Informal show with Danny Grossman, Jackie Latendresse, Eddie Kastrau

Danny Grossman was born in San Francisco in 1942. In 1963, he joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company and spent the next 10 years performing and touring with the company. In 1973, Grossman joined Toronto Dance Theatre in Canada and became a faculty member at York University. In 1975, he choreographed Higher to tremendous praise leading to the formation of the Danny Grossman Dance Company in 1977. Grossman has since created a repertoire of more than 60 works, touring across Canada and internationally. His choreography has been in the repertoire of Toronto Dance Theatre, The Paris Opera Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and The National Ballet of Canada and has also been performed by modern dance training institutions such as Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, New York State Summer School of the Arts, Adelphi University, City College of New York, Brown University, York University, School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Ryerson University, and Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre. Grossman has been the recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious Toronto Arts Council Foundation’s William Kilbourn Lifetime Achievement Award and was recently inducted into the Canadian Dance Collection Danse Encore! Hall of Fame. In 2008, the company embarked on a new initiative, the Danny Grossman Dance Foundation, as a means of reconstructing and licensing his repertoire. In June of 2018, in honor of his 75th birthday, Danny presented a full evening of his own works, including 3 world premieres.

Eddie Kastrau, a dancer with the Grossman Dance Company since 1986, has been a creative muse for many of Grossman’s original roles.  Besides dancing in over 40 of Grossman’s works, he has performed other modern masterworks, including Paul Taylor’s Aureole, The Beloved by Lester Horton, Anna Sokolow’s Rooms, Charles Weidman’s Lynchtown, and Canadian classics by David Earle, Patricia Beatty, Peter Randazzo, Robert Desrosiers, Paula Ross and others. Mr. Kastrau has also danced independently for numerous choreographers in Canada and abroad including David Earle, Patricia Beatty, Nenagh Leigh, Menaka Thakkar, Janak Khendry, Rina Singha, Bill James, Michelle Silagy, Terrill Maguire, Randy Glynn, Andrea Nann, Claudia Moore, Joan Phillips, D. A. Hoskins, Newton Moraes, and Lawrence Gradus.

Jackie Latendresse is an alumnus of the University of Waterloo where she obtained her H.B.A. in Dance with a minor in Fine Arts. She founded Free Flow Dance Theatre in 1995 and has been the artistic director ever since. The Company relocated to Toronto in the winter of 1996 and has since found a home base in Saskatoon. Jackie has been choreographing and producing her own shows since 1993 when she presented her first full evening of dance works at Abstract Machines that Recognise Certain Languages. She has since created a large volume of work and her repertoire includes 20 works (20 min+) and numerous shorter works, Her work has been presented all over Canada at many venues ranging from traditional theatres to schools. The company has toured extensively with the Canadian Fringe Festival Circuit and is invited to present work regularly throughout Saskatchewan. She has received various awards including the Special Merit award for outreach with the LGBTQ community from Out Saskatoon 2011, been named Champion of the arts by the Star Phoenix in 2017, was awarded a Saskatoon Foundation for the Arts Artist award 2018 and most recently she received the 2021 Saskatoon YWCA Woman of Distinction award for arts and culture.