Raven Spirit Dance

Michelle Olson is a member of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation and the Co-Artistic Director of Raven Spirit Dance. She studied dance and performance at the University of New Mexico, the Aboriginal Arts Program at the Banff Centre and was an Ensemble Member of Full Circle First Nations Performance. Michelle works in areas of dance, theatre and opera as a choreographer, performer and movement coach and her work has been seen on stages across Canada. Selected choreography/theatre credits include Gathering Light (Raven Spirit Dance), Salmon Girl (TYA – Raven Spirit Dance), Map of the Land, Map of the Stars (Gwaandak Theatre), Frost Trees Exploding Moon (Raven Spirit Dance), Mozart’s Magic Flute (Vancouver Opera), The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (Western Canada Theatre/National Arts Centre), Death of a Chief (Native Earth Performing Arts/National Arts Centre) and Evening in Paris (Raven Spirit Dance). She was the recipient of the inaugural Vancouver International Dance Festival Choreographic Award. She graduated as a Certified Movement Analyst from Laban/Bartenieff and Somatic Studies Canada and is currently teaching at Langara’s Studio 58.

Starr Muranko is dancer/choreographer, Mother and Co-Artistic Director with Raven Spirit Dance. Her choreographic work has been shared locally and nationally including Scotiabank Dance Centre, Talking Stick Festival, Coastal Dance Festival, Dancing on the Edge, Native Earth Performing Arts, Weesageechak Begins to Dance, Impact Festival and InFringing Dance Festival. Featured works include Chapter 21, Spine of the Mother and before7after. A proud company dancer with the Dancers of Damelahamid since 2005, she has toured across Canada and internationally and trained under the guidance and mentorship of the late Elder Margaret Harris. She is currently the Artist-in-Residence at Ballet BC and has facilitated choreographic labs with the company over the past two seasons with colleague and collaborator Margaret Grenier. She holds a BFA in Dance from SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts and honours and celebrates her mixed Ancestry of Omushkegowuk Cree (Moose Cree First Nation—Treaty 9), French and German in all of her work.

Originally from Treaty 4 territory Saskatchewan, Jeanette Kotowich creates work that reflects Nêhiyaw/Métis cosmology within the context of Indigenous performance, Indigenous futurism and contemporary dance. Her creations have been presented at theatres and festivals across so-called Canada, including Kwê at Matriarchs Uprising and Scotiabank Dance Centre’s Dance In Vancouver. In the summer of 2020, she conducted land-based research in her home province of Saskatchewan, fusing interdisciplinary collaboration, de-colonial practices and embodied research towards the creation and premiere of Kisiskâciwan fall 2022, which has toured to Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Australia. Jeanette is the new Artistic Associate at Raven Spirit Dance, and has been artist-in-residence at the NAC Indigenous Theatre, Scotiabank Dance Centre, and Shadbolt Arts Centre. She resides as a guest on the Ancestral and unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ/, and Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territories, colonially known as Vancouver.

Emily Solstice Tait’s practice is rooted in contemporary dance but happily crosses into theatre, stage management and film. She is of mixed settler and Ojibway ancestry (Urban member of Berens River First Nation). Her dances have been performed at The Manitoba Museum, The Forks National Historic Site, and along the shores of Lake Winnipeg. Select performances include The War Being Waged (Prairie Theatre Exchange), The Secret to Good Tea (Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre), Actualize (Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers), moi, suel·e (Théâtre Cercle Molière), Confluence (Raven Spirit Dance) and The___ Place video with CBC Arts.

Tin Gamboa is a Filipina dance artist who primarily resides on MST territories (Vancouver). She is focused on cultivating a cross-cultural arts practice between both places she calls home, Canada and the Philippines. She recently completed her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at SFU, worked as part-time faculty at De La Salle Benilde’s dance program, and created a new piece, dama, through the Cultural Centre of the Philippines’ Koryolab Residency. She is so excited to be working with various circles within the arts and culture umbrella such as: Dumb Instrument Dance, Margarida Maiciera, FakeKnot (Ralph Escamillan), and Raven Spirit Dance. Devoted to being a lifelong student and artist, Tin is hopeful about the collective contributions that can come from reflective art-making.