Louise Bentall Award

A woman with chin length straight blonde hair with short bangs and glasses stands slightly turned towards the camera. She is wearing a black dress with see-through sleeves with a large flower pattern. She is holding a piece of paper in her hands.

The Hawthorne Foundation and DanceHouse announced the Louise Bentall Biennial Award for Emerging British Columbia Choreographers in December 2022. The $10,000 award financially supports an emerging choreographer to research, develop, or produce new work.

The award was created in memory of Louise Bentall, who passed away in 2017 and was a long serving board member of DanceHouse. Louise spent her life working and volunteering for many dance and theatre organizations, in addition to her numerous charitable activities in support of the performing arts and social justice communities of the Lower Mainland. Compassionate, intelligent, and feisty with a keen attention to detail, she gave back to the community with both her actions and words, and this Award honours her memory by advancing support for Vancouver’s dance community.

With ongoing funding from the Hawthorne Foundation and administrative support from DanceHouse, the award will be given every other year, and juried by a diverse panel of dance professionals. Criteria for the award were developed in consultation with a distinguished advisory panel, including Louise’s daughters Carly Bentall and Erin Cayley Ross, Norman Armour, Serge Bennathan, Fran Brafman, Katrina Dunn, Cornelius Fischer-Credo, and Laurie-Ann Goodwin.

Livona Ellis was named the inaugural winner on June 28, 2023. Alyssa Favero and Joshua Ongcol received Honourary Mentions.

Applications were awarded based on the overall presentation of the proposal, the innovative qualities of the project, and the vision and potential of the artists involved. 

Individual emerging dance artists working in all styles of dance, including collaborative and/or multidisciplinary projects, are encouraged to apply when applications open for the 2025 award. There is no upper age restriction on applicants, but choreographers who have completed pre-professional training and enjoyed at least one public performance of their work are the intended recipients. Students are not eligible to apply to fund further studies or training, and companies, collectives, and organizations are not eligible.

 

For more information contact bentallaward@dancehouse.ca

About the Recipients

Livona Ellis is pictured sitting, in three quarter profile from the shoulders up, facing to the left. She has short dark hair that is pinned back and is wearing a sleeveless black top.Livona Ellis was born in Vancouver on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. She completed her training at Arts Umbrella under the direction of Artemis Gordon. Livona began dancing with Ballet BC in 2010 and throughout 11 seasons has been fortunate to work with incredible artists such as Crystal Pite, Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Felix Landerer, Sharon Eyal and many others.

Livona has created works for Dances for a Small Stage, Dance Deck, Public Salon 2019, Contemporary Art Gallery Gala 2018, Arts Umbrella Season Finale, and Ballet BC Take Form. In 2017 she received the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Artist. Livona was a guest artist with Konzert Theater Bern for their 2019/2020 season. Livona is on faculty at ArtsUmbrella and is a Programming Advisor for the BC Movement Arts Society.

Livona is currently collaborating with NYC based artist Rebecca Margolick on the creation of their full length duet “Fortress”.

Alyssa Favero. A smiling woman with long, wavy dark hair in black pants, a brown longsleeve top, black puffy vest and a multicolour kerchief on her head crouches in front of a brick wall.

Alyssa Favero is an emerging queer multiracial dance artist currently based on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples–Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations (Vancouver, British Columbia). Alyssa believes in entering spaces with curiosity and love. Alyssa is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, facilitator and director. Just a year out of Modus Operandi and Alyssa has felt creative momentum and support in the Vancouver community. As a dancer they have previously performed works by Khoudia Toure, OURO Collective and Zahra Shahab. As a facilitator, Alyssa has recently completed a nourishing mentorship with All Bodies Dance Project. As a choreographer-director Alyssa has had the pleasure of researching their own work around intimacy, queering relationships and pleasure through the support of What Lab and Co. ERASGA. Alyssa is excited to share their own solo work Vibrate during Nextfest (Edmonton, Alberta) in June, 2023, and is honoured to receive an Honourary Mention from DanceHouse. 

Joshua Ongcol is pictured from the chest up. He has short dark hair and is wearing a beige tank top layered under a black sleeveless top or vest. He is leaning his head, hand and body forward against a shiny white wall that shows his reflection.Josh Ongcol is a Dubai born, Queer, Filipinx artist that is currently a settler on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples. 

Josh first exposure to dance was in highschool during the advent of Youtube, Americas Best Dance Crew and choreo dance competitions. Finishing highschool he trained in dance locally and internationally, in the styles of Locking, Popping, House, Hip hop, Vogue, Whacking from Ejoe Wilson, Sekou Heru, Natasha Gorie, Rina Palerina, Anna Martynova, James de Guzman, Mike brown, Kevin Shazam and Kim Sato and Contemporary dance from Tiffany Tegarthen, David Raymond, 605 collective, Sufeh lee, Kevin Fraser, Peter Bingham, Justine Chambers, Delia Brett and Deanna Peters. Josh continues to dive deeper in his relationship to streetdance; recently he had trained in west african dance in Guinea last February.

Josh is interested in the concept of “home” and “KAPWA” and the necessity of dance in the community/culture especially in protest, spirituality and reclaimation. His latest work, LAKBAY was created in collaboration with musician Miguel Maravila. Currently, Josh is creating a piece called “The E.N.D.” or “The Energy Never Dies” a dynamic live music and dance work inspired by the concept of the cypher specifically in house club dance culture.

Sonia Medel

Sonia Medel 2 300x300 1Sonia Medel is an interdisciplinary feminist curator, researcher, and artist. She is currently completing a PhD in Education at the University of British Columbia, whilst leading diverse curatorial, filmmaking, choreographic, and publishing projects. Her dissertation unpacks the experiences of Latin American women dancers and film festival workers, and their (de)colonial impact on the Canadian arts and culture industry. Medel has been promoting decolonial intersectional feminist engagement with arts, culture, and education across the Americas for over a decade. A visibly racialized Indigenous-Afro-European descendant Latina, the child of a Chilean exile father and an immigrant Peruvian mother, Medel is grateful to the Coast Salish peoples and their lands on which she was born and primarily develops her practices.

Starr Muranko

Starr Headshot 300x300 1Starr Muranko is a dancer/choreographer, Mother and Co-Artistic Director with ​Raven Spirit Dance. As a choreographer she is most interested in the stories that we carry within our bodies and Ancestral connections to land that transcend time and space.  Her work has been shared locally and nationally including the 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 as well as recent collaborative work Confluence

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 Artist-in-Residence at Ballet BC alongside colleague and longtime collaborator Margaret Grenier. Starr has facilitated workshops through ArtsStarts, Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre, Native Education College and Vines Art Festival and holds a BFA in Dance from SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts. She honours and celebrates her mixed Ancestry of Omushkegowuk Cree (Moose Cree First Nation – Treaty 9), French and German in all of her work. 

Marcus Youssef

Marcus Youssef 300x300 1Marcus is a playwright and theatremaker. His fifteen or so plays have been produced in more than twenty countries across North America, Europe and Asia, from Seattle to New York to Reykjavik to Venice, London, Vienna, Hong Kong, Athens and Berlin. Marcus is a recipient of Canada’s largest theatre award, the Siminovitch Prize for Theatre, for his body of work as a playwright, as well as the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award, Berlin, Germany’s Ikarus Prize, the Rio-Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, the Chalmer’s Canadian Play Award, and the Vancouver Critic’s Innovation award (three times). Marcus co-founded the artist-run production centre Progress Lab 1422, where he led Vancouver’s Neworld Theatre for fifteen years.

Photo courtesy of Carly Bentall and Erin Cayley Ross.