Georgia Simms is a Guelph-based performing artist, educator, choreographer and facilitator. Her dance performance career spans 25 years. As a company member with Dancetheatre David Earle, she has performed David’s classic and new works across Ontario since 2005. Her work as a freelance artist has taken her to different parts of Canada, France and South Korea having been invited into projects by different choreographers and collaborators including Suzette Sherman, Julia Aplin, Janet Johnson, Karen Kaeja, Judy Oberfelder, Maxine Heppner, Robert Kingsbury, Julia Garlisi, Dong-Won Kim, and Jeff Bird.

Since 2005, she has hosted technique classes for adults that honour the lineage of modern dance offered to her by David Earle and Suzette Sherman. In 2014, she established a class in dancetheatre improvisation and continues to investigate the magic of spontaneous group composition with this community. She also offers workshops for local arts organizations including Art Not Shame, the Guelph Youth Music Centre, and the Elora Centre for the Arts.

As a choreographer, she regularly works with high school youth in the MADE Urban Arts Program and as a guest creator with the Guelph Youth Companies. Her choreographic work has been presented at the Guelph Dance Festival (2011, 2013) and by the City of Guelph (2012, 2013). She remains grateful for the opportunity to have been an artist-in-residence with Guelph Dance (2020-2021) and to have been presented as part of the Improvisation Festival (IF) at the University of Guelph (2000-2024).

Alongside her dance career have been academic pursuits including a Master’s Degree in Geography, sessional teaching, consulting in program design and evaluation, and she will soon begin her PhD with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.

She has been a guest teacher and choreographer with the Guelph Youth Dance Training Program since 2012 and is thrilled to be part of the faculty this year.