Ground UP Dance Festival

**Context Profile for Ground UP Dance Festival**

1. **Organization Mission & Cause:**
   - **Mission:** Ground UP Dance Festival is dedicated to celebrating and promoting the art of dance by organizing annual festivals that bring together diverse dance communities. Their goal is to provide a platform for both emerging and established dancers to showcase their talents, foster cultural exchange, and engage the community in the joy of dance.
   - **Cause:** The festival aims to enrich the cultural landscape by making dance accessible to all, encouraging participation, and inspiring audiences through dynamic performances and interactive events.

2. **Type of Activities:**
   - **Annual Dance Festival:** The core activity is the annual festival featuring performances, workshops, and dance parties.
   - **Workshops and Classes:** Includes specialized sessions like line dancing, providing learning opportunities for participants of all skill levels.
   - **Community Events:** Events such as karaoke and dance parties to engage the local community and create a festive atmosphere.
   - **Fundraising Campaigns:** Events like "Line Dancing at The Buckle" serve as both community engagement and fundraising opportunities.

3. **Tone of Voice:**
   - **Inspiring and Friendly:** The website and communications use an inviting and enthusiastic tone, encouraging participation and community involvement.
   - **Casual and Inclusive:** Language is approachable and designed to make everyone feel welcome, regardless of their dance experience.

4. **Emoji Usage:**
   - **Moderate Usage:** The organization uses emojis sparingly but effectively to convey excitement and friendliness, such as dance-related emojis and celebratory symbols.

5. **Key Facts:**
   - **Founding Info:** The specific founding date is not listed, but the organization has established itself as a recurring annual event.
   - **Scale and Impact:** The festival attracts a diverse audience and includes multiple forms and email campaigns, indicating a well-organized and active engagement strategy.
   - **Volunteer Info:** While specific details on volunteers are not provided, the scale of events suggests a reliance on community and volunteer support.

6. **Writing Guidelines:**
   - **Style:** Maintain a conversational and engaging style, focusing on inclusivity and excitement about dance.
   - **Content Structure:** Use clear, concise paragraphs with a focus on event details and calls to action.
   - **Personalization:** Incorporate personalized elements in communications, such as using first names in emails to create a more personal connection.
   - **Visuals and Formatting:** Utilize clean and visually appealing layouts in communications, with occasional use of color and formatting to highlight key information.

This context profile should guide AI assistants in generating content that aligns with the Ground UP Dance Festival's mission and style, ensuring communications are engaging and reflective of the organization's vibrant community spirit.

LXCL:Includes access to both workshop days

June 13 & 14, 2026

LXCL:It is preferred you join both days of this workshop, but a drop-in is available for day one

June 13

Ground UP Dance Festival presents Choreographic Thinking for Artists&nbsp;with Christopher House When &amp; Where June 13 &amp; 14, 20261:00-4:00pm ET June 13: Kingston School of Dance #303, 370 King St W, Kingston, ON K7L 2X4 June 14: Rehearsal Hall in Tett Centre Floor 2, 370 King St W, Kingston, ON K7L 2X4 Pricing$85 for both days *Early bird until May 6 or regularly $100 for both days About the sessionsCanadian choreographer, performer and educator Christopher House leads a playful weekend workshop that explores the elements of choreographic thinking in relation to all artistic disciplines. This workshop is for professional and experienced amateur artists making work in forms other than dance (e.g. visual arts, theatre, architecture, theatre, writing, music or cinema) who are curious about the potential of choreographic thinking in their practice and for choreographers working in dialogue with other art forms.&nbsp; The goal of the workshop is to explore how the elements of choreographic thinking&ndash; spatial, temporal and sensory &ndash;can enhance a diverse range of creative gestures. We will work together with an optimistic rigour that foregrounds play, risk, pleasure and the generative nature of failure.&nbsp; Participants must be willing to take turns engaging as performer-collaborators in the work of their peers. As such, it is helpful to have experience in a physical practice (not necessarily dance-based) and an appetite for the pleasures of movement.&nbsp; About the ChristopherChristopher House is a choreographer, performer, educator, mentor and sometime curator and editor. Born and raised in St. John&rsquo;s, Newfoundland, he joined Toronto Dance Theatre as a dancer in 1979 and was named a Resident Choreographer in 1981. He became the company&rsquo;s Artistic Director in 1994, a position that he held for twenty-six years. He created more than sixty choreographies for TDT over a period of forty years, including a dozen full-length works, and has created work for many other organizations and individuals including Portugal&rsquo;s Ballet Gulbenkian, the National Ballet of Canada, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Ballet British Columbia, Cirque du Soleil, Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, The Newfoundland Dance Project, The Hidden Cameras and soloists Peggy Baker, Claudia Moore and Guillaume C&ocirc;t&eacute;. His works have been performed in nineteen countries worldwide; in 2018, his retrospective program House Mix was performed in fifteen Canadian cities coast to coast and in Bogot&aacute; and Medellin, Colombia. He left his position at TDT in August 2020 to focus on new aspects of his artistic practice and mentorship.&nbsp; As a performer, Christopher has appeared in new works by Sarah Chase, Peter Chin, David Earle, Mark Morris, James Kudelka, and Peter Randazzo, among others. As a guest artist with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in the 1980s, he performed the title role in Fokine&rsquo;s Petrushka, and danced in Kudelka&rsquo;s In Paradisum, Nijinska&rsquo;s Les Noces and in his solo Schubert Dances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He performed in Ame Henderson&rsquo;s works voyager and RING; with Jordan Tannahill in their duet Marienbad (listed by NOW as one of the ten finest works of the decade), and in Deborah Hay&rsquo;s Ten at Tanz im August in Berlin. In July 2025 he choreographed and performed as a collaborator on Young-jun Tak&rsquo;s film Love Was Taught Last Friday, also in Berlin. His most recent solo performance work, New Tricks, premiered at The Citadel, Toronto, in March 2022 and has since been performed in St. John&rsquo;s, Vancouver, Victoria, and Halifax. It was remounted in Toronto in May 2025. His most recent performances have been in Young-jun Tak&#39;s film Love Was Taught Last Friday, filmed in the Tieranatomisches Museum in Berlin, and in the Room 104, a durational performance that he created and performed over eighteen hours Apr 17-19, 2026, at the Royal Hotel, Picton ON. &nbsp; For the last five years he has worked with Dance Collection Danse as the curator of the exhibition Still With Us: Stories and HIV/AIDS and Dance in Canada, and as the editor of recently published book of the same name. &nbsp; Christopher has taught technique and creative practice across Canada and in the USA, UK, and The Netherlands. Since 2006, his teaching and directing have been influenced by his work with post-modern icon Deborah Hay; his performance of Hay&#39;s I&#39;ll Crane For You was named as one of the top five dance Canadian dance events of 2015 in the Globe and Mail. In the last several years, he has expanded his practice as mentor and facilitator, working with younger choreographers and leading workshops for established artists at the Banff Centre, the University of Calgary, Studio 303 in Montreal and in the Summer Love-In in Toronto.&nbsp; At TDT, he developed Creation Residency and Choreographic Research programs, and, in partnership with Ame Henderson, a biennial workshop for the development of choreographers called the Emerging Voices Project. In 2020-21 he designed and led two iterations of Creative Practice for Contemporary Dance online for the Banff Centre and co-led a Disability Informed Dance workshop with Debbie Patterson in Winnipeg. This year he taught Composition at Dance Arts in Toronto, staged choreography for students at L&#39;&Eacute;cole de Danse Contemporaine de Montr&eacute;al and led a workshop for County Arts in Prince Edward County.&nbsp; Christopher House was named an Associate Dance Artist of Canada&rsquo;s National Arts Centre in 2007. He received the Muriel Sherrin Award for International Achievement in Dance in October 2009, was made an honorary doctor of letters by Memorial University in 2010, received the Silver Ticket Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts in 2012 and was cited for Outstanding Achievement in the 2021 York University Alumni Awards. He was inducted into the Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame in November 2024 and has been a Member of the Order of Canada since 2018. AccessibilityThe Kingston School of Dance (KSD) is located at the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning and is a wheelchair accessible space. Accessible parking spaces are available in both the lower parking lot and the accessible lot adjacent to the Tett. KSD is on the 3rd floor and can be accessed through the main doors. The school&#39;s studio space is also accessible, featuring sprung dance flooring, adjustable barres, mirrors, and professional sound and lighting. There are two gender neutral washrooms onsite.&nbsp; The Tett Centre for Creativity &amp; Learning (Floor 2, 370 King St W, Kingston, ON K7L 2X4), where the Rehearsal Hall is located, is a fully accessible facility, designed to support artists and visitors of all abilities. It offers dedicated accessible parking, wheelchair-accessible spaces, and accessible washrooms on every floor. About Ground UP Dance FestivalGround UP Dance Festival is focused on building community, giving dance focused performance platform, and supporting artists throughout their journey in creation and development. Launched in Summer of 2022, Ground UP has acted as the first annual festival for professional dance in Kingston, Ontario. This year&#39;s festival is running June 10th &amp; July 11th, 2026. Or learn more about <a fr-original-style="" href="https://www.groundupdancefestival.ca/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: initial; user-select: auto; box-sizing: inherit;" target="_blank">our festival</a>...

Hi <span contenteditable="false" data-custom-variable="{{firstname}}" fr-original-class="fr-deletable styled-tag-chip" fr-original-style="" style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(191, 191, 255); border-radius: 4px; color: rgb(42, 42, 196); padding: 1px 8px; font-size: 11px; display: inline-block; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: anywhere; user-select: none; box-sizing: inherit;">First name, Thank you for registering for our 2 day workshop with Christopher House! We&#39;ll see you June 13 &amp; 14 at 1:00-4:00pm ET.&nbsp; June 13: Kingston School of Dance #303, 370 King St W, Kingston, ON K7L 2X4 June 14: Rehearsal Hall in Tett Centre Floor 2, 370 King St W, Kingston, ON K7L 2X4 Accessibility Note: The Kingston School of Dance (KSD) is located at the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning and is a wheelchair accessible space. Accessible parking spaces are available in both the lower parking lot and the accessible lot adjacent to the Tett. KSD is on the 3rd floor and can be accessed through the main doors. The school&#39;s studio space is also accessible, featuring sprung dance flooring, adjustable barres, mirrors, and professional sound and lighting. There are two gender neutral washrooms onsite.&nbsp; The Tett Centre for Creativity &amp; Learning (Floor 2, 370 King St W, Kingston, ON K7L 2X4), where the Rehearsal Hall is located, is a fully accessible facility, designed to support artists and visitors of all abilities. It offers dedicated accessible parking, wheelchair-accessible spaces, and accessible washrooms on every floor. If you have any questions, please don&rsquo;t hesitate to contact us. We look forward to dancing with you! Warm regards, Ground UP Dance Festival Team✉️ groundupdancefestival@outlook.com🌐 groundupdancefestival.ca

Ground UP Dance Festival presents Choreographic Thinking for Artists with Christopher House When &amp; Where June 13 &amp; 14, 20261:00-4:00pm ET June 13: Kingston School of Dance #303, 370 King St W, Kingston, ON K7L 2X4 June 14: Rehearsal Hall in Tett Centre Floor 2, 370 King St W, Kingston, ON K7L 2X4 Pricing$85 for both days *Early bird until May 6 or regularly $100 for both days About the sessionsCanadian choreographer, performer and educator Christopher House leads a playful weekend workshop that explores the elements of choreographic thinking in relation to all artistic disciplines. This workshop is for professional and experienced amateur artists making work in forms other than dance (e.g. visual arts, theatre, architecture, theatre, writing, music or cinema) who are curious about the potential of choreographic thinking in their practice and for choreographers working in dialogue with other art forms.  The goal of the workshop is to explore how the elements of choreographic thinking– spatial, temporal and sensory –can enhance a diverse range of creative gestures. We will work together with an optimistic rigour that foregrounds play, risk, pleasure and the generative nature of failure.  Participants must be willing to take turns engaging as performer-collaborators in the work of their peers. As such, it is helpful to have experience in a physical practice (not necessarily dance-based) and an appetite for the pleasures of movement.  About the ChristopherChristopher House is a choreographer, performer, educator, mentor and sometime curator and editor. Born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland, he joined Toronto Dance Theatre as a dancer in 1979 and was named a Resident Choreographer in 1981. He became the company’s Artistic Director in 1994, a position that he held for twenty-six years. He created more than sixty choreographies for TDT over a period of forty years, including a dozen full-length works, and has created work for many other organizations and individuals including Portugal’s Ballet Gulbenkian, the National Ballet of Canada, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Ballet British Columbia, Cirque du Soleil, Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, The Newfoundland Dance Project, The Hidden Cameras and soloists Peggy Baker, Claudia Moore and Guillaume Côté. His works have been performed in nineteen countries worldwide; in 2018, his retrospective program House Mix was performed in fifteen Canadian cities coast to coast and in Bogotá and Medellin, Colombia. He left his position at TDT in August 2020 to focus on new aspects of his artistic practice and mentorship.  As a performer, Christopher has appeared in new works by Sarah Chase, Peter Chin, David Earle, Mark Morris, James Kudelka, and Peter Randazzo, among others. As a guest artist with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in the 1980s, he performed the title role in Fokine’s Petrushka, and danced in Kudelka’s In Paradisum, Nijinska’s Les Noces and in his solo Schubert Dances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He performed in Ame Henderson’s works voyager and RING; with Jordan Tannahill in their duet Marienbad (listed by NOW as one of the ten finest works of the decade), and in Deborah Hay’s Ten at Tanz im August in Berlin. In July 2025 he choreographed and performed as a collaborator on Young-jun Tak’s film Love Was Taught Last Friday, also in Berlin. His most recent solo performance work, New Tricks, premiered at The Citadel, Toronto, in March 2022 and has since been performed in St. John’s, Vancouver, Victoria, and Halifax. It was remounted in Toronto in May 2025. His most recent performances have been in Young-jun Tak's film Love Was Taught Last Friday, filmed in the Tieranatomisches Museum in Berlin, and in the Room 104, a durational performance that he created and performed over eighteen hours Apr 17-19, 2026, at the Royal Hotel, Picton ON.   For the last five years he has worked with Dance Collection Danse as the curator of the exhibition Still With Us: Stories and HIV/AIDS and Dance in Canada, and as the editor of recently published book of the same name.   Christopher has taught technique and creative practice across Canada and in the USA, UK, and The Netherlands. Since 2006, his teaching and directing have been influenced by his work with post-modern icon Deborah Hay; his performance of Hay's I'll Crane For You was named as one of the top five dance Canadian dance events of 2015 in the Globe and Mail. In the last several years, he has expanded his practice as mentor and facilitator, working with younger choreographers and leading workshops for established artists at the Banff Centre, the University of Calgary, Studio 303 in Montreal and in the Summer Love-In in Toronto.  At TDT, he developed Creation Residency and Choreographic Research programs, and, in partnership with Ame Henderson, a biennial workshop for the development of choreographers called the Emerging Voices Project. In 2020-21 he designed and led two iterations of Creative Practice for Contemporary Dance online for the Banff Centre and co-led a Disability Informed Dance workshop with Debbie Patterson in Winnipeg. This year he taught Composition at Dance Arts in Toronto, staged choreography for students at L'École de Danse Contemporaine de Montréal and led a workshop for County Arts in Prince Edward County.  Christopher House was named an Associate Dance Artist of Canada’s National Arts Centre in 2007. He received the Muriel Sherrin Award for International Achievement in Dance in October 2009, was made an honorary doctor of letters by Memorial University in 2010, received the Silver Ticket Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts in 2012 and was cited for Outstanding Achievement in the 2021 York University Alumni Awards. He was inducted into the Dance Collection Danse Hall of Fame in November 2024 and has been a Member of the Order of Canada since 2018. AccessibilityThe Kingston School of Dance (KSD) is located at the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning and is a wheelchair accessible space. Accessible parking spaces are available in both the lower parking lot and the accessible lot adjacent to the Tett. KSD is on the 3rd floor and can be accessed through the main doors. The school's studio space is also accessible, featuring sprung dance flooring, adjustable barres, mirrors, and professional sound and lighting. There are two gender neutral washrooms onsite.  The Tett Centre for Creativity &amp; Learning (Floor 2, 370 King St W, Kingston, ON K7L 2X4), where the Rehearsal Hall is located, is a fully accessible facility, designed to support artists and visitors of all abilities. It offers dedicated accessible parking, wheelchair-accessible spaces, and accessible washrooms on every floor. About Ground UP Dance FestivalGround UP Dance Festival is focused on building community, giving dance focused performance platform, and supporting artists throughout their journey in creation and development. Launched in Summer of 2022, Ground UP has acted as the first annual festival for professional dance in Kingston, Ontario. This year's festival is running June 10th &amp; July 11th, 2026. Or learn more about <a href="https://www.groundupdancefestival.ca/" target="_blank">our festival</a>...

Ground UP Dance Festival

Choreographic Thinking for Artists with Christopher House

June 13 & 14, 2026

$100

June 13

$50

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