Rylee Block | Lighting Designer

Rylee Block is a seasoned technician with over a decade of experience planning, designing, and operating a vast array of productions. Mr. Block entered the industry via a local production company setting up, operating, and driving gear across the province for various events such as large outdoor concerts/festivals, stylish corporate events/retreats, and quirky smaller gigs in between. Following this first foray, he then went on to work in a premiere 750-seat proscenium theatre, soon taking on the mantle of Technical Director and playing host to everything from community recitals to international touring shows. Despite the busy schedule, he moonlighted as a lighting designer for musicals, dance, and theatrical productions. Eventually his passion for creation won out, and he is now thankful to work solely as a freelance lighting designer based out of the Okanagan.

Guillaume Côté | Choreographer, Bolero and World Premiere

Guillaume Côté is a native of Lac-Saint-Jean, Québec. He studied at Canada’s National Ballet School and joined The National Ballet of Canada in 1999. He quickly rose through the ranks and was promoted to Principal Dancer in 2004. Since then, Mr. Côté has danced most of the major classical roles with The National Ballet of Canada and has been the leading male figure of the company. He has had several lead roles created on him notably the role of Romeo in Alexei Ratmansky’s new Romeo and Juliet, Prince Charming in James Kudelka’s Cinderella, and the role of Gene Kelly in Derek Deane’s production of Strictly Gershwin, for the English National Ballet.  He has also worked closely with such dance icon as Roland Petit, John Neumeier, William Forsythe, Christopher Wheeldon and Crystal Pite. 

As a guest artist, Mr. Côté has danced with The Royal Ballet, Bolshoi Theatre, American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet, Teatro alla Scala, English National Ballet, the Mikhailosky Theater of St-Petersburg, Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires, Berlin’s Staatsoper, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Stuttgart Ballet, Hamburg Ballet, the Alberta Ballet, Verona Opera and the South African Ballet Theater. Mr. Côté has also performed in numerous international galas.

 In 2013, in addition to his position as a Principal Dancer, Mr. Côté assumed the role of Choreographic Associate with The National Ballet of Canada and today eight of his works are part of the company’s repertoire. In 2012, his work Enkeli won the Audience Choice Award for Best Choreography at The Tenth International Competition for The Erik Bruhn Prize. That same year, his work for ProArteDanza, Fractals: a pattern of chaos, was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Choreography. In 2013, his work Being and Nothingness entered The National Ballet of Canada’s repertoire and after its initial success, returned in 2015 and again in 2019 during an international tour ending in Russia. Mr. Côté’s first full-length ballet, Le Petit Prince, was presented during the National Ballet’s 2016 season in front of sold-out houses. In 2017, Mr. Côté was chosen to participate in the landmark National Arts Centre Commission Encount3rs performing together with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. In June of 2018, Mr. Côté created in collaboration with the famed Director Robert Lepage, Frame by Frame, a new full-length evening presented at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto. 

In 2021, Guillaume Côté founded his own company Côté Danse focused on the multidisciplinary creation of innovative works with the mission of making dance seen and experienced differently.  He first creates Crypto, a full-evening work presented on a national tour of 20 performances. In the summer of 2021, he created X(Dix), presented on a tour of 28 performances in 20 cities including Fall for Dance in New York. The work was also filmed for the Fall for Dance North Festival in Toronto and is still presented on the digital art platform Marquee TV.  Also in 2021, he created Touch, an immersive multidisciplinary work that was presented 83 times to sold-out houses. In 2023, he co-created Hamlet with Robert Lepage and the work is currently touring internationally.  

In 2011, Mr. Côté was awarded “La médaille de l’Assemblée Nationale du Québec” for his work in the arts.  In September 2014, Mr. Côté was named the Artistic Director of the Festival des Arts de Saint Sauveur, the largest summer dance festival in the country.   In 2021, Mr. Côté was appointed a Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec, the highest distinction given by the government of Quebec.

Cameron sinkʷə Fraser-Monroe | Choreographer, payɛčot yɛχət

Cameron Fraser-Monroe is a member of the Tla'amin First Nation, as well as being of Ukrainian and Scottish descent. At three years old he started Ukrainian dancing in Vernon, BC leading him into a wide variety of music, theatre, and performance. He was privileged to receive several years of training and performance with World Champion Hoop Dancer Dallas Arcand and studied Grass Dance with Elder Mollie Bono. Since graduating from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School on the RWB Alumni Scholarship, he has performed with many companies including Red Sky Performance at Jacob’s Pillow Festival, Dancers of Damelahamid, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and Atlantic Ballet Theatre of Canada. As a choreographer, Mr. Fraser-Monroe has received commissions from the National Ballet of Canada, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Ballet Kelowna, The Winnipeg Summer Dance Collective, the Artist's Climate Collective, TRANSFORM Cabaret Festival at the Cultch, and both PULSE and Indigenous Day Live! on APTN.

Trey McIntyre | Choreographer, The Reassuring Effects (of Form and Poetry)

Born in Wichita, Kansas, choreographer, filmmaker, writer, and photographer Trey McIntyre has been a freelance choreographer for more than 25 years. He has created works for American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, BalletX, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, New York City Ballet, Queensland Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, and The Washington Ballet. He began his career serving for 13 years as Choreographic Associate to Houston Ballet and Resident Choreographer for Oregon Ballet Theatre, Ballet Memphis and The Washington Ballet.

In 2005, Trey founded Trey McIntyre Project, a world-renowned dance company that has now broadened its focus to include artistic ventures such as the documentary film Gravity Hero.His photographs and dances have been featured in various magazines as well as the New York Times and Washington Post. The U.S. Forest Service commissioned him to create a series of photographs commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act and is currently working on two books of photography.

Trey has received numerous awards, including a Choo-San Goh Award for choreography, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters, and two National Endowment for the Arts grants for choreography. He is a United States Artists Fellow and was named one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" in 2001, one of People Magazine's "25 Hottest Bachelors" in 2003, and one of Out Magazine's 2008 "Tastemakers." The New York Times critic Alastair Macaulay said of Mclntyre, "...There's a fertility of invention and a modernity of spirit here that are all Mr. Mclntyre's own." The Los Angeles Times wrote, "...There is indeed such a thing as genuine 21st century ballet, and it belongs more to this guy from Wichita than any of the over-hyped pretenders from England, France or Russia." In recent years he has won acclaim for his photography, film-making and writing.

Recent creations include Patsy Cline Gets Her Heart Broken for Ballet Memphis in February, 2022 and David Bowie's Pretty Things which had a dress rehearsal before its premiere with Houston Ballet and lockdown in March 2020 and had its official world premiere in May, 2022.  Projects in 2022/23 included staging ballets for Ballet X, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Nevada Ballet Theatre and Festival Ballet,  Providence, Rhode Island. Trey also restaged his acclaimed production of Peter Pan for Houston Ballet.

Projects in 2024/25 include staging his acclaimed 2-act Peter Pan for Oregon Ballet Theatre and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre as well as stagings of works for Smuin Ballet, Grand Rapids Ballet, among others.

Simone Orlando | Choreographer, Cuatro Estaciones and Rite of Spring

Simone Orlando completed her dance training at Canada’s National Ballet School and subsequently joined The National Ballet of Canada in 1989. In 1996, she joined Ballet British Columbia under the direction of John Alleyne where she danced for 13 years as one of the company’s most celebrated principal artists.

Ms. Orlando’s choreographic explorations began in 1997. Praised for her mature and sensitive ideas, vision, musicality, and delineation of movement and space, she has received numerous commissions including those from Ballet BC, Toronto Dance Theatre, and Ballet Kelowna. Ms. Orlando is the recipient of a 2004 Vancouver Arts Award, the 2006 Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award, a 2009 Fellowship Initiative Grant from the New York Choreographic Institute, and the 2013 Pretty Creatives International Choreographic Award.

In June 2014, Ms. Orlando graduated with distinction from the Business Management program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and was appointed Artistic Director and CEO of Ballet Kelowna effective September 1, 2014. During her tenure at Ballet Kelowna, Ms. Orlando has brought over 40 new works into the company’s repertoire. She was the recipient of the City of Kelowna’s 2017 Honor in the Arts Award and she was appointed to the BC Arts Council’s Board of Directors in 2018.

This is Ms. Orlando’s tenth anniversary as Artistic Director and CEO of Ballet Kelowna.

Alysa Pires | Choreographer, Vestiges

Alysa Pires was born and raised on the traditional territory of the W̱SÁNEĆ people near Victoria, B.C. She is an Honours BFA graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University and her choreographic works have been performed by companies such as New York City Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada (NBOC), Alberta Ballet, Ballet Kelowna, and Ballet Edmonton. 

Ms. Pires recently became the first Canadian woman to create a work for New York City Ballet, making her Lincoln Center debut in May 2023 with Standard Deviation. The work was subsequently presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. 

Ms. Pires began working with the National Ballet of Canada as part of their Choreographic Workshop (2016-2018) where she created her critically acclaimed work In Between. She represented the company at the 13th International Competition for the Erik Bruhn Prize and was then appointed Choreographic Associate by Karen Kain, a position Ms. Pires held from 2019-2022. Other works for NBOC include Frenzied Order (2019), in a state of vanishing (2021), and Skyward (2022).  

Ms. Pires’ commissions for Ballet Kelowna include her full-length Macbeth (2022) and MAMBO (2018), which has become a signature work for the company. MAMBO was presented as part of the 2018 Fall for Dance North Festival in Toronto, the China Arts Expo in Beijing, and tours extensively across Canada. 

Ms. Pires is a three-time participant of the New York Choreographic Institute and was one of the 2017 winners of Northwest Dance Project’s International Choreographic Competition. She also creates under the umbrella of Alysa Pires Dance Projects.

Aaron Quibell | Stage Manager

Aaron Quibell is a certified audio engineer with extensive professional experience in the music, theatre, and pro- duction industry. Aaron graduated from Okanagan College's Audio Engineering and Music Production program in 2016 and has been working and teaching in the industry since. Since graduation from Okanagan College, Mr. Quibell has gone back to teach current students with their annual live show. Besides working as an audio engineer, producer, stage manager, recording engineer, and lighting designer, he has paired up with local Vernon venues providing film and photography service. Mr. Quibell has had the opportunity to tour across Canada with Ballet Kelowna and is excited to continue to work with them in the future.

Robert Stephen | Choreographer, In the Light of the Waking Sun

Robert Stephen is a Canadian choreographer, dancer, and teacher. A graduate of Canada’s National Ballet School, he joined The National Ballet of Canada in 2004 and was promoted to First Soloist in 2011. During his fourteen years with the Company, he performed a diverse range of repertoire by James Kudelka, Christopher Wheeldon, Wayne McGregor and Crystal Pite. In 2011, he was commissioned to choreograph for the Erik Bruhn Competition, and won the Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award from the Banff Centre. In 2018, he joined Gauthier Dance/Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart, where he performed works by Ohad Naharin, Hofesh Shechter and William Forsythe. Since returning to Canada in 2020, he has been commissioned to create three new works for Ballet Kelowna including Celestial Mechanics, In the Light of the Waking Sun, and Mustard. He is also currently a member of the artistic staff at Canada’s National Ballet School, where he teaches, mentors, and choreographs for the Professional Ballet and Company Life programs.