Julia Sasso dances: bio

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Biography

Julia Sasso is a choreographer, performer, master teacher and the Artistic Director of Julia Sasso dances. Recognized as "one of the foremost dance artists in the country." (The Dance Current) Ms Sasso has created more than fifty original dance works including choreography for feature film, television and theatre.

She began dancing in 1960 in Detroit, Michigan where she trained with Cecchetti ballet master, Rose Marie Floyd. She continued her training in New York as a scholarship student at the Joffrey Ballet and subsequently as an apprentice with the Harkness Ballet. She performed with the Contemporary Civic Ballet (Detroit) for six years before moving to Toronto to attend York University's Faculty of Fine Arts (Dance).

She performed internationally with Toronto's Dancemakers (1984-2000) and was the company's Assistant Artistic Director and principal teacher for a dozen years. Throughout her career she has developed her artistry through ongoing training in Skinner Releasing Technique, improvisation, Authentic Movement, theatre, voice, Pilates, ballet and contemporary dance techniques. "one of perhaps a dozen contemporary modern dancers in Canada who is simply breathtaking in motion." (The Ottawa Citizen).

Her choreography has been commissioned and presented throughout Canada, in the United States and in Europe by Harbourfront Centre, the Canada Dance Festival, the Stratford Festival of Canada, Toronto Dance Theatre, Dancemakers, Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers, du Maurier World Stage, Workshop Foundation (Budapest), Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, The Theatre Centre, Factory Theatre, Dancers for Life, DanceWorks, Overall Dance, Four Chambers Dance Projects, Peterborough New Dance, the Contemporary Civic Ballet (Detroit), the Edward Day Gallery and Dancing on the Edge (Vancouver) among others. Her contribution to theatre and concert dance has been acknowledged with eight Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations.

Sasso created choreography for the feature film releases, Boy Meets Girl (1998) and The Life Before This (1999). Film treatments of her pieces, SPORTING LIFE, DUST, SCHMERZEN (IN THE HOTHOUSE) and It was like this have been screened on television and at film festivals world wide. She created choreography for the HBO television hit series, Queer as Folk.

Highly regarded as a teacher of contemporary dance techniques, Sasso has taught internationally at distinguished learning centres including UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, Cornell University, the Canada Dance Festival, Le Groupe Dance Lab and the School of Dance (Ottawa), LADMMI (Montreal), the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Canadian Childrens' Dance Theatre, the National Ballet School, the School of Contemporary Dancers (Winnipeg), Main Dance and Dancing on the Edge (Vancouver), L'Ecole de Danse de Quebec, Regroupment Québécois de la Danse, York University, Grant MacEwan College and Simon Fraser University; in Budapest, Mexico, England, Wales, Scotland, Austria and Germany. Sasso is a practicing certified teacher of the Skinner Releasing Technique.

Sasso's work has been recognized with awards, grants, scholarships and bursaries from among others, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario and Toronto Arts Councils, the Chalmers Performing Arts Training Awards, the Laidlaw and Metcalf Foundations, The John McKellar Foundation, the Dancers' Transition Resource Centre, Skinner Releasing, York University, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet/Professional Program, the Joffrey Ballet, Harkness Ballet and The Cecchetti Council of America. Her bio is included in Who's Who of Canadian Women (U of T Press Inc.).

An active participant in the community and member of Dance Ontario and the DTRC, Sasso was co-chair of the Dancers for Life Organizing Committee for three years, has served on numerous boards, juries and advisory committees and participates in mentorship programs, community benefits and fundraising initiatives.

Julia Sasso dances was established in 2000 as a vehicle for the research, creation, expression and dissemination of collaborative movement based projects. As well as undertaking a number of commissions and training initiatives, to date the company has created and produced two highly acclaimed full evening length dance works, Beauty (2003) and the betrayal project (2006).

For Current and Upcoming projects, see News