choreography, music composition, education, community building
dianne montgomery
Dianne Montgomery is a choreographer, dancer, music composer and educator. In 2022 she was presented by the esteemed Fall For Dance North festival for the World Premiere of her work Softly Losing, Softly Gaining at Meridian Hall. In 2022, she was also presented by the Toronto International Tap Dance Festival at Harbourfront Centre in a second commission, an extension of her 2017 work Her. In 2021 received significant support from Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council, and was presented as a featured choreographer in the Body and Soul Festival in Calgary, Alberta. She produced a successful series of workshops in 2020/2021 for students from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, produced an animated short with accompanying original music, and began Two Minutes With..., a short collaboration series.
In 2019 she privately coached first soloist Chelsey Meiss Fain of National Ballet of Canada in her role as the Mad Hatter in the National Ballet's Alice in Wonderland, was an Open Studio artist for Fall for Dance North at Union Station, premiered original work at Citadel + Compagnie’s Night/Shift, was a guest artist for the We Are One Jazz Project, contributed choreography to Rhythm & Sound's [Cinq]opation at the Meridan Theatre, gave workshops in Washington DC and Calgary and was the 2018/2019 Artist in Residence for the Ottawa Rhythm Ensemble. In 2017/2018 she sold out her first full-length live collaborative show with Juno nominee Ron Davis' Symphronica and was one of four Canadian choreographers commissioned by Toffan Rhythm Projects and Harbourfront Centre to present at the inaugural Toronto International Tap Dance Festival, a project for which she also wrote the music, and was a member of the faculties of teaching intensives for The Rhythm Ensemble, The Toronto Rhythm Initiative, Tapfest and the Eastern Canadian Tap Conference.
Dianne's work has also included world touring with FEIST, as a tap dancer and shadow puppeteer, with appearances on Saturday Night Live, The Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O’Brien and performances across North America and Europe, notably Massey Hall, Royal Albert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. She has contributed to television, film, music and live theatre work: was featured on Sook-Yin Lee’s Definitely Not the Opera, and appeared in the FEIST documentary Look at What the Light Did Now. She contributed vocals to the opening sequence of the Paul Gross feature film Gunless and to the Travis Good-Gordon Pinsent-Greg Keelor album Down and Out in Upalong. She privately coached Allison Scagliotti of sci-fi series Warehouse 13, she opened the !f Istanbul Independent Film Festival in Istanbul, Turkey with a shadow work and choreographed and art directed for the Donna Grantis (Prince) Electric Band’s video Gold Dust Reprise. She has produced workshops for Savion Glover (Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk, Shuffle Along, Tony award winner and nominee) and Bebop legend Barry Harris among others.