Owen Belton | Composer, Mustard

Owen Belton lives in Vancouver, Canada and graduated from Simon Fraser University with a degree in Fine and Performing Arts (concentration Music). He has been composing for dance for the last 25 years as well as creating sound design and music for live theatre for the past 15 years. Owen has created pieces for The Paris Opera, Ballet Nuremberg, Electric Company Theatre, The Arts Club as well as Nederlands Dans Theatre and Kidd Pivot. This is his 3rd time creating music for Ballet Kelowna.

Rylee Block | Lighting Designer

Rylee Block is a seasoned technician with over a decade of experience assisting with a vast array of productions. Rylee got his start in the industry with 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. Mr. Block went on to work as the Technical Director of a 750-seat roadhouse ven- ue (among the busiest in BC) while moonlighting as a Lighting Designer for musicals, dance, and theatre. As of February 2022, Mr. Block now works as a full-time freelance technician and designer based out of the Okanagan.

Krista Dowson | Costume Designer and Builder, Mustard

Krista Dowson began dancing at the age of 6 and at the age of 12 she joined Canada’s National Ballet School. Upon graduation in 2000, she entered The National Ballet of Canada’s Apprentice Program, advancing to the Corps de Ballet two years later. 

Ms. Dowson retired from The National Ballet after a fulfilling 14-year career. She remains situated within the dance world, designing and building costumes and dance wear for dancers and companies, both nationally and internationally. She has designed costumes for The National Ballet of Canada’s Being and Nothingness, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Seven Deadly Sins, Ballet Kelowna’s Livestream No.1 and No. 2, Casa Loma’s Legends of Horror, and Toronto Dance Theatre’s production of Bin Chicken, as well as multiple productions for ProArteDanza, Côté Danse, and Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre.

Jocelyn Morlock | Composer, Delicate Fire

Jocelyn Morlock (1969–2023) was one of Canada’s leading composers, who wrote compelling music that has been recorded extensively and receives numerous performances and broadcasts throughout North America and Europe. Born in Winnipeg, she studied piano at Brandon University, and later earned a master’s degree and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia, where she was recently an instructor and lecturer of composition. The inaugural composer-in-residence for Vancouver’s Music on Main Society (2012–14), she took on the same role for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2019.

Ms. Morlock's music is hailed as being "airy but rhythmic, tuneful but complex" with "uncanny yet toothsome beauty" (Georgia Straight). “A lyrical wonder, exquisite writing” with “an acute feeling for sonority” and an approach that is “deftly idiomatic” (Vancouver Sun), her music is recorded on 24 CDs, including newly-released Halcyon, and Cobalt, whose title track, a concerto for two violins and orchestra, won the 2015 Western Canadian Music Award for Best Classical Composition.

Ms. Morlock had close ties with the National Arts Centre Orchestra who, in 2015, commissioned My Name is Amanda Todd, a powerful work about the teen from Port Coquitlam, BC who took her own life due to cyberbullying. It subsequently won the 2018 JUNO Award for Classical Composition for the Year.

Most of Ms. Morlock’s compositions are for small ensembles, many of them for unusual combinations like piano and percussion (Quoi?), cello and vibraphone (Shade), bassoon and harp (Nightsong), and an ensemble consisting of clarinet/bass clarinet, trumpet, violin and double bass (Velcro Lizards). Cobalt, a concerto for two violins and orchestra, was her first commission for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, in 2009.

CD releases featuring Morlock’s work include her Centrediscs orchestral CD, Halcyon; the National Arts Centre Orchestra's Analekta CD, Life Reflected; Duo Concertante's Marquis Music release, Incarnation, and Chronos Vocal Ensemble's Fresh.

Much of Jocelyn’s music is inspired by birds, insomnia, or a peculiar combination thereof.

Simone Orlando | Choreographer, Studies of Cash and Delicate Fire

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, Macbeth

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.

Jake Poloz | Choreographer, The Royal We

Originally from Northern Alberta, Jake Poloz is a professional dancer & choreographer. In 2019 he served as choreographic assistant to Ryan Lee at Toronto Metropolitan University, and later that year premiered his own work I’ve seen you naked at The Westdale Theatre in Hamilton. Additionally, he has been selected to present his work at The Garage and Dance Matters in Toronto, as well as Festival Quartiers Danse in Montreal, where he received the Coup de Coeur Emerging Artist prize. His work has been hailed as “athletic, preposterous and funny” as well as “finely tuned… fresh and thought provoking” by View Magazine. 

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, Mustard
Adapted from Kat Sandler’s Dora Mavor Moore Award-winning play

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.

Kirsten Wicklund | Choreographer, The Forever Part

Kirsten Wicklund was born in British Columbia, Canada and trained at Pacific Dance Arts, Goh Ballet Academy, Modus Operandi Contemporary Training Program and received scholarships to train at American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and Banff Centre for the Performing Arts. She received the 2020 Choreographic award at YAGP and her recent work “Overcast” was selected as a finalist for the International Choreographic Competition Hannover in 2021.

As a dance artist, Ms. Wicklund has danced with The Washington Ballet Company, Alonzo King’s choreographic workshop, Lunge Dance Collective, Ballet BC and Opera Ballet Vlaanderen. From 2014-2021 with creation-based company Ballet BC (Canada), under the direction of Emily Molnar and later Medhi Walerski, she danced and created original works by; Lesley Telford, Medhi Walerski, William Forsythe, Emmanuel Gat, Wen Wei Wang, Cayetano Soto, Adi Salant, Aszure Barton, Company 605, Johan Inger, Serge Bennathan, Jorma Elo, Jacopo Godani, Walter Mateini, Emily Molnar, Crystal Pite, Ohad Naharin, Sharon Eyal and others. Presently a Demi - Soloist with Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in Antwerp, Belgium (since 2021), she is performing work by Akram Khan, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Pina Bausch, Sharon Eyal, Jan Martins & Crystal Pite.

Ms. Wicklund is an active maker and has choreographed works for The Dutch National Ballet, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen's Chamber Movement Project, Ballet BC's Choreographic Lab, Ballet Kelowna, Dances for a Small Stage, The Dance Deck Series, Arts Umbrella, Goh Ballet, The UBC Choir, Lamon Dance, Dancing on the Edge Festival, and Joshua Beamish's Move The Company. In 2023/24 she is commissioned to make work for the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company (Holland) and for Ballet Edmonton (Canada).