Simcoe
Contemporary
Dancers

We come together to raise the visibility of contemporary dance, create awareness, build educational opportunities, and share our love of our art form.

Breeanna Booth, Jaqui Brown, Casey-Lee Cooper, Kasandra Chiaromonte, Abby Mandar, Paul Moen, Natasha O’Hara, Sydney Whittaker and Eligh Zimmerman in “Tracing Orbits” co-choreographed by Chrissy Baxter, Jaqui Brown, and Shelby Thoms.

(Video by Northern Palm Canada).

About Us

Simcoe Contemporary Dancers is a not-for profit professional dance company serving the region of Simcoe County. We exist to encourage and showcase the development of local contemporary dance.

Our events bring our community together to a shared experience of movement, which transcends language, as we animate spaces with choreographies that tell our stories and experiences.

What We Value

Creativity

As members of our community, we are invested in facilitating opportunities for creative engagement with contemporary dance for practitioners and lovers of the art form.

Community

We value and encourage interdisciplinary partnerships with individual artists and other local arts organizations. We facilitate opportunities to converge and collaborate as a community in a non-competitive atmosphere – providing a platform to be expressive, engaged and creatively challenged.

Collaboration

The nature of our artists and activities provides a safe, positive, neutral environment for people to come together to take part in a shared experience. Our events bring our community together to experience movement, which transcends language, as we animate spaces with choreographies that inspire and engage our public.

We Aim to
INSPIRE

We strive to engage our community and instill a sense of excitement, curiosity and understanding through and with the power of contemporary dance. We do this by providing local, attainable dance education, free and paid performances, and through public outreach at community events in Simcoe County.

We Work to
EXCEL

We facilitate artistic excellence and innovation in local contemporary dance by engaging passionate committed local dance artists as company members, providing professional development workshops for our community, and hosting ongoing classes. We celebrate the professional calibre of regional arts practice by initiating collaborations with local community and arts focused groups.

We Create to
ENDURE

We work to develop an enduring legacy of contemporary dance in our community through our partnerships, creative development, and events. We have built a repertiore of choreographies that tell our stories and experiences. We explore topics that affect our own lives, ideas that interest us and stories that inspire us. We create work that is both athletic and questioning.

Photos: 1. Sarah Lochhead in “Crazy” choreographed by Trish Armstrong. 2. Shelby Thoms of Simcoe Contemporary Dancers 3. Shelby Thoms, Ulana Fordham, and Chrissy Baxter in “Cumulonimbus and the Fable Keepers” choreographed by Susan Kendal.