Sara Mearns, Guillaume Côté, & Jonathon Young

About Sara Mearns
Sara Mearns (dancer) is from Columbia, SC, and has been a principal dancer at New York City Ballet since 2008. She has originated roles in works by Justin Peck, Kyle Abraham, Alexei Ratmansky, Pam Tanowitz, Bobbi Jene Smith, Christopher Wheeldon, Guillaume Côté and Beth Gill, among others. Guest performer: Paul Taylor Dance Company, The Cunningham Centennial Celebration, Jodi Melnick Dance, Bill T. Jones/Lee Ming Wei and Wang Ramirez, as well as Dances of Isadora Duncan at Lincoln Center. At NYCC, she starred in Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes, I Married An Angel (Encores!) and Twyla Now, as well as multiple Fall for Dance Festivals. Mearns performed A Piece of Work, a full evening of five world premieres at The Joyce Theater (2022), was awarded a Bessie Award for Outstanding Performer (2018), the Dance Magazine Award (2019) and an honorary doctorate from University of South Carolina (2019). Mearns recently made her debut as Juliet in Alexei Ratmansky’s production of Romeo and Juliet with The National Ballet of Canada.

“One of the most celebrated ballerinas in the world.” – The New York Times

Photo: Erin Baiano

Guillaume Côté (choreographer) is a native of Québec, is a renowned Principal Dancer with The National Ballet of Canada. He has performed major classical roles and worked with the world’s most esteemed choreographers. As a guest artist, he has danced with prestigious companies worldwide, including The Royal Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, English National Ballet, the Mikhailosky Theater of St-Petersburg, Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires, Berlin’s Staatsoper, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Stuttgart Ballet, Hamburg Ballett, Verona Opera and the South African Ballet Theater. In 2012, he co-founded Anymotion Productions to produce high-quality independent dance works. Mr. Côté also serves as a Choreographic Associate with The National Ballet of Canada, with eight of his works in the company’s repertoire. His ballets have received critical acclaim, including Enkeli, which won the Audience Choice Award for Best Choreography in 2012. He collaborated with director Robert Lepage to create Frame by Frame in 2018. In 2021, he founded his own company, Côté Danse, and premiered innovative works such as X (Dix), Crypto and Touch and The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark in collaboration with Ex Machina. Mr. Côté has received numerous awards and was named Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec in 2021.

Jonathon is a Canadian theatre artist based in Toronto. He is Playwright-in-Residence with Kidd Pivot, a Core Artist and Co-Founder of Electric Company Theatre, and an award-winning actor working across Canada in theatre, film and television. With Kidd Pivot, Jonathon creates dance-theatre alongside choreographer Crystal Pite. Their productions (Assembly Hall, Revisor, Betroffenheit) have toured extensively in North America, Europe and Asia with recent sold-out performances at Théâtre de la Ville (Paris) and Sadler’s Wells (London) and won two Olivier Awards for Best New Dance Production. Both Revisor and Betroffenheit were filmed by the BBC and Betroffenheit received two prestigious European prizes: The Golden Prague and the Rose d’Or Award in Berlin. In 2016 they created a piece called The Statement for Nederlands Dans Theatre which was performed at New York City Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and is now included in the repertoire of London’s Royal Ballet.  With his collaborators at Electric Company, Jonathon has written and devised over 20 original plays, garnering several Canadian theatre awards, since the company’s inception in 1996. Jonathon is the recipient of the UK National Dance award.

Gilbert Bolden (Dancer) was born in San Diego, California and began dancing at the age of nine in Las Vegas, Nevada. His ballet training began in 2011 at Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild, CA, and he continued his studies at The Rock School for Dance Education in Philadelphia, PA in 2013. In 2014, Mr. Bolden enrolled at the School of American Ballet, New York City Ballet’s official school.  Mr. Bolden became an apprentice with the Company in August 2017 and joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in August 2018. As an apprentice with the Company, Mr. Bolden III performed a featured role in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker^® (Mother Ginger) and originated a featured role in Gianna Reisen’s Composer’s Holiday. In October 2023, Mr. Bolden was promoted to soloist.

Composer, sound designer, musician and instrument maker John Gzowski worked on over 200 theatre, dance and film productions for which he has done composition, sound design, live foley, live music and as musical director. He has played banjo for opera in Banff, studied Carnatic classical music in India and played oud and guitar in jazz and folk festivals across Canada and Europe. His theatre work has won him 6 Dora’s, from 18 nominations for companies like Stratford, Shaw Festival, Luminato, National Arts Centre, the Mirvishes, MTC, the Arts Club, Canstage, Soulpepper, Dancemakers, Red Sky, Tarragon, Factory Theatre and YPT. Gzowski has played on numerous CD’s, with recent releases with Patricia O’Callghan, Tasa, and Autorickshaw as well as a Juno nomination with Maza Meze. He has run Canada’s first microtonal group, touring Canada playing the works of Harry Partch, composed and performed with several new music groups and worked as co-artistic director of the Music Gallery.