CLOUD 9 / 7e CIEL Plays Young Centre for the Performing Arts, Now thru 6/29

Cloud 9/7e Ciel is a new endeavor that promotes and incubates a new kind of future for seasoned Canadian dance artists. In partnership with the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, Cloud 9/7e Ciel presents its inaugural performance evening featuring two world premieres by acclaimed choreographer Susie Burpee and Tedd Robinson. These stunning works will be performed by Cloud 9/7e Ciel founders/co-artistic directors Sylvie Bouchard, Karen Kaeja and Claudia Moore with guest artists Michael Sean Marye and Ron Stewart today, June 27-29, 2013 in the Young Centre's Tank House Theatre.

Tedd Robinson, one of Canada's most esteemed dance smiths, has created a thirty-minute ensemble work for Cloud 9/7e Ciel to the music of Chopin featuring all five dancers. Sylvie Bouchard, Karen Kaeja and Claudia Moore will also perform a twenty-minute trio choreographed for them by Susie Burpee.

These commissions are rife with the complexities of human relationship. They encompass both the humour and the darkness of life in compelling physical language. The senior performers of Cloud 9/7e Ciel - brave, bold and exquisite - bring years of experience and artistry to their uplifting and courageous performances in the intimate setting of the Tank House Theatre.

Cloud 9/7e Ciel promotes accomplished Canadian dance artists who are passionate, award winning and highly driven. As the founders and co-artistic directors of this new collective, Sylvie Bouchard, Karen Kaeja and Claudia Moore have joined forces to bridge a void in the Canadian dance scene - the creation of a senior dance ensemble. Throughout their long and distinguished careers, they have founded MOonhORsE Dance Theatre, Older and Reckless, CORPUS, Dusk Dances, Kaeja d'Dance, and Festival of Interactive Physics. With Cloud 9, they commission brilliant choreographers for dancers over 45 years old, to perform masterful dance works on the world stage.

Cloud 9 / 7e Ciel will be presented today, June 27 - 29, 2013 at 8pm. Preview: June 26 at 8pm | Matinee: June 29 at 2pm at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, Distillery Historic District, 50 Tank House Lane, Toronto. For tickets call 416-866-8666 or visit www.youngcentre.ca. Regular Admission - $25 | Student, Senior CADA - $18; Preview - $15. Information: 416-504-6429 x 24. Website: https://www.facebook.com/cloudninedance.

Sylvie Bouchard is originally from Montréal and began her training there before moving to Toronto in 1983, to study at the School of the Toronto Dance Theatre. She subsequently joined the company in 1985 and performed nationally and internationally with them for 5 years. Sylvie has also performed with Kaeja d'Dance, Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers and Dancemakers and continues to work for many independent choreographers including Susie Burpee, Denise Fujiwara and Sashar Zarif. She was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore award for best performance for her solo Cassiopeia, which premiered at the DuMaurier Theatre in 1999. In 1997, Sylvie Bouchard formed the company CORPUS with artistic partner David Danzon. Until 2008, she co-created and performed in 8 works through CORPUS, touring internationally. She also co-choreographed and starred in the popular children TV Series Four-Square on Treehouse TV. In 1993, Bouchard created Dusk Dances, a festival that presents dance in public parks. Dusk Dances grew under the artistic direction of both Bouchard and Danzon and through the Company CORPUS, until Bouchard was appointed sole festival director in 2008. Ms. Bouchard is also the recipient of the 2009 KM hunter award for dance, and is artistic director of BoucharDanse (www.bouchardanse.com), a Company that serves as an umbrella for Ms. Bouchard's artistic endeavors.

Susie Burpee "Creates 'fully human characters, struggling for connection" - The Toronto Star. Susie's work has received Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Choreography and Performance, and she is a recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Dance. Her performance works have been commended for their skillful use of contemporary movement to transform individuals on stage and showcase human complexity.

Karen Kaeja is Co-Artistic Director of Kaeja d'Dance with life partner Allen Kaeja. She is included in The Canadian, The Canadian Who's Who and Theatre Dance Encyclopedia in Canada and is an Outstanding Performance Dora nominee. She has won numerable awards including the Moving Pictures, Paul D. Fleck Fellowship and the inaugural 2012 Canadian Dance Assembly 'I Love Dance' Community Award for her invention of Porch View Dances, which was also named the Globe & Mail's "most moving choreography of 2012, exploring the very essence of what makes us human". Commissioned and presented by festivals and performance series in Sweden, Venezuela, India, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, England, the US, and across Canada including eight seasons at the Canada Dance Festival, she is a featured performer in 20 internationally award winning dance films screened in over 400 festivals worldwide. Karen was the first artist in residence for the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival 2012. She teaches at festivals and the School of the Toronto Dance Theatre, initiates creative exchange with peers and delights in mentoring and integrating the general public into large site- specific works.

Claudia Moore, artistic director of MOonhORsE dance theatre, has been creating and performing movement for theatre, film, multi-disciplinary collaboration and her own dance theatre productions since the late 1970's. She curates the company's Older and Reckless series featuring dance artists over 45, as well as emerging dancers in Old & Young and Reckless Together. Currently, Claudia has returned to her first passion, as a dancer. In November 2009, the Young Centre for the Performing Arts presented Claudia and Dan Wild in an evening of new work choreographed by James Kudelka and Tedd Robinson called Dances in a Small Room. The work toured to Guelph, St. John's, Ottawa, Kitchener and Halifax. Moore recently appeared in Kudelka's acclaimed From the House of Mirth presented by Coleman Lemieux, and is working on a solo evening called Escape Artist with commissioned choreographers Paul Andre Fortier, Susanna Hood and Christopher House. Claudia was a Resident Artist at the Young Centre, 2008-2010.

Tedd Robinson is Artistic Director of 10 Gates Dancing Inc., a non-profit company formed in 1998 to promote the development and performance of contemporary dance creations. Robinson first rose to prominence as Artistic Director of Contemporary Dancers in Winnipeg, Canada (1984-1990), where he created highly theatrical ensemble works. Having returned to Ottawa in 1990 to pursue a solo career, he is now firmly established as a choreographer, educator and solo artist whose critically acclaimed, award-winning and utterly unique works have won him a multitude of commissions and an international schedule of touring and teaching. His work is influenced by his six years of study as a monk in the Hakukaze soto zen monastery, Ottawa. His work at La B.A.R.N. won le Prix en art de la scène l'Avant-Première at the Culturiades de l'Outaouais 2009. Tedd Robinson is a founding member of Projet BK and a National Arts Centre Associate Dance Artist.

Michael Sean Marye is a Toronto-based dancer, choreographer, teacher and coach. His performance career of over 25 years includes work with numerous dance companies and choreographers, as well as performances in a number of dance films. His most recent performances include works by James Kudelka and Bill Coleman. His choreography, which was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award in 1998, includes works created for the Toronto Dance Theatre and Overall Dance, as well as choreography for film and theatre performances.

As a rehearsal director/coach he has worked with companies such as Ballet B.C., Toronto Dance Theatre, Coleman Lemieux Compagnie and Ballet Bratislava and he created an independent modern dance summer school for professional dance students, called Breaking Ground. He has taught at other Canadian dance institutions such as York University, School of Toronto Dance Theatre, L'école de danse du Québec and Main Dance Place. He began his dance training in Buffalo, New York. He continued his studies at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, L'école Superieure de Danse du Quebec and the School of Toronto Dance Theatre and holds a MA in dance from York University.

Ron Stewart Vancouver native Ron Stewart's 20 year plus career in dance began in Montreal and has spanned the country. After 4 years with Toronto Dance Theatre, Ron has primarily been working on the West Coast with Battery Opera, Lola McLaughlin, EDAM and with Mascall Dance with whom he acted as Guest Artistic Director for the 2003-04 season. Ron began dancing at the age of 23 when he moved to Montreal to study ballet with Russain ballerina Sonya Vartanian. Prior to that, he studied forestry at BCIT, where his instructors told him he should be an engineer in the bush because he "moved well". When not dancing, Ron teaches naked yoga at Skyclad Yoga and studies a variety of other body/mind training techniques including pilates, body mind centering, gyrotonics and martial arts.