Camély (she/her) is a bilingual artist born and raised in Gatineau Qc, on the traditional lands of the Algonquins peoples. She took her first dance class when she was one and a half years old and has never stopped training. In 2014/15 she had the opportunity to travel the world with her family for a year and got to train and see shows abroad. After high school, she moved to Victoria to attend the Canadian College of Performing Arts, from which she recently graduated. Aside from performing, she has been mentored in choreography by Eryn Waltman and Dyana Sonik-Henderson. Camély is the newest member of Broken Rhythms and is very excited to be a part of Knotted after being in her first show with the company, Chriaro:Scuro, for the Victoria Fringe Festival last summer.
Question: Although you performed in the Summer’s run of Chiaro:Scuro, this is the first time you’ve worked on a Broken Rhythms Show during the development phase. What has the process been like for you?
Being part of the development and creation phase has been a really fun and interesting process for me. It feels very rewarding to be able to look back and see how far the show has come since that very first development rehearsal. I feel like over the years, I’ve been told many times and have been in situations that have taught me not to be too precious about my ideas, and this process was one concrete example of that concept. It was really interesting to see Dyana go with the flow and let the piece unveil itself. She was my mentor when I created my own piece and it was very cool to see the advice she had given me then in action. Learning the choreography for this has been quite different for me since I was used to learning it in a setting where once you know it, it doesn’t change a lot. For example, during my dance competition days, the choreography was always set in stone when you learned it. In a similar way, musical theatre tends to air on the side of “once you know the choreo, that’s what it is going to be.” With this process, I’ve learned to be more flexible in my learning. It also made me learn to not hold on too tight to segments of choreography. Or like we would say “don’t marry it yet” because who knows if it might be completely different next week. And with Dyana, you never know when there might be another canon haha! It has also been very cool to see the meaning of each piece of the show come through. All of the character work brings up so many connections to the piece that you could have never thought of having on day one.
See Camély in Broken Rhythms upcoming production of ‘KNOTTED’
Premieres April 12 2024 at 7:30 PM McPherson Playhouse.
*Tickets starting at $48.25
VENUE: McPherson Playhouse (3 Centennial Square) Victoria, BC
Broken Rhythms 