Davida Monk - Choreographer, Performer & Teacher
Davida Monk began her dance career with Le Groupe de la Place Royale of Ottawa. In addition to dancing and making work for the company, Monk served as Assistant Artistic Director, and with Artistic Director Peter Boneham, helped to develop Le Groupe Dance Lab. Since 1985 Monk’s works have been seen in Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Vancouver and at the Canada Dance Festival. Her work has been presented in Gdansk and Warsaw, and Helsinki. She has danced the works of more than 20 choreographers including those of Tonya Lockyer, Rachel Browne, Louise Bedard, Serge Bennathan, Tedd Robinson, Benoit LaChambre, Melissa Monteros, Harold Rheaume, Tassy Teekman, Ruth Cansfield and Peter Boneham.
Monk’s training began with Peter Boneham. Monk simultaneously pursued Alexander Technique with Brenda Beament. She has consistently studied the Mitzvah Technique, first with Ann Tutt and latterly with Amelia Itcush. Voice, movement, theatre and other training with Richard Bull, Maggie Black, Zena Rommett, Irene Dowd, Min Tanaka, Tonya Lockyer, Richard Armstrong, Shauna Romano and the Pilates Method have also influenced Monk’s development as a dance artist.
Monk has taught most notably at Le Groupe Dance Lab, the Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers, the School of Contemporary Dancers, School of the Alberta Ballet, Grant MacEwan College, York University, University of Regina, New Dance Horizons, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, and at the Dance Centre and MainDance in Vancouver. In 1996 Monk began teaching in the Faculty of Fine Arts Department of Dance at the University of Calgary. Since 1999 Monk has been associated with the University for half the year devoting the other half-year to her professional creation, teaching and performance. In 2004 Monk founded M-body: mind and music in motion, the company through which she creates and disseminates her dance works.
Monk has worked as rehearsal director and outside eye for numerous dancers and choreographers and as a choreographic monitor at Le Groupe Dance Lab. In 1994 Monk was an advisor on issues in contemporary dance to the Banff Centre for the Arts. She has sat on the selection jury for Dancers Studio West’s Alberta Dance Explosions and has been on peer juries of the provincial arts councils of Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario, the Discovery Jury of the Canada Council as well as being an acting peer assessor for the Canada Council.
Monk has been the recipient of awards for choreographic development from the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Calgary Region Arts Foundation and The Banff Centre.
