From Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement, AB, Darla Daniels is a celebrated Métis fiddler, singer-songwriter, recording artist, actor, and composer with a dynamic stage presence and a deep reverence for tradition. She has spent over two decades sharing her passion for traditional Métis fiddle music & dance while forging a bold, contemporary path through Roots, Folk, and Americana genres. 2012-2025: Edmonton Folk Music Festival, Mardi Gras, North Country Fair, Mariposa Music Festival, The Diviners (The Stratford Festival). Awards: Arts and Culture Award (Métis Settlements General Council); The Young Woman of Vision Award (Grant MacEwan University); The Aboriginal Youth Female Role Model Award (Canadian Native Friendship Centre); Top 5 finalist - Specialty Instrumentalist of the Year (Country Music Alberta Awards).

Stephanie Bahniuk (she/her) is a Ukrainian-Canadian designer of theatre, tv, film, opera and dance. She is originally from Edmonton and now resides in Brooklyn, NY. Stephanie is a graduate of the Masters of Fine Arts in Design program at the Yale School of Drama and a recipient of the Jay Keene and Jean Griffin Keene Prize in Costume Design. Stephanie is also a Sterling Award winner and was nominated for a Connecticut Critics Choice Award. Recent credits include Dance Nation (Skirtsafire Festival), Ragtime (Goodspeed Musicals), Carmen (Rutgers Opera) and Harvest Truce (Studio Theatre). In addition to her theatre work, Stephanie has contributed to Broadway and Off-Broadway productions as a costume shopper, and has lent her expertise to major TV productions including The Gilded Age and And Just Like That. She is a proud member of USA Local 829 and serves on the Board of the Ukrainian Shumka Dancers.

Joleen Ballendine is a mixed-blood Métis writer, actor, improviser, and educator based on Treaty 6 Territory. She has been a core member of Canada’s third-oldest improv company -- Rapid Fire Theatre -- since 2009 and currently serves as Director of Outreach and Welcome. In 2011 she launched the companies first Outreach program, working extensively with Indigenous youth and communities to share stories through improv and comedy.

Joleen’s work has taken her across North America and on seven European tours, performing and teaching. Her writing includes projects with CBC, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Mosaic Entertainment, and Historica Canada where she penned a Canadian Heritage Minute on Mary “Bonnie” Baker.

Following the birth of her child, she turned her focus to young audiences. She is thrilled that her latest project, Kohkom’s Babushka—adapted from a children’s book in collaboration with Lianna Makuch—is being premiered with the support of Punctuate! Theatre, Pyretic Productions, and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

A proud Métis artist of Cree, French, Irish, and English ancestry, Michaela is delighted to based in her home province of Alberta once again after living in Ontario for the past 25 years. An award winning actor and writer, Michaela also has multiple nominations; most notably, for the Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize, Ontario Arts Council’s Indigenous Arts Award and the K. M. Hunter Artist Award for Theatre. A published author, Michaela’s performance and written work has been shared internationally at festivals and theatres in Wales, Aruba and across Canada and the United States.

Jessica is a queer film and theatre actor based in Toronto and Montreal. Selected theatre credits include: The Secret Garden of An Sìthean (Festival Antigonish), Trojan Kids, Macbeth, Antigonick, As You Like It, 365 Days/365 Plays (NTS), Art Ambulance (Clay and Paper Theatre) and The Stranger 2.0 (DopoLavoro Teatrale). On screen she has appeared in the series Hotel Paranormal and Haunted Hospitals. She is a recent graduate of the National Theatre School in acting and is grateful to be able to discover and play in beautiful Banff with this incredible group of artists. When she’s not acting, you can find her stilt walking in a park or bothering her cat, Gus. Thank you to her family and friends who always cheer her on, even from a distance.

Rick is very grateful to be here, on stage, as Kohkom’s Babushka comes to life before an audience. He last appeared at the Banff Centre twenty eight years ago as Will Donnelly in James Reaney’s St. Nicholas Hotel. Selected credits include: Man of La Mancha (Magnus Theatre); Fiddler on the Roof (Persephone); Hamlet (Manitoba Theatre Centre); Christmas Carol, Real Estate, How It Works, Tuesdays With Morrie, When the Reaper Calls (Sudbury Theatre Centre); Full Monty, Buddy Holly Story, Sound of Music, Anne of Green Gables (Charlottetown Festival); Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Fire, Black Bonspiel (Globe Theatre); the Foursome (Foster Festival); Film/Television: Law and Order Toronto (Lark Productions and Cameron Pictures); Murdoch Mysteries, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures (Shaftesbury); Hemlock Grove (Netflix). Rick lives in Toronto with his delightful wife, Donna Garner (Actor/Singer/Multi-Instrumentalist/Artistic Director, Garner Theatre Productions) and Gustav Mahler (Gus), a stoic Mini-Schnauzer.

Jeff Dingle is a New Brunswick born actor who currently lives in Toronto, Ontario. He is very excited to be in Banff for the first time and to be working with Punctuate! Theatre. Recent theatre credits include Those Movies (Orillia Opera House/Upper Canada Playhouse), Give ‘em Hell (Prairie Fire, Please/Theatre Direct), Wrong for Each Other, Giving Up the Ghost (Port Stanley Festival Theatre), The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley, 1979 (Theatre New Brunswick), The Real Sherlock Holmes (Lighthouse Festival), and No Man is an Island (Atlantic Repertory Company). TV appearances include Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent (CityTV), and Murdoch Mysteries (Shaftesbury/CBC). Love as always to Torey and Whitney.

Cassandra (she/her) is a performer, producer, stage manager, and arts administrator of mixed Métis-Settler heritage, whose work has enabled her to engage with audiences across Turtle Island from coast to coast. Her current artistic practice is guided by her affinities for physical theatre, music, puppetry, and education. She has worked with Axis Theatre, Savage Society, Firehall Arts Centre, and Shameless Hussy Productions. She holds a BFA in Acting from UBC, minoring in Visual Arts. Originally from Treaty 6 and 7 territory, she is currently based on the unceded and ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples.

Michelle Jacques is a curator whose work bridges art history and contemporary practice through critical engagements with race, feminism, and modernism. Currently the Director of Exhibitions & Collections/Chief Curator at Remai Modern, Saskatoon, she has previously held curatorial positions at the Art Gallery of Ontario (1995–2002; 2004–12), served as Director of Programming at the Centre for Art Tapes in Halifax (2002–04), and was Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (2012–21).

Her recent projects include Dawit L. Petros: At the Edge of the Horizon I (Remai Modern, 2025); Land.Sea.Sugar.Salt.: Terrestrial and Aquatic Contemplations of the Caribbean (co-curated with Sally Frater, Remai Modern, 2025); and Denyse Thomasos: just beyond (co-curated with Renée van der Avoird and Sally Frater, AGO/Remai Modern, 2022–23, traveling). Recent recognition includes a Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence (2022) and a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2024).

Photo by Carey Shaw

Sally Frater is the daughter of immigrants from the Caribbean. Curatorially she is interested in decolonial praxis, space and place, Black and Caribbean diasporas, photography, art of the everyday, and issues of equity and representation in museological spaces. She has curated solo and group exhibitions for institutions such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery of Guelph, the Ulrich Museum of Art, Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto, Project Row Houses, and Centre[3] for Artistic and Social Practice. The recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts she is a member of the Association of Art Museum Curators and is an alumna of Independent Curators International. Recently a shortlisted candidate for The Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Curatorial Excellence she is the senior curator and curatorial manager at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon.