Lesley Telford

Lesley Telford is presently a freelance choreographer, performer, and teacher. She was born in Vancouver, Canada. She finished her studies in Montréal at L´Ecole Supérieur de Danse du Québec before joining the company Les Grands Ballets Canadiens under the direction of Lawrence Rhodes. She went on to dance with Nacho Duato´s Compañia Nacional de Danza in Madrid, Spain and was promoted to principal dancer in 1999. From 2001 until 2010, she danced with Netherlands Dans Theater 1 where she worked and created with choreographers such as Jiri Kylian, Paul Lightfoot, and Sol Leon, Crystal Pite, William Forsythe, Ohad Naharin, and Johan Inger, among others, and performed in major theatres worldwide. She has also set and staged the work of Jiri Kylian as well as that of Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon in various companies and schools. She has recently founded Inverso Productions, an interdisciplinary platform through which she created Brittle Failure, a full-length work that has toured to Spain, Holland, and Canada. As a choreographer, she has created for the Netherlands Dans Theater 1 program: Upcoming Choreographers, Hubbard Street Dance Company 2 in Chicago, Compañia Nacional de Danza 2 in Madrid, Spain and Arts Umbrella Dance Company in Vancouver. Her work has been presented in the CaDance Festival and Korzo Theatre in the Netherlands, International Festival Madrid en Danza and the Reina Sophia Museum in Spain, Chutzpah Festival, the Banff Festival of the Arts in Canada, The Gothenburg Dance and Theatre Festival and the Schmiede Festival in Austria. As a teacher, she has given workshops and classes internationally in many companies and schools such as Ballet British Columbia, Danscentrum Gothenburg, Arts Umbrella, Madrid Conservatory of Dance, NDT Summer Intensive, NDT educational projects, and Spring Seminar Vancouver. Interested in furthering her artistic research and exploration into the field, she has recently completed a Master of Arts in Cultural Production at the joint program of the University of Salzburg and the Mozarteum. Her thesis examined the use of the museum as a performance space for dance. Lesley is a member of the International Dance Council CID of UNESCO.