2026 Visiting Artists

Victor Quijada

Son of Mexican parents and raised in Los Angeles, Victor Quijada trained in the b-boying circles and hip-hop clubs of his native city. He then began his career with Rudy Perez, before joining THARP!, Ballets Tech, and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. In 2002, he founded RUBBERBAND and created the RUBBERBAND Method, a hybrid vocabulary combining hip-hop, ballet, and contemporary dance, which is now taught internationally. His creations – numerous short works and 15 full-length productions – are distinguished by a powerful theatricality, the energy of improvisation, and certain codes of film language, the whole sculpted with an incomparable precision of movement.

A prolific choreographer, he has created some 40 works and collaborations in Canada and abroad, and has been invited by major companies such as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Scottish Dance Theatre.

He has won numerous awards, including the National Dance Award (2003), the Bonnie Bird Award (2003), two distinctions from the Princess Grace Foundation-USA (2010, 2016), the ACD International Outreach Award (2012), and the Prix de la danse de Montréal Cultural Diversity Award (2017). — Quijada has also taught at USC Kaufman alongside William Forsythe (2016 and 2020).

In 2024, he became a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 2025, he received the Charles III Coronation Medal and was named a Companion of the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec.

Photo by Isabel Rancier

Amara Barner

Amara Barner is a BIPOC multidisciplinary artist from the U.S., based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal since 2016. She was the youngest dancer ever hired by RUBBERBAND, touring internationally with the company from 2016–2021. Barner was named an artist “On The Rise” by Dance Magazine in 2020 after the company’s performances of Ever So Slightly in New York City. She currently works as a freelance dancer, teacher, and choreographer across Canada and the U.S. In recent years she has performed the works of Animals of Distinction, Tentacle Tribe, and Anne Plamondon Productions. She has also performed on television shows like The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with Sia and Ravyn Lenae, as well as Chanteurs masqués (The Masked Singer) in Québec. Amara has taught on dance conventions in the USA such as Intrigue, NEOVATE, and Luminous. In Canada, she regularly teaches her movement practice, Soft Chaos, at École de danse contemporaine de Montréal, Danse à la carte, and Ballet Jazz de Montréal. She also teaches contemporary technique at the Compagnie de danse contemporaine du Québec, and at the École supérieure de ballet du Québec. Barner’s creative practice utilizes fibre art scenography, costume, and dance for live performance. In 2023, she received the Emerging Artist Prize from Festival Quartiers Danses for her debut solo featuring a large-scale fibre art bird nest. The 2nd year cohort of the École de danse contemporain de Montréal premiered her latest 30 minute work, A Sentient Spiral, at Tangente danse in Montréal in December 2025. Barner is currently working on her first full length production, A Woman is a Bird.

Photo by Isabel Rancier

Éloïse Chénier 

Éloïse Chénier, originally from Mascouche, Quebec, began dancing in a local studio at the age of 3. In 2015, she began her professional training at the École supérieure de ballet du Québec. During her studies, she had the chance to perform pieces such as The Nutcracker with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Colossus by Stephanie Lake, Daphnis and Chloe by Andrew Skeels and Bolero X with Ballet BC. Curious by nature, she enjoys exploring different dance styles to enrich her vocabulary. She particularly enjoys the physical and human aspects of dance. Éloïse uses dance as a means of expressing herself, exploring the limits of the body and creating connections with others through movement. While completing her training at ESBQ, Éloïse joined RUBBERBAND in 2024.

Photo by Isabel Rancier

Natalie Gotter (she/her) is a dance performer, choreographer, filmmaker, educator, researcher, and Director of Training Programs at Bates Dance Festival. She received her MFA in Modern Dance with certification in Screendance and Gender Studies from the University of Utah and a BA in Communication, Music, and Dance from Tulane University. Dance offers her a way of engaging with the socialization of the physically gendered body and questioning human limits, whether inherent or self-imposed, with dance offering physical and somatic insight of possibilities. Her practice centers dance as a liberatory practice of community building and reclaiming of social identity. Natalie has taught at the University of Utah, Westminster College, Utah Valley University, Salt Lake Community College, Weber State University, and most recently was an Assistant Professor and co-Director of Dance at Muhlenberg College, where she designed and co-taught dance and science workshops for Youth-in-Probation, received her certification in the Inside-Out prison abolition teaching program and was awarded the 2023 Muhlenberg Center for Teaching and Learning Teaching Award for Community Engaged Coursework.

As a performing artist, she has been a featured and ensemble dancer in works by Florian Alberge, John Allen, Michaela Cannon, Juan Carlos Claudio, Ashley Creek, Michael Crotty, Katherine Desimine, Jeffrey Gunshol, Earl Mosley, Fiona Nelson, Dat Nguyen, Gabrielle Revlock, and Beverly Trask. She was also a featured dancer in the Alwin Nikolais Centennial Celebration in 2011. Her choreographic works have been presented in New Orleans, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis, including multiple evening-length self-produced and collaborative research-based concerts, and collaborative commissions for Megan Flynn Dance Company, Flatlands Dance Theatre, Cat+Fish Dances, Tipping Point Dance Company, Tanner Dance Company, and Performing Dance Center. Her screendance works have been featured at the Going Dutch Arts Festival (Chicago), PA Dance Educators Conference (Philadelphia), Red Rocks Dance Festival (St. George), Screendance in the Landscape (Oban, Scotland), and she received the Audience Favorite Award at the Utah Dance Film Festival (Salt Lake City) in 2018.