team | who you'll work with. |
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Michele Decottignies
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Michele is a multiple award-winning artist, educator and advocate, with 30 years experience in the professional arts industries. In 2003, after 15 years of working in technical, administrative and artistic roles with major theatre and film companies in Alberta, Michele founded Stage Left Productions to house her daring blend of professional arts production with social justice praxis. She has since made Stage Left a leading contributor to Disability Arts in Canada, a global Centre for the Theatre of the Oppressed and a leader in intercultural collaboration, cross-cultural solidarity and arts equity education.
Within the professional arts ecology, Michele has pioneered highly accessible and creative approaches to arts equity education. Her practice is unique: It pays equal attention to the barriers experienced by all equity-seeking communities and attends to inequities embedded in all three spheres of influence (personal, social and structural). She pays particular attention to needed political, cultural and emotional safeties, and her approach goes far beyond those divisive frameworks of "us versus them" – toward cross-cultural solidarity and collective impact.
Through Stage Left's globally-esteemed Theatre of the Oppressed practice, Michele has successfully facilitated over 300 arts equity workshops in Canada, the USA and Australia – for disparate clients ranging from remote First Nations to self-advocates with intellectual disabilities to the Canada Council for the Arts. Her current arts equity work includes attending to the continued evolution of The Deaf, Disability & Mad Arts Alliance of Canada and delivering the support services offered by The Calgary Collective for Equity & Diversity in the Arts. Her most recent arts equity consultating and facilitation includes:
(1) Supporting the development of PACT's national arts equity education program, ALL IN, and facilitating foundational arts equity workshops for their regional cohorts across Canada;
(2) Developing arts equity training workshops, assessment and implementation tools, and sector-wide supports for public arts funders, including Calgary Arts Development, the BC Arts Council, and the Canadian Public Arts Funders (CPAF).
(3) Introducing National Arts Service Organizations (e.g. Canadian Dance Assembly, Opera.ca and Orchestras Canada) to Stage Left's Canadian-specific Arts Equity Framework; and
(4) Collaborating with Drs Lynden (Lindsay) Crowshoe and Cindy Jardine to decolonize Theatre of the Oppressed techniques so as to make them more effective tools of Indigenous Health, Truth & Reconciliation, and collective, community-based recovery from intergenerational and inherited traumas associated with contact and colonization.
As an under-educated, working class, lesbian feminist artist/ activist with several invisible disabilities, Michele's practice is necessarily concerned with the development of artistic and cultural practices that foster rather than negate diversity. Her art work is multi- and inter-disciplinary, collaborative and radical using the arts to challenge dominant social paradigms that render difference invisible and undesirable in society.
Within the professional arts ecology, Michele has pioneered highly accessible and creative approaches to arts equity education. Her practice is unique: It pays equal attention to the barriers experienced by all equity-seeking communities and attends to inequities embedded in all three spheres of influence (personal, social and structural). She pays particular attention to needed political, cultural and emotional safeties, and her approach goes far beyond those divisive frameworks of "us versus them" – toward cross-cultural solidarity and collective impact.
Through Stage Left's globally-esteemed Theatre of the Oppressed practice, Michele has successfully facilitated over 300 arts equity workshops in Canada, the USA and Australia – for disparate clients ranging from remote First Nations to self-advocates with intellectual disabilities to the Canada Council for the Arts. Her current arts equity work includes attending to the continued evolution of The Deaf, Disability & Mad Arts Alliance of Canada and delivering the support services offered by The Calgary Collective for Equity & Diversity in the Arts. Her most recent arts equity consultating and facilitation includes:
(1) Supporting the development of PACT's national arts equity education program, ALL IN, and facilitating foundational arts equity workshops for their regional cohorts across Canada;
(2) Developing arts equity training workshops, assessment and implementation tools, and sector-wide supports for public arts funders, including Calgary Arts Development, the BC Arts Council, and the Canadian Public Arts Funders (CPAF).
(3) Introducing National Arts Service Organizations (e.g. Canadian Dance Assembly, Opera.ca and Orchestras Canada) to Stage Left's Canadian-specific Arts Equity Framework; and
(4) Collaborating with Drs Lynden (Lindsay) Crowshoe and Cindy Jardine to decolonize Theatre of the Oppressed techniques so as to make them more effective tools of Indigenous Health, Truth & Reconciliation, and collective, community-based recovery from intergenerational and inherited traumas associated with contact and colonization.
As an under-educated, working class, lesbian feminist artist/ activist with several invisible disabilities, Michele's practice is necessarily concerned with the development of artistic and cultural practices that foster rather than negate diversity. Her art work is multi- and inter-disciplinary, collaborative and radical using the arts to challenge dominant social paradigms that render difference invisible and undesirable in society.
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Olivia Marie Golosky,
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Wunmi Idowu,
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A proud member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, Olivia Marie Golosky is a 2Spirit artist and advocate for equity and diversity in the arts with a passion for grassroots community-building.
Hailing from Treaty 8, Fort McMurray, Olivia's most recent work in Canada's Indigenous Arts network is as the Co-Artistic Director (with Blackfoot artist, Danni Black, and Inuvialuk artist, Jade Carpenter) of The Sisters Stories Collective; Production Manager for Indigenous Resilience In Music; Producing Member of the Treaty 7 Film Collective; Touring Stage Manager for Gwaandak Theatre; the Indigenous Representative on The National Campus and Community Radio Association's Board of Directors; the producer/ host of CJSW 90.9FM's diversity-focused podcast, Through The Kaleidoscope; a Guest Lecturer in Indigenous Studies at UCalifornia Berkeley; Production Assistant for the South Western Association for Indian Arts's Annual Sante Fe Indian Market; Production Manger for Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society; and Stage Manager for xREDx Talks. As an Artistic Associate with Stage Left Productions, Olivia is the co-coordinator (with Michele Decottignies) of the Calgary Collective for Equity & Diversity in the Arts; an arts equity workshop facilitator and advocate; a Disability Arts advocate; and the Production Manger for all of Stage Left's high-impact events. Olivia is also the 2017 recent recipient of PACT's Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award, as Michele Decottignies' chosen protégé. Olivia's professional arts background is in theatre, film, radio, music festival and television production, primarily as a Producer, Production Manager, Stage Manager, Technician and Playwright/Writer – with companies that include Vertigo Theatre, Quest Theatre, Sage Theatre, Verb Theatre, Le Petite Prairie Theatre, Calgary Young People's theatre, The Janes, and events such as the Calgary Stampede Grandstand Show, Calgary Folk Festival, The Calgary International Children's Festival and various film shoots in Alberta. |
Wunmi Idowu is an accomplished dancer, choreographer, Wunmi Idowu began performing traditional African dance styles at the age of 3 in her hometown, Lagos, Nigeria. She is an accomplished dancer, choreographer, instructor, and director of Woezo Africa Music & Dance Theatre (Woezo Africa).
Wunmi moved to Alberta in 1992 and continued immersing herself in the African dance community in the cities, Edmonton and Calgary. Prior to starting Woezo Africa, she worked with groups Wajjo drummers and Kekeli dancers, Nigerian Okoto Dance Troupe, C-Stylz Dancers, Afrikanata Dancers and Asante Dance Troupe. She continues to share her passion for African culture and dance through performances and classes in dance styles, Afrobeats, Afro Fusion and traditional African dances such as Coupé Décalé and Ndombolo. Woezo Africa, meaning “welcome to the land of perfection”, was birthed in 2006 out of Wunmi’s passion for sharing African dance and culture. This platform creates a space for artists from rich backgrounds of dance styles to entertain, educate, and empower their audiences through traditional and modern African modes of performing arts, including dance, music, theatre, and storytelling. Under her leadership, Woezo Africa created local and international productions, such as Africa Jo, UNITY: Dance Across Africa and UNGANISHA; as well as two editions of Woezo Africa Festival (2007 and 2012) in collaboration with the Guild of Nigerian Dancers (G.O.N.D) and Ijodee Dance Center in Lagos, Nigeria. In 2016, Wunmi won an award for people’s choice Performing Arts in the category of Dancer at the Obsidian Award. In addition, the endless support of Woezo Africa resulted in the celebration of three major achievements and recognition in 2017 and 2018 by being a big part of the inauguration of Alberta’s first Black History Month. Furthermore, Woezo Africa was also awarded a Certification of recognition from the House of Commons of Canada (House of Parliament). This reinforces the development and importance of understanding cultural diversity and equity in the community. |
