Lesley finished her studies in Montreal at L’École Supérieur de Danse du Québec before joining the company Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. She went on to dance with Nacho Duato’s Compañia Nacional de Danza in Madrid, Spain. Most recently she danced with NDT 1. She has set and staged the work of Jiri Kylian and Lightfoot/Leon. As a choreographer she has created works for NDT 1, Hubbard Street Dance Company 2, Compañia Nacional de Danza 2, Ballet BC, Arts Umbrella Dance Company, Ballet Verpommen, International Project for Dance in Rome (DAF), Butler Ballet and the University of Utah. Through Inverso Productions, she has choreographed 2 full evening works: Brittle Failure and Spooky Action. She was selected by Crystal Pite for the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award in 2015. As a teacher, she has given workshops and classes internationally in many companies and schools. She teaches classes of repertoire, ballet, contemporary, movement exploration and improvisation/composition. At the moment she is based in Vancouver, Canada as choreographer and director of Inverso Producations as well as leading the Performance Research at Arts Umbrella’s Professional Dance Program.

Lucas Crandall started his career in 1979 with the Milwaukee Ballet. In 1980 he joined the Ballet du Grand-Théâtre de Genève. From 1985 to 1987 he danced with NDT, directed by Jiří Kylián, before returning to Ballet du Grand-Théâtre de Genève. During his career as a dancer, Lucas has performed and created many works, notably from Oscar Araiz, Christopher Bruce, Nacho Duato, Mats Ek, Rui Horta, Jiri Kylian, Amanda Miller and Ohad Naharin. In August 2000, Lucas returned to the States to join Jim Vincent as Associate Artistic Director of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. During his time in Chicago he was on staff at the Lou Conte Dance Studio. He has also taught residencies at various universities as well as given master classes and repertory workshops. Lucas choreographed works presented by Hubbard Street in the US and abroad. In 2010, Lucas returned to NDT 1 where he served as a repetitor. Since 2012 he worked as a guest teacher for the Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve, guest Ballet Master for Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal and Rehearsal Director for NW Dance Project. Lucas returned to Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in 2013 as the company’s Ballet Master. In 2015 Lucas was one of the four choreographers in the NW Dance Project, Chopin Project collaboration with internation award-winning pianist Yekwon Sunwoo. In 2017, Lucas returned to NDT to work as the coordinator and repetitor for NDT 1.

Lydia Bustinduy was born in 1979 (Barcelona, Spain). She studied at the Institut del Teatre & Dansa in Barcelona. After graduation she started working at IT Dansa under the direction of Catherine Allard. In 1999 Lydia joined NDT 2 and in 2001 she became a member of NDT 1.

Chloé was born in St. Martin d’Hères (France) in 1989. She trained at Formation Professionelle Danse-interprète au Centre Artistique Mondap’art in Nimes for a year, but followed most of her training at Ballet Junior de Genevè (2008-2010). She started dancing with NDT 2 in 2010 and in 2013 she made the switch to NDT 1.

Jiří Pokorný was born in Prague, Czech Republic. He started his dance training in Prague at the pre-ballet school of the State Opera when he was eight years old and continued his studies at the Prague National Dance Conservatory. After his graduation he joined Laterna Magika Praha (2000), three years later he joined NDT 2 and continued his career in 2006 with NDT 1. During his years with NDT he worked with many renowned choreographers such as Jiří Kylián, Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, Mats Ek, Ohad Naharin and Crystal Pite. In August 2010 Jiří joined Kidd Pivot Frankfurt, under the leadership of Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite. As a choreographer, Jiří started creating his own short works at NDT's choreographic workshop Switch. His first bigger works were created for NDT Summer Intensive and afterwards for NDT 2’s Up&Coming Choreographers. In 2015 he created A Honeydew Hunt, also for NDT 2. He created his latest work for NDT 2, Humpback Runner, in November 2016. In the last years Jiří has collaborated as a choreographer with dance companies in Italy, Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic and the USA. He is also a regular teacher for NDT Summer Intensive and has been teaching workshops for young talents with NDT since he joined NDT 1.

Tamako was born in Asahikawa, Japan. She followed her classical ballet training at the Uchiyama Ballet Studio. In 1985 she was accepted into the Academie de Danse Classique Princesse Grace de Monaco. In 1986 she won the Second Prize Johnson Scholarship at Prix de Lausanne and two years later the Junior Prize at the International Ballet Competition in Varna. She joined the Stuttgart Ballet in 1989. In 1996 Richard Cragun invited her to join the Deutsche Opera Berlin as a Soloist and a yer later she was promoted to Principal. She started dancing as a Principal dancer with the Compañia Nacional de Danza in Madrid in 1999. She was nominated for the Benois de La Danse Awards and was invited by Manuel Legris to take part in the gale “The New Universe of Manuel Legris” in Tokyo, Vienna and Paris. Since 2014 she has worked as a freelance artist, performing and giving workshops throughout Europe and Asia. She has assisted to create, to rehearse and danced with Dimo Milev several works. Since 2017 Tamako is a repetitor at NDT 1.

Rachael Osborne, born in Australia 1980, trained at the National Capital Ballet School under Janet Karin OAM. She completed an Associate Degree in Dance at QUT in 1999 and participated in various dance projects around Brisbane before joining Ensemble Batsheva in 2001 and subsequently the Batsheva Dance Company in 2003. Rachael continued to dance with Batsheva until 2017.

Rachael was Assistant to the Rehearsal Director at Batsheva between 2008-2010 and during this time was the Batsheva recipient of the Yair Shapira Prize. She has taught Gaga since 2008 and Ohad’s repertory for over a decade in Israel, Europe, Australia, Japan and North America.

Since 2011 Rachael has assisted Ohad setting his works Bo/ero, Yag, Decadance, Minus 1, Minus 16 and Passo on independents and companies in the U.S.A, Canada, Europe, Australia, Russia and the U.K. She also danced with LEV from 2012-2014 and while there assisted Shaon Eyal in her creation Untitled Black for the Gothenburg Opera Ballet.

Erwin Rommert Weerstra studied classical piano at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague where he got his Master’s degree in 2011. He is an active performer, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. Besides his performance career, he also likes to work with dancers. Since 2009 he has been working for De Dutch Don’t Dance Division, playing ballet classes and collaborating in performances. He is a regular pianist for the morning classes at NDT Summer Intensive.