2024 Festival Workshop Facilitators

Josh Ongcol (he/they) is a Dubai born, Queer, Filipinx dance artist, interested in the ways tenderness manifests in my body, and its receptivity to deep connection, wisdom, and transformation. He is interested in ways we could communicate through multiple medium of art/language. With this, He hopes to unravel the concept of “home” and “KAPWA” and “belonging” through embodied memory. Josh continues to be influenced by streetdance and underground dance cultures such as vogue house and street styles and has trained in contemporary through Modus Operandi.

In his current work called “The E.N.D: Energy Never Dies", he collaborates with local musicians and dancers, exploring the streetdance concept of the Cypher; a communal gathering of the creative energetic flow; an organization of dance and gatherings and what it means to be together in moments of exchange and transformation.

Miguel Maravilla is a first-generation Filipino immigrant, essayist, self-taught artist, musician, sound engineer, and activist born in Manila, Philippines, and currently residing on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations.

I use a lowercase “d” because I desire to navigate the world by easing into spaces. I go by my full name to acknowledge my maternal lineage.

danielle Mackenzie Long, a queer emerging artist, resides on the stolen and unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm nations. They seek to use new media and film to liberate gender non-conforming dance artists to create work that surpasses gendered bodies through various means of visual presentation and audience access. 

At this time their creative practice is being expanded through engagements with Action at a Distance/Vanessa Goodman, Co.ERASGA/Alvin Erasga Tolentino, Shion Skye Carter, steph cyr, Kaili Che, and self checkout/Lamont. Spaces they have been in recent residencies with include Toronto Dance Theatre (Pilot Episodes) and New Works. As the current Associate Artistic Director of the Festival of Recorded Movement (F-O-R-M), they work alongside a small team of creatives, supporting the seeds of creations by Youth and Emerging artists whose works speak to the theme of “recorded movement.” Occasionally danielle also studies Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia with the aspiration to infiltrate and challenge the academic world by navigating it with an emphasis on curiosity, refusal, and rest.

Photo credit: Samanatha Bush

Erin Lum (she/her) is an emerging filmmaker, dance artist, and writer based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples (Vancouver, BC). As F-O-R-M’s youngest staff member, she is passionate about fostering youth-engaged spaces in the arts. 

Erin’s instinctual love for movement is a vessel to explore other creative practices. She previously published 25 interviews with Canadian dance artists as the blog writer of Story Bloom. In 2020, she was a F-O-R-M Commissioned Artist. Her first dance film Zì Jǐ premiered at F-O-R-M’s 5th festival and has since screened at over 11 film festivals, including a weeklong projection onto the National Arts Centre building in Ottawa. Her second short, Something To Forget Me By, premiered in 2022. Erin is currently pursuing her undergrad degree in Sociology and Communications at Simon Fraser University. In 2022, Erin showcased a multi-media project Just By Existing in a group exhibition at the Art Gallery at Evergreen. She is working on expanding this project into a documentary film with the support of DOXA Documentary Festival.

Photo credit: Nicole Yen

Glo Romy is a creative director and dancer from Toronto. She’s known for her bold visual style across various mediums, and her work is grounded in culture and community. 

Glo is also the founder of BOSSY, an organization that empowers women in street dance. Most recently, she directed the short film titled “BOSSY: An Ode to Women in Street Dance”, bringing together an all-woman cast and crew to celebrate and highlight women in Toronto’s street dance community. The film’s running time is 4 minutes long and premiered in March 2024 during Women’s History Month.

Ultimately, Glo strives to help elevate, expand, and give back to the community that continues to cultivate her art. 

Reed Jackson [Reaume Rodzinyak] is a perpetually emergent queer artist & arts facilitator on stolen, occupied, unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ lands. Working through film, sound, eco-printing, poetry, song and movement, they are currently researching/re-membering queer & trans histories, ruderal & disturbance ecologies & spacetime as field and fabric. Reed embraces art-making as a praxis of cultivating response-abilities and intimate relations.

Chantal Dobles Gering is a queer movement artist born on Huetar land colonially known as “San Jose, Costa Rica” and grew up on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territory. They are informed by Liberated Planet Studios’ movement research, Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy, and their interspecies collaborations. Chantal co-founded Shapeshifter Media Collective, creating dance films to archive queer/trans expression with a residency at Lobe Studio. Currently they are dancing through EDAM's contact improvisation scholarship and co-creating a piece, Gay Ancestors in the STAND festival with the Queer Soul Poets.