Daina Ashbee is an artist, performer and choreographer based in Montreal, known for her radical works at the edge of dance and performance, which intelligently approach such complex subjects and taboos as female sexuality, Métis identity, and climate change. For the choreographer, creation is an instinctive and quasi-spiritual quest, which embraces her relationship with her ancestors, the universe and the entire cosmos. At the young age of 26, she has already won two awards for her choreographies. Her work has been presented at La Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines in Montreal (2015, 2016) and at Montréal, arts interculturels (2014), as well as at the Global Alliance Against Female Genital Mutilation and the Musée d’ethnographie de Geneva in Switzerland (2015). In the fall of 2016, she took part in the Oktoberdans Festival in Bergen, Norway, and the SACRED: Homelands Festival in London.
Daina is the artist-in-residence at Agora de la danse in Montreal until 2020 and the associate artist of Centre Création O Vertigo. This year, she has presented her work at the Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis, The Dance Biennale in Munich and Tanzdage an International Dance Festival in Potsdam (Germany), at The FTA (Festival TransAmériques) in Montreal and at The Venice Biennale in Italy, at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, in Nuuk Greenland, at Actoral Festival in Marseille, and at Usine-C in Montreal and PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia. This year she will tour Spain (Barcelona, Madrid) as well as other locations.
In November 2016, she was a double prizewinner at the Prix de la danse de Montréal, winning both the Prix du CALQ for Best Choreography of 2015-2016 for her choreographic installation When the Ice Melts, Will We Drink the Water?, and the Prix Découverte de la danse, presented by Agora de la danse and Tangente, for Unrelated. Daina was named recently by the prestigious TANZ magazine as one of 30 promising artists for the year 2017 and named one of 25 to watch by the American publication, DANCE.