Newton Moraes and Meryem Alaoui

An Afternoon of Dance, courtesy of From Words to Action: IBPOC Touring Network in Communities 2025

Sunday, February 16 at 2 pm

The Warkworth Town Hall, 40 Main St, Warkworth, ON

Learn more about the pieces below.

Pay-What-You-Can Event

Part 1: My Dance is Not a Hobby with Newton Moraes

Dance is far more than a hobby for me—it's an integral expression of my identity, my journey, and my deep connection to the world around me. As a 63-year-old LGBTQ man, dance has been my vehicle for exploring the complexities of my life, embracing the past, and celebrating the present. It is a medium through which I share my story, navigate my personal struggles, and honor the transformative experiences that have shaped who I am today.

Though I began my dance journey later in life, I found great strength and solace in African Brazilian Spirituality, which has become a cornerstone of my creative expression. This powerful tradition not only connects me to a sense of belonging but also informs the emotional depth of my solo performances.

My artistry is inspired by many—legendary figures like my late partner, Bob (Robert Shirley), who taught me the meaning of love and resilience; choreographer Danny Grossmann, whose work continues to ignite my creative spirit; and performer Lola Ryan, whose pioneering spirit guides me. I also dedicate my work to my current partner, Jake, whose unwavering love and support fuel my passion, and to his family, who embrace me as their own.

Newton’s PERSONAL BIO

Newton Moraes is a celebrated choreographer and the founder of Newton Moraes Dance Theatre. Originally from Brazil, he has introduced his vibrant, cross-cultural dance styles to Canada and the world. Influenced by his Brazilian heritage, Moraes’ work delves into themes of identity, migration, and the human experience. His dynamic choreography has earned international acclaim, and over the past 27 years, he has significantly contributed to the dance community through performances, tours, and workshops in cities like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Moraes’ passion continues to inspire dancers and audiences, solidifying his role as a transformative figure in contemporary dance.

COMPANY BIO

Newton Moraes Dance Theatre (NMDT) is a dynamic company committed to creating, performing, and producing contemporary dance works that explore and strengthen the cultural ties between Canada and Latin America. With a history of national and international acclaim, NMDT has toured widely, receiving support from organizations such as the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Laidlaw Foundation, Goethe Institute Toronto, Foreign Affairs Canada, Dance Ontario Association, and Polo da Zona Norte in São Paulo, Brazil.

NMDT’s vision is to inspire and mentor young artists, particularly those working within the Latin American Diaspora in Canada. The company aims to preserve Latin American dance traditions while fostering an appreciation for its diverse heritage. NMDT seeks to elevate critical discourse on Latin American dance, encouraging deeper engagement with its complexities. By creating innovative platforms for artistic expression, the company aspires to reach broad audiences and serve as cultural ambassadors, both within Canada and globally.

Part 2: Sand Body with Meryem Alaoui / Jasad

Sand Body is a solo created and performed by Meryem Alaoui, with text written in collaboration with Christopher Willes, that questions the body’s relationship to object-hood, and uses slowness to highlight the ancestral wisdom or futuristic optimism of the somatic and sensory experience of the body in the present moment.

Sand Body Description

I see you. You see me. We see objects and their shapes; the marks and traces of the object. We listen, make decisions and feel our surroundings. Perhaps we also feel the spaces between us. We share a sonic, visual and textural experience, together, for a few moments here and now.

Sand Body began with questions about the body's relationship to object-hood: how can an object perform its object state? Does a body that prefers immobility bring with it another way of seeing, one that traces and blurs the boundaries between objects and living bodies?

Does slowness, the quality of proceeding at a reduced pace, carry with it an ancestral wisdom or offer us today a futuristic optimism? What kind of aliveness can be highlighted by a slow body?

In Sand Body, a disembodied voice gives directions. Who is being directed? Who is directing? What kind of implicit agency is conveyed by this voice, perhaps offered to those who listen? Sand Body has been presented in a dance studio, on stage, in a multimedia gallery and a theatre lobby.

BIOGRAPHIES

Meryem Alaoui is a Moroccan dancer-choreographer based in Toronto. Founder and artistic director of Jasad Dance Projects, her work is at the intersection of somatic research using movement and voice, and the exploration of contemporaneity through the reclamation of embodied performance practices, dances and knowledge from her culture as a Moroccan diasporic dance artist. A graduate of the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, she has worked with choreographers Amanda Acorn, Peggy Baker, Antony Hamilton and Karen Kaeja, among others. She has shared her choreographic work nationally and internationally. Meryem also enjoys being involved in community and arts education projects.

Christopher Willes is an artist, composer / musician , performance maker, and facilitator based in Toronto and Montréal. His interdisciplinary work focuses on the subject and practice of listening, exploring both its individual and collective intricacies. He is an Associate Artist and Producer with the Toronto arts organization Public Recordings. He studied music at University of Toronto, and received an MFA from Bard College. He is a Chalmers Arts Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow (USA), and an affiliated researcher at the Milieux Institute of Concordia University. His work has been presented across North America, in the UK, Europe and Japan.

As a musician, Jonathan Adjemian is known for his skill as a keyboardist and his knowledge of digital and analog audio. His works for instruments, electronics and voices have been presented by The Music Gallery, Flowchart, the Canadian Music Centre, and others. Credits in dance include Amanda Acorn's MULTIFORM(S) at the 2016 Festival Transamérique in Montréal, and projects with choreographers Nova Bhattacharya, Meryem Alaoui, Barb Lindenberg, and Amelia Ehrhardt. With Araz Salek, Jonathan co-founded Labyrinth Ontario, an organization dedicated to the study and presentation of modal music traditions of Central and Western Asia and the Mediterranean.

REVIEWS

« Sand Body de Meryem Alaoui défie d’entrée de jeu le public. Un espace ouvert nous est présenté telle une œuvre d’art interactive à 360 degrés. (…) Jouant avec la patience des individus et les conventions du spectacle, cette expérience sociale nous met face à la notion de choix et de contraintes auxquelles nous faisons tous face au quotidien et qui pourtant nous paralyse dans certains environnements. »

“Sand Body by Meryem Alaoui challenges the audience from the start. An open space is presented to us like an interactive 360-degree art installation. (…) Playing with the patience of the audience and the conventions of performance, this social experiment confronts us with the notion of choices and constraints that we all face in daily life, and yet we are paralyzed by them in certain environments.”