public shows and two previews: November 5 and November 7-8, 2025, supported by Lakeshore Arts and the Canada Arts Presentation Fund
Boys’ Club tap dance collective
Biography
Boys' Club Tap Dance Collective is a dynamic trio of women tap dancers comprising Veronica Simpson (NYC), Laura Donaldson (Calgary), and Elise McGrenera (Toronto). Co-founded in May 2022 during a residency at tanzhaus nrw (Düsseldorf), the collective quickly gained recognition. In 2023, Boys’ Club returned to Europe to present a full-length work at The Claquettes Club (Belgium) and at Golem’s Theatre (Barcelona). In May 2024, Boys’ Club was featured again at The Claquettes Club and in tanzhaus nrw’s Tap Ahead Festival. Most recently, Boys’ Club performed an excerpt of their work in New York City at Dormeshia’s Ladies in the Shoe Conference. Currently, Boys’ Club is developing ‘Ostinati’ to premiere in Toronto in November 2025 through the TOES FOR DANCE Process+Practice Residency program in partnership with Assembly Hall/the City of Toronto. Throughout their work, Boys' Club has been welcomed as a company-in-residence at renowned spaces including tanzhaus nrw, Leña Artist Residency, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, and The Claquettes Club.
residency project
Ostinati by Boys’ Club Tap Dance Collective is a lively and thought-provoking piece that explores the cycles we live through; personal, emotional, societal, and existential. From the passing of time to recurring doubts, this work - rooted in tap dance and jazz music - investigates how patterns shape our identity, challenge our growth, and influence how we move through the world. The dancers, Veronica Simpson, Laura Donaldson, and Elise McGrenera, each offer a personal vignette that reflects a cycle that they feel trapped within. The piece includes live original music by Alexa Belgrave (piano) and Ale Nuñez (voice). Ostinati is a celebration of community and solidarity among female-identifying artists.
Dancers/Choreographers: Laura Donaldson, Elise McGrenera, Veronica Simpson
Music Director/Composer: Alexa Belgrave
Lyricist/Composer: Ale Nuñez
Photos by Shannon Widdis.
KIERA BREAUGH
Biography
Kiera Breaugh is a dancer/choreographer whose style lives at the intersection of contemporary and hip hop. Kiera has a BA in Dance from LMU in Los Angeles. While in LA, she was a member of LA dance companies: the Young Lions, Immabeast, Immabreathe and MashUp Contemporary Dance Company. Kiera has performed in Dance Matters, A Woman's Work, the Toronto Fringe Festival, the Orlando Fringe Festival, the Vancouver Fringe Festival and Dusk Dances, Hamilton. She has choreographed for PRESENCE, a site specific series commissioned by Peggy Baker Dance Productions, ProArteDanza in their Choreolab, and an original piece during the half-time of a Raptors Game. Kiera has completed the Hicks Choreography Fellows Program through Jacob’s Pillow and is a Process+Practice residency artist at Assembly Hall through TOES FOR DANCE and the City of Toronto. Kiera has worked with and danced for artists including Ian Eastwood, Brian Friedman, Janelle Ginestra, Kylie Thompson, Mary Ann Chavez and Monika Felice Smith. Her work often explores themes such as racial identity, female upward mobility, and other ideas that aim to empower the unheard.
residency project
Veiled Venom by Kiera Breaugh is a raw and poetic exploration of female rage; expressing its volatility and its misunderstood power through spoken word and contemporary movement with Hip Hop influences. Drawing from personal experience and the collective memory of Kiera and collaborator/performers Kiah Francis and Claire Whitaker, Veiled Venom embodies anger not as something to be suppressed or pathologized, but as a force of clarity, resistance, and survival. Based on themes of death and rebirth of the female spirit, Veiled Venom exposes the ways women’s anger is often policed, minimized, or feared, and reclaims it as both an intimate truth and a radical act.
Choreographer/Dancer: Kiera Breaugh
Dancers/Collaborators: Claire Whitaker, Kiah Francis
Additional funding: Toronto Arts Council
Photos by Shannon Widdis.
Photo/artist credits: (below banner photo, left to right) Genevieve John, Sukriti Sharma, Priyanka Tope, Priya Doobay and Sindhu Nair in choreography by Tanveer Alam (photo by Aidan Tooth).
