Heather Jarvie: President
Heather (she/her) is the Artistic Director / Co-Founder of hapax theatre and has an extensive background in music, theatre, and dance . She has been an avid contributor to the Victoria Theatre scene for many years with selected highlights of her performance experiences including, Hello, Dolly!, La Traviata, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Nevermore, Children of Eden, The Crucible, Woyzeck, A Beautiful View, The Magic Flute, and Dog Sees God. Heather’s directing highlights include Harvey, Company, Nevermore (2019 Pick Of The Fringe Winner), The Boy In The Chrysalis (2018 Pick Of The Fringe Winner), A Beautiful View, In On It, Be Still, and the world-premiere of new Canadian play Castle On The Farm.
Heather was the Guest Producer of the 29th annual Victoria Fringe Festival and then immediately moved into the Artist-In-Residence position with Pacific Opera Victoria where she was the Assistant Director on Otello, Mary’s Wedding, The Barber of Seville, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and La Voix Humaine. Leaving her residency at Pacific Opera Victoria, Heather became the Artist-In-Residence for the Icelandic Opera where she was the Assistant Director on the award-winning production of Eugene Onegin. During the pandemic, Heather focused her attention on her community and creating safe and inclusive opportunities for artists to create, work, and feel supported. She is thrilled to join the Broken Rhythms board of directors so she can more officially cheer from the rooftops for this fabulous company.
John Manson: Vice President/Treasurer
John has been a Broken Rhythms board member since 2021, starting as a Member-at-Large, later moving into the Treasurer role, and now stepping into the Vice President position as well. He has been active in various segments of Victoria’s arts community for over 15 years, including visual arts, writing, dance, and theatre. John found his love of dance later in life and has been training at Raino Dance since 2014. In addition to his involvement with a range of other local dance studios, he has performed with several theatre companies in Victoria including VOS Musical Theatre and Gotta Getta Gimmick.
Currently, John works for the Ministry of Health in the Corporate Services Division. He recently completed a Diploma of Public Administration through Camosun College. John is thrilled to be part of the Broken Rhythms Board of Directors and greatly enjoys volunteering with this organization that he deeply admires and appreciates.
Suki Athwal: Board Member/Secretary
Suki was born in India and grew up outside of Toronto before she moved to Victoria in her mid-20s. She met her husband here and they lived in Labrador and Northern BC before moving back to Victoria (for the third time!) just over 12 years ago. Suki has always loved being part of diverse, intergenerational groups that strive to foster connections and empower communities. She sees this spirit in Dyana and Broken Rhythms and is excited to join the board of directors.
Suki has worked as a therapist, teacher, community facilitator, and course creator in schools, non-profits, government agencies, and private practice. She has also used arts based participatory processes with groups to explore and address social justice issues.
She now runs her own trauma therapy and coaching practice where she helps individuals and groups heal from childhood and complex trauma. Suki loves music, reading, dance, ocean dips, walks, cherry blossoms, and connecting with friends. She also spends a lot of time driving her teen and tween around so they can live their best lives. Suki started taking dance classes consistently in her 40s and has most recently been dancing at RNS and SEDA. She’s looking forward to supporting Broken Rhythms Dance Company as it grows and continues to create art and community.
Meghan Baerg: Board Member
Meghan joined the dance community in 2019 and, although a late bloomer to the arts, has truly found her passion for the creativity, beauty and physicality of dance. Originally from Quebec, Meghan moved to Victoria in 1998 where she fell in love with the city and realized she could go no further west.
Meghan completed her degree in French and Spanish at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick and took a dramatic career turn into Information Technology (IT) after spending half a decade “finding herself” in Banff, Whistler, Australia and some backpacking adventures in Mexico and Guatemala. While IT at first glance seems like a dramatic shift in Meghan’s journey, it fits perfectly with her appreciation and respect of different cultures, customs and languages. In her career, she has had the opportunity to learn about various business areas and unique cultures within governments and organizations, and she has also had the incredible fortune of working in the Yukon, Quebec, Italy and Botswana.
Meghan was introduced to Broken Rhythms in 2024 through their Rhythmical Contemporary workshops and felt an immediate love for the culture and language of this dance form. She is consistently amazed and impressed with the vision, creativity, and storytelling individuals can create through dance and feels strongly this should be celebrated and supported in Victoria.
Meghan is very excited to join the Broken Rhythms Board of Directors and looks forward to supporting this wonderful community.
Dora Jessen: Board Member
Dora’s passions include painting, science, gardening, travel and dance, the latter of which she embarked on as an adult. Her parents instilled the value of the arts as part of a balanced life. The contemporary dance seed was planted when she was a child attending performances by Margie Gillis, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, The Dance Theatre of Harlem and any/all dance troupes that happened to pass through Victoria. She joined Raino Dance for a year in 1996, and next returned to dance at Passion and Performance dance studio in 2016. She has recently returned to Raino Dance where she trains under Broken Rhythms’ Artistic Director, Dyana Sonik-Henderson.
Dora’s work experience is varied, including positions with the federal government and not-for-profits, as well as running her own business. She was very involved with Toastmasters International for several years taking on roles of President, VP-Education, VP-PR, and VP-Membership. Dora holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Linguistics and a Master of Business Administration degree with a focus on entrepreneurship. She has travelled the world, learned a few languages, and is currently studying Spanish for her next journey south.
Dora is delighted to join the Broken Rhythms board as a Member-at-Large. She looks forward to seeing Dyana’s visions and goals for Broken Rhythms realized with the board’s support. Dora is looking forward to help promote the contemporary dance art form to enrich and engage the lives of those in our community.
Vicki Hargreaves: Board Member
The arts, and the performing arts in particular, have been Vicki’s joyful preoccupation over a lifetime of work that includes acting, directing, arts advocacy, culture management and arts education. Vicki has worked in a variety of roles with organizations across Canada such as Theatre Calgary, the Canadian Opera Company, the National Ballet of Canada, Young People’s Theatre, Great Canadian Theatre Company and the Kick and Push Theatre Festival. During COVID, Vicki created an arts service organization in Kingston, Ontario connecting artists across disciplines to workspace in order to continue to their practice in an altered world. Her international experience has included working with national artists on five continents and running full theatre programming in international schools. Currently, Vicki sits on the board for Clay and Paper Theatre in Toronto and is active in the film and TV industry here on Vancouver Island. This past summer, Vicki appeared in the Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival as Prince Escalus. As an artist, Vicki’s acting work is rooted in the physical life of a character. Dance is both an inspiration artistically and kinetically for her. The vision of Broken Rhythms Dance, for dance artists and the community, is profoundly moving and one that Vicki is honoured to be part of.
Trudy David: Director Emeritus
Trudy grew up in Edmonton, but fell in love with the adventure of traveling and living in diverse cultures during her teens, when her family moved to Australia for a year. Since then she’s lived and worked in Europe, the French West Indies, and French Polynesia, before settling in Victoria. Her love of languages and cultures led to a thirty year career teaching ESL and French in high schools and colleges. A secondary career in music and opera performance developed through her studies at the Conservatory of Music, and led to sixteen wonderful years with Pacific Opera Victoria where she absolutely loved expressing herself through the drama and music of opera. Trudy’s four children, four grandchildren and late husband, have enriched her life immeasurably. They’ve brought her much joy, joining her in nature, sometimes for ski and surf adventures. They’ve also led her to experience some of life’s challenges and to become a more loving and compassionate human being. In “retirement” Trudy enjoys running her rental property business, practicing many outdoor sports, singing jazz, and dancing. She has greatly admired Dyana Sonik-Henderson and Broken Rhythms Dance Company since meeting them, and is honored to support them by serving on the board.
Patty Chop: Director Emeritus
Patty Chop has been involved in the arts in one way or another since she was young. In the 70’s Patty was able to inspire young minds as an art history teacher at Mount Royal College and an art teacher in public high schools and in Calgary and Winnipeg. Additionally, she ran supplementary volunteer ceramics programs in elementary schools in Ontario. Growing up, Patty studied tap, ballet, public speaking, piano and voice.
These days, Patty enjoys gardening, golf, bridge, traveling, cooking, the symphony, theatre and especially Broken Rhythms Dance. Patty also works independently as a visual artist with glass and printing on clay in her studio. Her experience being a wife, mother and grandmother has given Patty life skills and passion that will add to the multi-talented board of Broken Rhythms Dance.
Broken Rhythms 