Meet Showcase Choreographer: Annalise

Annalise is an emerging dance artist from Toronto, Ontario whose passion for movement, choreography and improvisational exploration began at the Etobicoke School of the Arts. Working closely with Hannah Keil through Kenny Pearl’s Emerging Artist Residency in 2020, she choreographed and performed for the film Together Inside-Out. She joined the Frog in Hand Dance Company in 2021/22, channeling the theatrical side of site-specific choreography and clowning dramaturgy. After her first vernacular jazz class in Toronto Metropolitan University’s (formerly Ryerson) Dance program, the combination of style, sensation and music is what made jazz dance her ‘love at first feel’. Through DJD’s Professional Training Program, Annalise’s rhythmic curiosity has helped her embody and understand the marriage between jazz music and dance. In January of 2024 she became department director for the Prancing Peanuts Dance and Movement school at the Marda Loop Communities Association, with a goal to inspire young dancers to experience that same ‘love at first feel’ feeling in ballet and jazz dance techniques. Annalise is currently in her third season with DJD’s Professional Training Program and is now training with DJD’s professional company. She is also a dancer with Carifest under the direction of Sabrina Naz Comenescu. Since her move to Calgary in 2022, she has truly discovered a passion for musical and dynamic movement and aspires to continue deepening her knowledge in jazz music, movement, and history with Decidedly Jazz Danceworks as a performer, choreographer, and teacher.