Meryem Alaoui

Photographer: McKenzie James Photography

Choreographer

Solo (not solo) Water Study

Meryem Alaoui is a dancer-choreographer from Morocco, living in Toronto, Canada. She’s the founder of Jasad Dance Projects, a not-for-profit aiming at increasing the visibility and representation of contemporary dance artists from the SWANA (Southwest Asia/North Africa) region. Influenced by her studies of Body-Mind Centering®, her work is often an invitation towards a more sensorial experience of dance.

A graduate of the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, she has danced for choreographers Amanda Acorn, Peggy Baker, Angela Blumberg, Antony Hamilton, Karen Kaeja, among others. Her choreographic works have been shown in Ontario, Quebec and Morocco, including Ensemble, a dance creation with collaborators from Morocco and Canada, Solo (not solo) Water Study, a work for one dancer and one percussionist, and Sand Body, a solo about slowness and the performativity of the body as object.

Meryem has also been involved in community and arts-education projects such as with Arts Etobicoke, Dreamwalker Dance and The Arab Community Centre of Toronto, and has taught somatic exploration workshops in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, and Morocco.