Search

 We are musicians, arts administrators, visual artists, arts educators, circus artists, theatre makers and dancers. There is strength in our membership and in our community.

We are you! Join us and help us all thrive as GRIP (grassroots, independent, professional) artists in Kingston. Reach out at gripartistskingston@gmail.com or visit the contact page. 

You know us, come join us. ​


​Vicki Hargreaves (Theatre Maker & GRIP Lead Connector for SpaceShare) has spent twenty years as an arts producer, consultant, actor, director, educator and arts coordinator both in Canada and internationally.Most recently, Vicki was part of the ShortWave Radio Festival event with Cellar Door Project, playing multiple roles in the scripts of emerging playwrights. In these COVID times, Vicki co-founded and is the lead contact for Grassroots and Independent Professional Artists (GRIP) in Kingston, Ontario. Vicki's other advocacy work includes initiatives with I Lost My Gig Canada, Digital Strategies Services Alliance, and the Kingston Thinkers Group through the Kingston Arts Council. She has investigated advocacy issues with TAPA in Toronto, developed an Equity Audit for the Canadian Opera Company, and operated as Arts Consultant and Board Governance Consultant for Clay and Paper Theatre and the Cayle Chernin Award Fund. 



​Emma Halchuk (Theatre and Textile Artist, Technical Director) has dipped her toes in various aspects of theatre, - from fire crew to costume designer - but now focuses primarily on technical direction and production management. She has worked for many of Kingston’s festivals, including Storefront Fringe, Kick & Push, and WritersFest, as well as at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, and Thousand Islands Playhouse. She has enjoyed collaborating with Movement Market Collective since 2016. In 2018 she curated and created art for Threads: A Textile Gallery for the Juvenis Festival. Recently she has been teaching embroidery workshops at Movement Market Studio. ​
Chantal Thompson (Jazz Vocalist and Composer) is a local jazz vocalist and multidisciplinary artist with an international reputation. A local jazz and multidisciplinary artist who recently moved back to Kingston from NYC, her work is heard around the world She recorded her first solo jazz cd with many great players from New York and Kingston. On her latest cd Sirens & Stars, Chantal re-imagines beautiful soulful standards and originals in the cool jazz genre, with a bluesy introspection. Her music is played on radio and satellite stations around the world and she has performed in many notable festivals such as the Montreal Jazz Festival.  Chantal spent two years working at the renowned, Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy at NYU in 2008-2009, when she lived in New York City. There she observed Clive Robbins, a preeminent music therapist who developed Creative Music Therapy. Clive worked with developmentally and multiply- disabled children for over fifty years. Chantal wants to further develop community, language and practices around children with disabilities and their families through the Kingston Mosaic and Camphill associations.
Mo Horner (Theatre Creator, PhD Student) is a site-specific theatre creator and PhD student in Cultural Studies based in Kingston, Ontario. Her research is focused on abolitionist dramaturgies. Selected theatre credits include: directing Hana Hashimoto: Sixth Violin (Thousand Islands Playhouse, 2019), assistant directing Behaviour (GCTC, 2019), and assistant directing Butcher (Theatre Kingston, 2018). She was the director of Kingston’s Storefront Fringe Festival from 2016-18 and the inaugural winner of the Patrick Conner Theatre Ticket Award. She was on the core team for SpiderWebShow and from 2017-2019 produced digital content for FOLDA (festival of live digital art). Co-founding site-specific theatre company Cellar Door Project in 2013, Mariah has since dramaturged and produced 15 new works in Ottawa and Kingston in cemeteries, record stores, bars, parks and the Diefenbunker. Mariah played Kate Unger in George F. Walker’s HBO Canada Series Living in Your Car. Cellar Door Project (CDP) is an ad-hoc site-specific theatre collective that animates community spaces through live performance. Since 2013, CDP has collaborated with CFRC 101.9FM, SpiderWebShow’s FOLDA, Queen's and Carleton University, Ottawa Storytellers, CSArt Ottawa, and the Kick & Push Festival. Most recently, CDP co-produced the Shortwave Theatre Festival, a free week-long festival of radio drama in November with CFRC 101.9FM and co-created Our House with anARC theatre, a site-specific movement piece in the Grad Club. 
Kay Kenney (Creative Director Movement Market Collective and Studio Director of Movement Market Studio) began dancing at the age of three studying Cecchetti Ballet. In 2009 she moved to Ottawa to pursue a dance career at The School of Dance. Since graduating from the Professional Contemporary Dance Programme, Kenney has performed work for Caroline Barrière, Cathy Kyle-Fenton, Sylvie Desrosiers/Dorsale Danse, Jocelyn Todd/Lawless Dance Co and has worked in collaboration with Andrea Nann/Dreamwalker Dance Co(2014-2015), Dark Horse Dance Projects(Ottawa) and MayDay Danse(Montreal). A company dancer of Ottawa Dance Directive since 2013, collaborating with artists like Tedd Robinson, Chick Snipper, Andrew Turner, Mélanie Dermers, Harold Rhéaume, Jocelyn Todd, Jesse Stewart and artistic director Yvonne Coutts. Kay is also a company dancer for Social Growl Dance (Toronto) and acts as the companies rehearsal director. She has created two works for the students of The School of Dance Professional Contemporary Dance Programme and teaches throughout the province. She has created collaborations for The Skeleton Park Arts Festival, The Juvenis Festival, The Kick & Push Festival, AnArch Theatre, The Cellar Door Project,and Calliope Collective. Kay has choreographed and presented three evenings of local dance works, numerous pops up events, and has recently opened her own studio space In YGK, Movement Market Studio, offering self care, conditioning classes, artist residencies and events. Kay runs the  Movement Market Collective which, Since 2016,has been collaborating and presenting workin different festivals and pop-up events in the YGK community. Highlights of the collective include presenting the first full length, local professional contemporary dance work in the city, the first contemporary dance series in Kingston and the first local contemporary dance artists to present work at The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. 
Eric Williams (Visual Artist, Operations Director of Dead On Collective) is an Interdisciplinary BFA grad of NSCAD University, Eric returned to his hometown of Kingston in 2016. He is a local early-career artist specializing in illustration, muralism and graphic arts. In 2017 Eric cofounded Dead On, an early-career artist space in the city’s Inner Harbour neighbourhood. He now serves as operations director of Dead On. Built out of necessity, Dead On was established in 2017 as an art space to facilitate the development of new artists within Kingston, Ontario. Located in the National Grocers Building in Kingston's Inner Harbour, Dead On studio is a hub for the creative community. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deadon.collective/. 
Kelsey Dawn Pearson is a multidisciplinary artist residing in Kingston, Ontario.  Kelsey is an active member of Dead On Collective, working alongside other emerging alternative Kingston artists. She has worked with/been a member of a number of arts and community-focused groups including Visual Arts Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design Print Club, MacPhee Centre for Creative Learning, Southern Graphics Council International, Seafolk Collective, Concordia MFASASA, Town of Greater Napanee Arts & Culture Advisory Committee, Kingston Roller Derby, and more. Her artistic practice features strange happenings, skewed priorities, Canadiana, distorted perceptions, delusion, portals, unbearable poetry, the Lizardman, dysphoria, craft, labour and domesticity. 
Jane Kirby (Circus Artist) is a circus and movement artist specializing in the aerial arts. She works primarily with aerial silks and corde lisse, with additional training in other aerial disciplines, hand balancing, contortion and partner acrobatics.  Notable works include an aerial installation reflecting on the importance of public libraries (In Defense of Libraries, Nocturne Arts at Night 2016), a full length circus/music show exploring grief in relationship to environmental change (Beneath Our Feet, Kick & Push Festival 2016), and a series exploring the sounds of the circus body in collaboration with a musician/digital media artist (echolocation I, II, III, 2014-2015). Jane is also an arts educator who regularly teaches creative movement for Kingston-area organizations, and choreographs movement pieces for community arts projects.
Hugh Christopher Brown(Musician) A longtime NYC musical mainstay before setting up his studio in the old post office on Wolfe Island, multi-instrumentalist and music producer Hugh Christopher “Chris” Brown has “a real talent for writing thought-provoking political songs that somehow manage to keep the feet tapping and the mind racing at the same time” (All Music Guide).  Beyond his own music, Chris has performed and recorded (usually organ, piano and clavinet – but sometimes trombone, tuba or other instruments) for many stellar artists including Ani DiFranco, Joan As Police Woman, Tony Scherr, Barenaked Ladies,  Ashley MacIsaac, Crash Test Dummies and Jen Chapin, among others.  Brown was one of the primary singers and songwriters for the alternative rock band Bourbon Tabernacle Choir in the 1980s and 1990s and when that band broke up, he continued performing as a duo with his Bourbon bandmate Kate Fenner. Chris currently divides his time between Brooklyn, NY, and Wolfe Island, Ontario, producing albums, touring and performing solo or with many of his musical colleagues including Kate Fenner and his new trio, The Ropes.  Chris is also a passionate and committed social justice activist and founded the Pros and Cons program volunteering at prisons where he continues to run music workshops. The “inescapably honest and sincere” (Exclaim!) album Chris recorded and produced with the prisoners Postcards from the County (available as a free download) and Chris’ ongoing work with the prisoners has been acknowledged and hailed by the Toronto Star, Truthout, Examiner.com, CBC (Canada),  Sirius XM Canada and many others. https://wolfeislandrecords.com/hughchristopherbrown / www.wolfeislandcommons.org
Liam Bidmead is a Gananoque and Kingston based Theatre Maker and Sound Artist. He mostly focuses on his craft in Directing and Sound Design, but also enjoys collaborating as a Composer, Pianist, Writer and Actor. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of GRID Stage Company and founded and artistically led Coldwater Youth Arts Theatre, an all youth theatre company in his hometown of Coldwater Ontario. Liam is attracted to working in alternative spaces and collaborating with artists who practice different mediums in the construction and development of new and existing pieces. Theatre credits include: The Revolution Has Failed (CFRC/Cellar Door Project) Our House (Cellar Door Project),Mind Games, Pool (No Water), The Typographer’s Dream (GRID Stage Company), Spring Awakening, Spamalot (Blue Canoe Productions), As You Like It (TBTB) Deja Brew, Reel World (AMDA) Little Women the Broadway Musical (CYAT). Liam’s composition and sound design uses a fusion of sound art, foley, site specific, acoustic and electronic instrumental . Sound Design and Composition credits include: The Revolution Has Failed (CFRC/Cellar Door Project) Our House (Cellar Door Project), Mind Games, Pool (No Water) (GRID). Liam has trained with Peter Hinton, Alan Dilworth, Elaine Overholt, Armstrong Acting Studios, Second City, Volcano Theatre, and has participated in many workshops and masterclasses with Theatre Ontario and The Director’s Series. He is a graduate of The American Musical and Dramatic Academy in NYC.