Yvonne Coutts

Performer, Choreographer, AD ODD

Yvonne Coutts’ work has been presented by the Brian Webb Dance Company, the Winnipeg Dance Festival, Tangente, Danceworks, Four Chambers, Women in View, Dancemakers, Arraymusic, Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers, the Canada Dance Festival and BoucharDanse.  Recipient of the 1994 Bonnie Bird Choreographic Award from the Laban Center, her commissioned work toured Europe, the United States, and Asia. In 1994, she was in residence at The Place in London and her solo, Now. In Blue, commissioned by the Canada Dance Festival and the CanDance Network, went on to a successful Canadian tour. Yvonne was a company member of Le Groupe Dance Lab from 1988 to 1994 where she worked with artists such as Paul-André Fortier, Sylvain Émard, Louis Bédard, Russel Maliphant, Wayne McGregor, Harold Rhéaume, Noam Gagnon, Claudia Moore, Carol Anderson, and Tedd Robinson while also creating numerous works on the company. She was Lab artistic associate from 2003 to 2006.

She has been on faculty of The School of Dance since 2000, a sessional instructor at the University of Calgary, and guest artist at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton, Contemporary Dancers in Winnipeg, and LADMMI (former) in Montreal.

Yvonne was the 2015 recipient of the Ottawa Arts Council Mid-Career Artist Award.  She has been nominated for the K.M. Hunter Artists Award three times, and was nominated for the inaugural Eldred Family Dance Award in 2021 through the Ontario Arts Foundation.

Yvonne became artistic director of Ottawa Dance Directive in 2010 and has choreographed ten works for Compagnie ODD which have been featured in national festivals.