| VALERIE CALAM | (Photo by Maizy Shepherd) Manager, Membership & Operations Valerie Calam is a dance artist, costume designer & administrator interested in finding pathways to refresh and support herself. She works with movement, fabric, patterns, sound, numbers, the nervous system, the body, and likes to edit/adapt/repurpose things. Val enjoys working alongside dancers, artists & other queer creatives and has a long history as a performer, teacher and choreographer in Toronto. She has been the Membership & Operations Manager at CADA/East since 2022. She completed a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Choreography in 2014 at York U and is the recipient of the KM Hunter Award for dance. Connect with Valerie at cadaeast.membership@gmail.com |
| RHONDA BAKER Administration & Outreach Manager Rhonda Baker (she/her) is
a graduate student in the Psychology program (Developmental Science
area) at York University, working under the supervision of Dr. Lara
Pierce at the Experience & Development Lab. She holds a BA with
specialized honours in Psychology and a concentration in counselling and
mental health (2022), and her Master’s thesis involved validating a
thin-slice measure of maternal responsivity coded during free-play.
Rhonda’s current research is focused on caregiver responsivity, and the
specific behaviours that facilitate early child development. She further
examines and incorporates risk and protective factors into her work to
understand how the broader socioeconomic context of families contribute
to experiences of stressors and alter early caregiver-child
relationships. To understand these relationships more deeply, she aims
to incorporate qualitative methods into her work and examine the role of
a secondary caregiver. Rhonda comes to the position at CADA/East with an understanding of precarious work, human behaviour, relationships, research, and writing from her background in Dance, Psychology, and Developmental Science. Taken together, she leverages this to enhance the current scope of programming and services offered at CADA/East, with a goal to reach out, support, and uplift dance communities and individuals looking to connect with and receive that support. Rhonda focuses on strategic planning, program development, grant writing, and research and consulting on the Professional Standards for Dance (PSD). She is also an alumna of Dance Arts Institute and has a background in dance performance and education. Through her dance career, she has been nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award in Toronto (2014), and awarded the Lieutenant Governor Masterworks Arts Award in Nova Scotia (2016) for her contribution and performance in an ensemble dance work called Canvas 5 x 5, by the late Tedd Robinson Rhonda
was the first CADA/East board member to join from outside of Ontario
(2016/2017), advising on the needs and experiences of artists in the Atlantic
region. Connect with Rhonda at cadaeast.office@gmail.com |
CADA/East Gratefully Acknowledges the Generous Support of |
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