Sara Coffin is an independent dance artist, dance educator and Co-Artistic Director of Mocean Dance. She holds a MFA in Choreography (Smith College, USA), BFA in Dance (Simon Fraser University, BC) and Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology (Dalhousie University, NS).  An award winning dance artist and choreographer, most recently the NS Established Artist Award, Coffin has created over 30 dance works. Her choreography has been presented in many prominent Canadian dance festivals and in the United States.  Coffin’s research interests include interdisciplinary collaboration, technology as an extension of the body, contact improvisation, and the poetic junction between vulnerability, resiliency and courage. Her newest work Wild Within premiered with Mocean Dance late fall 2019. As a dance educator, Coffin has been a visiting lecturer regularly at Holland College (PEI), Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Halifax), Universidad Rafael Landívar (Guatemala City), and she held an Adjunct Faculty position at the five-college consortium in Massachusetts teaching at Smith College and Hampshire College (2012-14).

Amelia McGrath is a dancer from Halifax Nova Scotia. She has been training at Halifax dance her whole life up until last year when she studied a year of a dance at Concordia in Montréal. She returned home in March due to the pandemic and has continued training at Halifax dance since her return. Amelia has previously performed as an apprentice with Votive, and is currently working with a few local artists on some upcoming projects. 

Gabby Bernard is an Alberta based actor, and graduate of both the University of Alberta’s BFA Acting and MacEwan University’s Theatre Arts programs. Some previous stage credits include A Christmas Carol (Carter-Ryan Productions), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (SBTB/Theatre Calgary), The Giver (StoryBook Theatre),  The Unsyncables (Dammitammy Productions), 3 Mysterious Women (StageLab) and Doll House (Studio Theatre). As an artist, Gabby is especially invested and interested in creation of new work: she wrote and performed NUKE at the Thousand Faces Festival in 2019, and is co-creator of Lady Be Good, a series of satirical feminist skits, performed at Play the Fool, NextFest and Odd Wednesday in Edmonton.

Raïna von Waldenburg recently moved to Vancouver after having been full-time faculty at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she taught a physical approach to acting based on the work of Jerzy Grotowski at the Experimental Theatre Wing for 17 years. Since 2012 she has been faculty at Simon Fraser University, University of the Fraser Valley, and the Art Institute of Vancouver. Raïna received her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College, and her BFA in acting from New York University where she trained under Stephen Wangh, and Grotowski’s principal actor and protégée Ryszard Cieslak. She served as research assistant and editor for Stephen Wangh’s book An Acrobat of the Heart: A physical approach to acting inspired by the work of Jerzy Grotowski.For 30 years Raïna has been writing, directing, performing, mentoring, and teaching workshops in embodied performance, presence work, and devising. In 2000 Raïna founded the Center for Embodied Performance where she produces/co-produces her original theatrical works and workshops. In Canada, the Center for Embodied Performance and Blue Egg produce Grotowski-based intensives (ALIVE BODY, Grotowski Praxis, and East Meets West) that include Master Teachers Stephen Wangh, Linda Putnam, David MacMurray Smith, Claire Fogal, Gabriella Minnes-Brandes, and Wendy Vanden Heuvel. Currently a mentor for emerging dancers at the Scotia Dance Centre’s Mentorship Program, and a facilitator for the 12 Minutes Max 2019/2020 season, Raïna has worked with numerous artists in the development of original material and research projects. She has worked as a mentor/devisor/coach with theatre, dance, and film companies such as O.Dela Arts (Vancouver), Biting School (Vancouver), The Assembly (Vancouver); Company Link (Winnipeg); New (to) Town Collective (Vancouver); James and Jamesy (Vancouver); Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret (Vancouver); Telluride Theatre (Telluride); Working Classroom (Albequerque); InterACT – Werkstatt für Theatre und Soziokultur (Graz); Bali Conservatory (Bali); Shoe String Productions (Syracuse); Actors Without Borders (NYC); Full Moon Films — Split (NYC); Kaid Media — We Are the Hartmans (NYC); and Broadway’s Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy (NYC).