Meet the current Foolish Operations team !

Julie Lebel – Artistic Director

Born and raised in north-eastern Québec, on the ancestral lands of the Innu Nation, from a family of settlers of French and Irish ancestry, Julie Lebel now gratefully lives and dances on the ancestral and unceeded Indigenous territories of the xʷməθkʷəjˀəm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil Waututh) First Nations. She is a francophone choreographer invested in community engaged dance and in interactions between public space and community – involving musicians, visual artists, film makers and writers with a body of work spanning 20 years. She is the artistic Director of Foolish Operations, connecting people of all generations through new dance experiences, especially with and for very young children. She is a member of Lower Left Collective (USA, Germany, Norway and Canada) teaching and performing Ensemble Thinking. Julie is a proud mother of very active twin girls who act as first consultants in all her creative endeavours.

julie@foolishoperations.org

Sarah Gallos – Artistic Associate

Sarah Gallos is a bilingual performance artist and facilitator, originally from Eastern Canada (born in Montreal to 1st generation Nova Scotians). She has worked with Foolish Operations for over 10 years as a dancer. 

When she became a mother 7 years ago, she began participating in Dancing the Parenting practice. The crossover of ensemble improvisation and attachment based parenting skills feed the magic of Foolish Operations’ creations. 

Most recently, she’s taken on administrative and facilitation support of Dancing the Parenting while continuing to create performance works with the Foolish Operations team.

community@foolishoperations.org

Katheryn Petersen – General Manager

Katheryn is born and raised on the unceded, ancestral, and occupied, traditional lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam),Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) Nations of the Coast Salish peoples, known as Vancouver, British Columbia. She is the third generation of a settler family with Danish, Hungarian/Austrian and Roma ancestry. She is passionate about the role of arts for cultivating social and spiritual healing and has a lifelong history of work as a supporter, facilitator and creator of the arts.

She has worked in long-term managerial/consulting roles with Vancouver arts companies and independent artists including New Performance Works, Stephanie Morin-Roberts, Kinesis Dance, Mascall Dance, Shirley Gnome, Public Dreams and many more. While her son was growing up she created and ran Sun Talent and in his teens she shifted to work in commercial film production as a  Decorator and then as a Production Designer. Her artistic curatorial work includes seven years as Managing Artistic Director of the Accordion Noir Society and Festival and two years as the Director/Producer of the The Great Accordion Journey program through a partnership with St James Academy.

Her creative portfolio includes an extensive list of DIY video, poetry and musical works, and during Covid she created and produced two annual iterations of the Pipe Organ Activation Residency Series, a two week long cross-community initiative that yielded extensive experimental and commercial recordings and video by artists from the Comox Valley and Vancouver.

gm@foolishoperations.org

 Anna Lamontagne – Communications Support

Anna Lamontagne is a queer contemporary dance artist from the stolen territory of the kanien’kehá ka nation, in tiohtià:ke / mooniyaang. They are now pursuing their artistic development among Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Program on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm nations in Vancouver, directed by Tiffany Tregarthen, David Raymond and Kate Franklin. Anna has performed their own work at festivals and events such as Chronométrie by Art Souterrain, WhatLab Studio, Chalk it up! and Errances. They are interested in queering art practices through unapologetic exposure of self and humanity. They aspire to cast spells and are unapologetic about their loud bursts of laughter. 

communications@foolishoperations.org

Rae Fleury – Coordination Assistant

Rae is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Tiohtià:ke ~ Montreal, Canada. They got their bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts, Art History, with a minor in Psychology specializing in child development. Their practices range from dance, cupping, tattooing, to visual and fiber arts. With the intent to create through collaboration beautiful and useful experiences and things.

coordination@foolishoperations.org

Caroline Liffmann – Artistic Associate

Caroline Liffmann is a performance maker with a home base in contemporary dance.  She has worked as a choreographer, creator, performer, improvisor, arts educator and community arts facilitator since 2003, and has been a Foolish Operations fan and co-conspirator for 10 years.  Currently Caroline works with the company as a dancer, outside eye, and consultant on trauma-informed practice.

Lily Alice Malena-Morin – Coordination Assistant

Having been raised primarily in Quebec, Lily Alice also spent time living and studying in Nepal, Cambodia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, including an interning with a Roma human rights organization in Macedonia. These experiences have nurtured her fascination with people and culture, how we live together and build community. As a Loran scholar, she studied Sociology and Math at UBC. During her summer breaks, Lily Alice joined the Foolish Operations team as a Coordination Assistant. One of her major project was to build Foolish Operations’ database and to support our productions and volunteer management. She continues to support FO’s team in a flex-time manner during the falls and winters. Having been exposed to the artistic community through her father’s work, she believes deeply in the importance of art in our lives and is excited to support the creative and inclusive community Foolish Operations has fostered. In her free time, Lily Alice enjoys choral singing, photography, walking and cooking.

Key peoples in crucial times:

During production periods, Foolish Operations works closely with Xin Xuan Song for the production of Moving Resting Nesting and with Marie-Pier Gilbert, when Tricoter is presented in Québec or Ontario. During the pandemic, Isabelle Rousseau often facilitated Foolish Operations’s online core program of Dancing the Parenting.