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Description
Witness the cast of Partita prepare to take the stage in HEAR THE DANCE: Signature Programme 3. This open rehearsal of Justin Peck’s sneaker ballet invites you to get closer to the artists as they move through technically challenging choreography that celebrates the joy of being together.
From Broadway and New York City Ballet choreographer Justin Peck, Partita is a folk dance for our times. Celebrating moments of intersection despite life’s angularities, the eight dancers oscillate between solo and unison movements, embodying the a cappella voices of Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning composition. Learn more about the festival performances, and buy tickets here.
Experience Esie Mensah Creations in rehearsal for their recent Dora-award winning work ZAYO, as they prepare to showcase the work as part of FFDN’s International Presenter’s Program.
ZAYO is a whisper remembering that we do not travel through this world alone; an ancestral presence guides us to have the courage to uncover who we are meant to be. ZAYO, is a memoir shaped by the lived experiences of visionary director and choreographer Esie Mensah, into an Afrofusion dance-theatre production about the courage needed to follow one’s calling and ancestral purpose.
Schedule
Wednesday, October 14
12-2PM - Partita by Justin Peck in rehearsal with TMU graduates and dancers from Canada's National Ballet School's Company Life Program
4-7PM - Zayo by Esie Mensah Creations
Thursday, October 15
12-2PM - Partita by Justin Peck in rehearsal with TMU graduates and dancers from Canada's National Ballet School's Company Life Program
4-7PM - Zayo by Esie Mensah Creations
Justin Peck is a three-time Tony Award winning director, choreographer, filmmaker, and dancer based in New York City. He is the Resident Choreographer of the New York City Ballet, and only the second person in the institution’s 75-year history to hold this title. He has developed and created over 50 stage and theater works that have been presented on stages around the world, including Lincoln Center, the Palais Garnier, Sydney Opera House, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Broadway: (with Buena Vista Social Club, Illinoise, and Carousel). He choreographed the 2021 film West Side Story in collaboration with director Steven Spielberg.
His creations for the dance world have been performed by companies all over the world, including the Paris Opera Ballet, Australian Ballet, Dresden Semperoper Ballet, Hong Kong Ballet, Boston Ballet, Juilliard, The National Ballet of Canada, Miami City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, LA Dance Project, Dutch National Ballet, the School of American Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, and Houston Ballet among many others.
Esie Mensah is an award-winning choreographer, director, dancer, educator, and TEDx speaker, whose work spans dance, theatre, opera, and film/TV. She has worked with Rihanna, Drake, Nelly Furtado, Kenny Ortega, and clients like Canada’s Got Talent, Holt Renfrew, Deloitte, and the Toronto Raptors. Her work has toured nationally and internationally. Theatre credits include choreography for Soulpepper, Obsidian, Shaw Festival, Stratford Festival and directing Serving Elizabeth at Theatre Aquarius. She choreographed Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha: A Musical Reimagining and was Artist in Residence at Fall for Dance North in October 2025 and debuted her most ambitious production ZAYO which debuted in Toronto and in Milan, Italy in 2026.