ABOUT
Olivia is a specialist in the field of dance and somatic movement. She is a certified practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education and certified Pilates Mat Instructor. She holds a BFA in contemporary dance and a Liberal Arts Certificate from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.
Olivia creates live performance as a dance artist, improviser and choreographer. Her passion lies in the creation of embodied, evocative performance by way of crafted improvisations to highlight tensions between the tangible and the ephemeral. Over the past decade and a half, she has worked as a freelance dancer with a range of collaborators.
Olivia is Associate Artistic Director at EDAM Dance, where she is also a performer with the company and resident teacher of Contact Improvisation. Olivia is an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia, where she teaches embodied movement to students in the BFA Theatre Program.
Olivia has taught and performed in Europe, the US, and Asia. Olivia Shaffer is based in Vancouver, Canada, located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded Coast Salish lands and waters of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) people.
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image credit:
Yvonne Chew
Chris Randle
Shaina Baira
Ed Spence
Sören Wacker
Nayana Fielkov
Justin Reist
Hilary Maxwell