Tara began her dance career with The National Ballet of Canada after graduating from the National Ballet School. She then danced for The Alberta Ballet and was a celebrated Principal dancer for Canada’s Ballet Jorgen for 16 years. Bengt Jörgen created many lead roles in full length ballets for Tara including Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, Anastasia, Coppelia, and The Nutcracker. She has guest performed internationally with The Hong Kong Ballet, The Ohio Ballet, Banff Festival Ballet and The Miami Hispanic International Ballet Festival. She has worked with many of Canada’s most sought after choreographers including Gioconda Barbuto, Roberto Campanella, Allison Cummings, Robert Desrosiers, Robert Glumbek, Allen Kaeja, Karen Kaeja, Malgorzata Nowacka-May, Crystal Pite, Kathleen Rea, and Wen Wei Wang. She is the Artistic Director of Dust and Soul Dance, Waterloo Regions’ award-winning contemporary dance company.

Mayumi Lashbrook (she/her) is a Japanese Canadian settler who seeks to expose, challenge, and rectify systems of oppression by creating innovative, introspective and inclusive dance theatre. She sees embodiment as at the crux of world making, providing alternatives to unconscious thought and oppression. Her primary practices span performance, choreography, and education. Mayumi is the Co-Artistic Director of Hamilton based Aeris Körper, mentee of Denise Fujiwara of Fujiwara Dance Inventions and practitioner of Dreamwalker Dance’s Conscious Bodies methodology. She has choreographed for Dusk Dances, Guelph Dance, CanAsian Dance and self produced a bi-city presentation of her work Enemy Lines.