What the Body Carries: With Liliona Quarmyne

“My body is a conduit, a link to past and to future generations. It takes me back, it takes me forward, it carries the present. My body is story.”

Liliona Quarmyne (she/her) has an eclectic background and a diverse set of trainings and experiences that have taken her through many performance styles on four different continents. As a result, she wears many hats – choreographer, dancer, actor, singer, curator, facilitator, artistic director, organizer … the list goes on. From Ghana and the Philippines and now based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), on the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people, Liliona concurrently serves as the Artistic Director of Live Art Dance (liveartdance.ca) and maintains her own artistic practice in both dance and theatre. She has created and performed with many organizations, including the Arrivals Legacy Project, dance Immersion, Rooted Dance Projects, Kinetic, Zuppa Theatre, Neptune Theatre, FODAR, Mayworks Kjipuktuk, Prismatic, Shakespeare-by-the-Sea, Festival Antigonish, and more. Liliona also has extensive teaching and facilitation experience.

Liliona strives to find cohesion of her many worlds through her artistic practice. Her body is the central site of this exploration – it is the one place that can fully carry the multiple and contradictory stories of who we are. The scope of Liliona’s work is broad and constantly changing, but is particularly focused on the relationship between art and social justice, on the body’s ability to carry ancestral memory, and on the role the performing arts can play in creating change. Liliona loves to work in collaboration and community, and is mom to two wonderful kids