Jane-Alison McKinney is a Toronto based dance artist. Her work has been presented by platforms including Citadel + Compagnie, Tangente, Expanse, The Saint John Contemporary Dance Festival, Summerworks, and Guelph Dance Festival. Jane-Alison’s work with Emma Kerson, hard wire, premiered at Citadel + Compagnie in 2023, and toured to Arts Orillia and Ottawa Dance Directive in 2024. Most recently she premiered This Piece is Not About Motherhood, it’s About the Body at Citadel + Compagnie in partnership with The National Ballet of Canada’s Creative Action Programme.
A graduate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre (now Dance Arts Institute), Jane-Alison has performed the works of a variety of dance artists in Canada and Internationally. In 2016, she was awarded a Metcalf Foundation Internship in Artistic Direction with adelheid under the mentorship of Heidi Strauss, and in 2022 was a performer in Heidi’s on air, which was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble. She is currently a faculty member in Dance at York University.
My work is deeply connected to the earth and land that we live and move on, and affected by the generous lessons I continue to learn from this land and its history. For thousands of years my home has been the traditional land of the Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. My work also travels from ocean to ocean, and I acknowledge the many traditional lands I have had the great fortune of sharing on. Today, these gathering places are still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work, live, and create here, as well as recognize our responsibility in working towards truth and reconciliation.
photos: Francesca Chudnoff (1) Courtney Gallery (2)
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