Omineca Arts Centre
Omineca’s mandate is “a safe space for creativity to flourish” and our Mission Statement is “Omineca Arts Centre will create space and opportunity for innovative, multidisciplinary, collaborative, and marginalized art forms within the Omineca region.” Our Core Values are: Welcoming, Innovative, Inclusive, Community-minded, Supportive, Accessible and Sustainable.The Omineca Arts Centre is an interdisciplinary, locally-led artist run centre that is grounded in arts-based community development. Omineca continues to facilitate collaboration and diversify opportunities for emerging & professional visual, literary, musical and performing artists. The centre is located in a storefront in the pedestrian core of Prince George’s downtown. Our aim is to co-develop meaningful and collaborative artistic projects, experiences, and models for catalyzing arts and culture in the Omineca region, while prioritizing inclusivity, responsiveness, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Stephanie Babij / Creations by Steph
Stephanie Babij (she/her) is an urban-Indigenous visual artist of Ojibwe and mixed-settler heritage. Originally from Sudbury, Ontario, with maternal roots in Wikwemikong Unceded First Nation, she now makes her home in Unceded Algonquin Territory/Ottawa. Stephanie’s visual arts practice includes acrylic paintings, drawings and wood burnings crafted from fallen trees.
Chantal Stormsong Chagnon
Chantal Chagnon is a Cree / Métis Singer, Drummer, Artist, Storyteller, Actor, Educator, Workshop Facilitator, Social Justice Advocate and Activist with roots in Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Saskatchewan. She shares Traditional Indigenous Songs, Stories, Culture, History, Arts, Indigenous Craftsmanship and Teachings. Chantal has presented in Classrooms from Preschool through University and Professional, Community, and Social Justice Events and Gatherings. Chantal aims to entertain, engage, enlighten, educate, and inspire everyone she meets.
Starr Muranko (Co-Artistic Director | Raven Spirit Dance)
Starr Muranko is a dancer, choreographer and Mother to the most amazing little boy. She is Co-Artistic Director with Raven Spirit Dance – a contemporary Indigenous dance company based in Vancouver, BC on the the unceded and Ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. As a choreographer she is most interested in the stories that we carry within our bodies and Ancestral connections to land that transcend time and space. Her choreographic work has been shared both locally and nationally across Canada including presentations at the Dance Centre, Talking Stick Festival, Coastal Dance Festival, Dancing on the Edge, Weesageechak Begins to Dance (Native Earth Performing Arts), Impact Festival and InFringing Dance Festival. Featured work includes ‘before7after’, Spine of the Mother and Chapter 21.
Wren Brian
Wren is a playwright who started her career in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada (territory of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation & Ta’an Kwäch’än Council) where she was born and raised. Currently based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on Treaty 1 territory, she is a graduate from the University of Winnipeg’s Theatre & Film Honours Program specializing in acting, directing and filmmaking. In addition to playwriting she also works as an arts administrator and producer.
Lin Snelling
Lin Snelling’s performance, writing and teaching is based in the qualities improvisation can offer as it applies to dance, theatre, visual art and somatic practice. She toured the world extensively as a performer with Carbone 14 and worked with many improvisation ensembles. As Professor at the University of Alberta she is presently teaching dance, experiential anatomy and composition and is Coordinator of the MFA in Theatre Practice program. She received a McCalla Professorship in 2019 from the University of Alberta for a new collective creation, A Sounding Line. Her recent dance collaborations are Entrances with David Gagnon Walker and Tori Morrison, eva as part of StageLab, The Liminal with Brian Webb, anything goes: GWG Dance in 17 parts with Gerry Morita, and Versing with musician/composers Michael Reinhart, Jeremi Roy, David Ryshpan and lighting designer Yan Lee Chan. She works with Montreal choreographer Tedi Tafel and was part of Crying in Public, Life World, Calendar and Everyday. Her collaboration Performing Book with visual artist Shelagh Keeley happened at the Edmonton Art Gallery, MoMA, the Power Plant/Toronto, and the VAG/Vancouver. She continues with Rewriting Distance; a workshop and performance with the dance dramaturge Guy Cools. www.rewritingdistance.com
Nakai Theatre
Nakai Theatre contributes to a thriving Yukon through professional theatre, supporting spectacular moments of delight, meaningful connections, new creations and inspiration from right here and around the world.
Jen Yakamovich
Jen Yakamovich (she/her) is a drummer, multi-instrumentalist, improviser, environmental researcher, and educator currently living and working as a settler on Coast Salish territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. Her musical approach tends towards the embodied, textural, and hidden worlds of multispecies collaboration. Jen performs as drummer on a number of projects ranging from folk, experimental, sound collage, R&B, and creative & improvised music. Her solo project is called “Troll Dolly”. She received her Master’s in Environmental Studies in 2020.
Will Weigler
I am a theatre director, playwright, producer, and professional storyteller, now living and working on the traditional territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. I have written five books on different approaches to co-creating theatre with people in communities about the issues that matter to them. In the past two years I have been working with the International Centre of Art for Social Change as a mentor for several emerging artists creating community-based performance work around issues of climate change activism and sustainability. I have borrowed a personal credo from Philip Pullman who writes: “Responsibility and delight can co-exist.”
The Borch Brothers
If the Borch Brother’s music style were to be personified, the heart and soul would be East Coast Fiddle music with a spine of old tyme fiddle. The head would be folk and each appendage would be reaching into jazz, swing, ukrainian and celtic.
The Borch Brothers are Rigel (fiddle), Marten (guitar, vocals, harmonica and kick-drum) and Garnet (accordion, piano and vocals). They released their first album since 2006, Gathering Change, in June, 2021 and will be releasing an EP in June 2022. Beyond being musicians, the Borch Brothers are also activists, community builders and performers. Their aspirations aren’t for fame or fortune but instead to play more of their favourite gigs: where they connect with the audience as they bounce, dance and sing along.
