Sand Flight

David Gehrt is a Danish set and costume designer based in Copenhagen. He studied scenography and costume design at the Danish National School of Performing Arts and holds a bachelor’s degree in textile design from Design School Kolding. From 2017 to 2022, he was the resident scenographer at Aarhus Theatre before transitioning to freelance work. 

In 2017, he won the Reumert Award for Best Scenography alongside scenographer Ida Grarup for their work on Christian Lollike’s Erasmus Montanus, which was later staged at the Bergen International Festival in 2021. He was nominated again in 2020 for his scenography in Ordet by Kaj Munk, a production that won Best Performance of the Year. In 2022, he received another nomination for his work on Dracula at Aarhus Theatre, which won Best Musical Theatre Production. 

Gehrt has worked across contemporary drama, classical theatre, opera, and dance, with productions staged in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

In his early musical career, Gaute Tønder started out in the Oslo Indie scene where he played in various bands. After 2000, he focused on film and theatre composing, which has been his profession ever since. Tønder holds a master’s degree in film music composition from the musicological institute at the University of Oslo.  His professional debut as a composer was the theatre production Frank in DNT (Det Norske Teateret) in 2005. Since then, he has focused on making music for theatre, film, and television.   

Tønder has a comprehensive track record including music for many productions, such as features, shorts, television, theatre, commercials, and vignettes. He has composed music for close to 50 theatre productions in Norway, Germany, Iceland, Denmark and Sweden as well as over 20 productions for film and television. He has been nominated 3 times to «Gullruten» (Norwegian Emmy Awards) for best Original Score. 

Lasse Marhaug is a Norwegian sound and visual artist who has been active for over 30 years. He works with different mediums like video, photography, print, recordings, live performances, installations, and publishing. Marhaug has released more than three hundred recordings and toured extensively across the world. His main practice has been solo works, but he has also collaborated with a wide range of artists. He has composed music for film, television, theatre and dance performances. In the last ten years, Marhaug has produced several multi-channel, video and installation works, which often deal with his relationship to nature and sound of his home in Arctic northern Norway. He also works as a graphic designer, producer, writer, and curator. Marhaug has composed music for several of Ingri Fiksdal’s dance pieces, including State (2016), Diorama (2017) and Deep Field (2018).

Sudesh Adhana is a choreographer of Indian descent based in Oslo, Norway since 2006. He was educated at KHIO (National College of Arts), Oslo with a Bachelor in Contemporary Dance. Previously he has studied Mayurbhanj Chhau & Kathakali Dance at Shri Ram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, and the International Kathakali Center, both in New Delhi. 

In 2007, Adhana established the company Xproarts, with the intention of producing non-commercial performances. He has marked himself both in film and onstage and have received several awards for his works, amongst others a National Film Award (IN) for best choreography for the song “Bismil” (Haider 2014). Adhana has also received the National Arts Grant (NO) and has been Ambassador for Dance Days 2016 in Norway. In 2018, he was awarded Ustaad Bismilah Khan Youth Award from Sangeet Natak Academy, Department of Culture in India. 

Based in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal and Tkaronto/Toronto, Camil Bellefleur is an emerging contemporary dance artist. They completed their training at the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal in 2020 and have danced with Daina Ashbee, Charlie Prince, Jean Benoit-Labrecque, LA TRESSE Collective and Le Radeau. They completed their training in inclusive dance approaches with Corpuscule Danse. Bellefleur’s solo work entitled First Layers was presented at Tangente in 2022 and at the first edition of the Mauricie Arts Vivants festival in 2023, for which they were a finalist for the Creative Momentum award of Culture Mauricie. They are currently working on their next creation, Queer Core – Embodiment. 

To deepen their artistic approach oriented towards social change, Bellefleur completed a cumulative bachelor’s degree at UQÀM in 2023, which includes a certificate in Critical Sexuality Studies, a second in Feminist Studies, and a third in Sociology. They wish to make their bodily practice a space for emancipatory healing, liberation, transformation, risk-taking, and a safe space for growing together. 

Brayden Jamil Cairns is a Toronto-based performance artist, costume designer, and long-time lover. Cairns left rural Ontario in 2015 to train at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Performance. Since his training, Cairns has worked with the likes of Alyssa Martin, Rodney Diverlus, and many of his peers in collaborative processes. Cairns is interested in movement that can be enjoyed by people from all walks of life. He binds dance and lived experience to create tantalizing works of art; combining media such as writing and film to create a living collage. Many of these ideas come from a powerful need to uplift the queer and BIPOC communities. Cairns will often be found researching what it is to feel pleasure and what can come from self-exploration. 

Millina Fletcher aka Fletch, is a Tkaronto based dance artist who infuses her queer and Barbadian/French roots in both her creative work and her everyday life. Fletch is a well versed, expressive, outgoing and open-minded individual who sees the world as an abundant site for colour and creativity. She identifies as a dancer, choreographer, music enthusiast, and an extrovert who enjoys expressing her identity and queerness through dance and fashion. Fletch recently obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Performance Dance at Toronto Metropolitan University, where she trained intensively in a wide range of styles. Fletch had the great pleasure of working with many choreographers including Guillaume Côté, David Norsworthy, Valerie Calam, Hanna Kiel, Ingrid Fiksdal, and Yvonne Coutts. Fletch premiered a self-choreographed piece titled Phoney at The Citadel (2024). Fletch is adamant that in every artistic endeavour she pursues, her art will reflect her identity and bring awareness to the challenges of race and gender in society. She is open, audacious, and always eager to learn about new ways to create impactful art through the medium of her greatest passion, movement. 

Rakeem Hardy is a dance artist, creator, and educator, originally from Mississauga, Ontario. They received their BFA from Purchase College, SUNY, and were the 2020 recipient of the Thayer Fellowship Award. They performed works by Doug Varone, Sidra Bell, Norbert De La Cruz III, and Roderick George. They received additional training at the Taipei National University of the Arts, and Springboard Danse Montreal. They have performed and collaborated with A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, Coté Danse, Loni Landon Dance Projects, LA TRESSE, and Gallim Dance. Rakeem is currently a member of Kidd Pivot, under the direction of Crystal Pite. 

Pernille Holden is a dancer and creator based in Oslo, Norway. Central in her work are long running collaborations with Swedish choreographer Hagar Malin Hellkvist Sellén and Norwegian choreographer Ingrid Fiksdal. Other performance experience stems from a variety of artistic collaborations with collectives and choreographers such as Bøler Samvirkelag, Helle Siljeholm and Ingeleiv Berstad. Holden has a genuine curiosity for the complexity of the body’s materiality and potential. She strives for dance as possibility, presence, and sensuous poetry, and she is always on the lookout for dance as suggestion, maze, mysticism and luscious corporeality. Understandings of music, affect, gender and collectivity are recurring themes in projects she is involved in. Holden has received several national artistic grants, and since 2018 she has been employed by SKUDA (The actor and dancer alliance in Norway). In 2024 she won the Hedda prize together with Ingeleiv Berstad for best dance performance for their work KNØ. 

Megumi Kokuba was born on the southernmost island of Japan, Okinawa. She studied ballet with joy from the age of two. After graduating from college in Okinawa, Kokuba came across contemporary dance and was smitten. She moved to Toronto to train in dance and is a proud graduate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre (now Dance Arts Institute). Kokuba joined the Toronto Dance Theatre company as a TD Dance Intern in 2012/2013, and she has had many inspiring creation and performance opportunities in Toronto ever since. As a dance artist, her focus is to help the environment. Actions like listening, holding space and prioritizing active communication are at the forefront of her personal practice. 

Elizabeth Yip 葉倩儀 is a contemporary dance artist from Vancouver, Canada. Her dance practice is grounded in passion, dynamics, and emotion. She is a graduate of Modus Operandi under the direction of Kate Franklin, Tiffany Tregarthen, and David Raymond and received the Fall 2023 EDAM Training Scholarship in contact improvisation. Yip has performed and originated roles in work by Yin Yue Dance, Shay Kuebler/RSA, b. solomon, Nicolas Ventura, Khoudia Touré, and Zahra Shahab. Yip pursues work that is that is theatrical, virtuosic, and tender. Her past artistic choreographic residencies include the Scotiabank Dance Centre, Boombox, and Vines Art Festival. Before joining TDT, she was an apprentice with Shay Kuebler/RSA.