Artistic Director

Yvonne Chartrand is a contemporary choreographer and dancer as well as a national award-winning master Métis jigger. Her ancestors come from the Michif (Métis) settlement of St. Laurent, Manitoba. She is the Artistic Director of V’ni Dansi, whose name translates as “Come and Dance” in Michif. Dancers perform traditional Métis dance under the name - the Louis Riel Métis Dancers and contemporary works as V'ni Dansi. The company is dedicated to sharing the stories and culture of the Métis for Indigenous and audiences of all nations. Yvonne received the 2011 Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award from the Canada Council for the Arts. Yvonne's most recent creation "Eagle Spirit" premiered in Vancouver in November 2016. 

Managing Director

Aniria Sanz is an accomplished arts administrator with extensive professional experience in several arts organizations all over the world. Born in Spain, she moved to Scotland in 2013 to study a Masters in Festival and Events Management. After the UK, she lived in Australia for a couple of years where she worked at the Sydney International Piano Competition. Aniria moved to Vancouver in 2017 and since then, she has worked for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Alzheimer Society of B.C., Turning Point Ensemble and now, Compaigni V'ni Dansi Society.

Event Coordinator

Born and raised on traditional Algonquin territory, Eloi Homier usually dances, canoes, and stargazes on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Everything Eloi undertakes – from dance and theatre, to storytelling canoe adventures, to sash-weaving, to astronomy (under the pseudonym Moon Guy Next Door) – has its raison d'être in his search for authentic identity.

With family lines stretching back 400 years and beyond on the territory now called Québec, Eloi is on a lifelong journey to weave his distant Gallic origins with his sprinkling of Wendat, Abénaki, Algonquin, and Nipissing roots in a way that gives a voice to his ancestors.