Jenny McCowan

After retiring from a 8 year career in international individual and group competition in Rhythmic Gymnastics Jenny-Anne began her career in dance and choreography in 1993 while pursuing her degree in Psychology and Political Science. While continuing her work in Rhythmic Gymnastics performance as a soloist and participating in large scale mass routines around the world, Jenny-Anne became inspired to create her own work.  With her first piece of choreography selected to represent McMaster at the Canadian University Dance Festival, Jenny-Anne went on to work in  London, Berlin, Lyon, Miami and New York.      In 2002, Jenny-Anne received her Masters Degree from York University where she developed her thesis on the ‘Rave’ phenomenon.  Inspired by the dancing and intrigued by the skill and the lack of formal training in the dancers, she argued that expressive movement was the catalyst for the continuation of the subculture. It was here that she began to develop her aesthetic of ‘public momentum’.  Jenny-Anne continues to work with this aesthetic in her choreography, developing solos and works for small groups that allow for individual and improvisational expression within the context and confines of a larger whole. In 2004, Jenny-Anne decided to expand her career into Education and received her B. Ed from The University of Toronto.  Following her love of subcultures and with her newly acquired skills in education, Jenny-Anne joined the not-for-profit group Literacy through Hip Hop and designed a curriculum for urban youth that blends hip-hop and literacy, which is now being used across Canada, the U.S. and South America. Through her degree in Education, Jenny-Anne became familiar with strategies of inclusion, motivation and team work and learned about their power in the classroom.  She combined  her new awareness and expertise in these strategies and added them to her aesthetic of ‘public momentum’. In 2006, inspired to create an event to support a friend who suffered a severe spinal cord injury, ‘Raise’ became the first major project for her to explore her aesthetic of public momentum autonomously. As the Producer and Director, she motivated over 40 volunteer performers from dance, circus, music and the visual arts and 25 support staff to participate.  She organized the entire site-specific work via e-mail and without scheduled rehearsals.  Over the course of 4 performances, over 1500 people came to see the work and over $40,000.00 were solicited in donations.  It was at this event that Jenny-Anne McCowan and Thom Sokoloski met. Since 2006, Jenny-Anne has worked with Thom Sokoloski as the choreographer of The Royal Flush, the director of Public Participation in Confinement of the Intellect in Toronto and in The Encampment in New York and continues as his creative and business partner in his upcoming works including The Babel Symphony, The Weeping Boulders, and a new national version of The Encampment for Ottawa this November. Jenny-Anne lives in Toronto and holds a position with the York Region District School Board as a long term occasional teacher. She is now preparing a new work to further her choreographic style.

Images + Video (coming soon)