Michel Beaudry

A freelance writer for the last thirty-five years, Michel Beaudry has roamed the world in search of great and unique stories to tell. He has eaten whale with Greenland Inuit, hiked above the clouds with Inca descendants, retraced the Silk Route with Kyrgyz horsemen and followed Morocco’s hashish trail with Berber friends. And his thirst for adventure is far from quenched. Inspired by the classical edict mens sana in corpore sano, the sexagenarian continues to push the performance envelope, whether he’s setting first ski tracks on a remote peak in northern Alaska or performing a live storytelling gig for a gaggle of graduate art students. His award-winning tales have appeared in GQ, Reader’s Digest, Outside, Sports Illustrated, The Globe & Mail, Canadian Business, the much lamented Equinox Magazine, Britain’s Daily Mail, France’s Le Monde and dozens of other publications. The widowed father of two amazingly talented daughters, Beaudry is currently enrolled at SFU’s The Writer’s Workshop, where he is hard at work on his first novel.

James Coomber

James Coomber is a composer, sound designer and musician based in Vancouver.  His artistic interests lie heavily in collaborative work, where the intermingling of disciplines pushes the boundary of audio-visual forms.  He is a graduate of music composition and theatre collaboration from the School of Contemporary Arts at SFU.  Recent highlights include composing for and performing in Noam Gagnon’s This Crazy Show (coming to to the Dance Centre this Fall), doing copyist work for Veda Hille and Amiel Gladstone’s Onegin, creating the music and sound for rice and beans theatre’s Mis Papás, and presenting work at the Prague Quadrennial, one of the world's largest scenography festivals.  Next up you can hear his music at Dancing on the Edge in Joshua Beamish/Move: the company’s fighting chance.