BOARD OF DIRECTOR BIOS

Haleigh-Rain Eady is an experienced manager of operations, development, and dance theatre production. With a background in dance performance and choreography, her practice in the arts grew into producing many events and festivals across Canada including Dusk Dances Hamilton while developing her career in fundraising strategy and nonprofit development. Haleigh is the Senior Manager, Fundraising and Development at Hamilton Food Share and enjoys supporting her community. She currently serves as Board President and Treasurer of BoucharDanse.

Janice Pomer has been teaching, performing and creating in the fields of dance, music and physical theatre across Canada since 1976 providing dance experiences for movers of all ages and abilities in urban, rural, northern and First Nations communities, and has recently created special movement engagement programs for children and youth with complex abilities attending congregated schools.
Janice is the author of three internationally acclaimed books on Dance and Creative Movement Education published by Human Kinetics USA, she also writes study guides and resources for dance companies and Boards of Education, and has designed experiential education programs for museums and galleries using movement exploration as a catalyst for deepening students’ understanding of the exhibits. Janice has known Sylvie for many years, she worked with Sylvie on several of Dusk Dances’ Community Dance Outreach programs, and was delighted to join the BoucharDanse Board in 2019.

Stephanie Bryant is a retired French teacher who nurtured the co-curricular dance program at Havergal College, a Toronto Independent School, for more than 2 decades. In that capacity, she led students in the senior dance troupe, dance team and middle school dance club through technical skill development and creative activities, curated guest dance artist experiences and organized outings to conferences, performances and competitions to expand students’ ideas and broaden their repertoire. In addition, as an artistic director, she worked with student leaders, as well as colleagues in visual arts, drama and music, to create many performances, including an annual theme-based dance show. Stephanie holds additional qualifications in the Arts, such as Teaching and Learning in the Arts, Visual Arts Part 1 and Dance Part 1, and is particularly interested in how the arts can connect and reflect cultural identities. She joined the Board in 2023 and looks forward to supporting the incredible artistic work of Sylvie Bouchard and BoucharDanse.

Jade Silman (she/her) is a theatre creator, dramaturg and administrator who foregrounds collaboration, equity, and passion in all her work. Since graduating from York University’s Theatre BFA, she has continued to learn through the Nightwood Innovators Program, Theatre Gargantua’s Emerging Artists Roundtable, and Toronto Fringe Festival’s TENT producers training program. Currently, she is the Artistic Associate & Head of Communications at Nightwood Theatre. Additionally she has been working as a freelance dramaturg and creator, and arts administrator for companies including Next Generation Showcase, Crow’s Theatre, Dusk Dances, Arts Commons and CBC/Zone 3.