Mayor's Arts Award for Dance

Mayor's Arts Award for Dance 2015 recipients
Crystal Pite
​Lesley Telford

 Honouree Crystal Pite is a former company member of Ballet BC and William Forsythe's Ballett Frankfurt.
Her professional choreographic debut was in 1990 with Ballet BC. Since then, she has created over 40 works for companies such as:

• Nederlands Dans Theater I
• Cullberg Ballet
• Ballett Frankfurt
• National Ballet of Canada
• Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal
• Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet
• Ballet BC
• Louise Lecavalier/Fou Glorieux

Crystal is an associate choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater, associate dance artist of Canada's National Arts Centre, and associate artist at Sadler's Wells, London.
In 2002, she formed Kidd Pivot in Vancouver, which tours nationally and internationally, performing works such as Dark Matters and Lost Action.
Kidd Pivot's residency at the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt (2010-2012) provided Crystal the opportunity to create and tour The You Show and The Tempest Replica.
Most recently the company has premiered Betroffenheit, a co-creation with playwright and actor Jonathon Young of Electric Company Theatre.

Lesley Telford
Emerging artist Lesley Telford is a Vancouver-born choreographer, performer, and teacher.
She danced with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens,  Compañia Nacional de Danza in Madrid and Nederlands Dans Theater.
As a choreographer, she has created works for companies at home and abroad, such as Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballet BC,  Compañia Nacional de Danza, Ballet Vorpommern, and Hubbard Street Dance Company 2, among others. Lesley founded Inverso Productions in 2012, through which she created Brittle Failure, a work that has toured Spain, Holland, and Canada.
Interested in furthering her artistic exploration, Lesley recently completed a master’s degree in Cultural Production at the joint program of the University of Salzburg and Mozarteum Salzburg. ​