Kate Franklin has been an independent contemporary dance artist for the past 20 years. She has spent this time training, performing, producing, administrating, educating and creating. She has performed in works by nearly 50 different choreographers/creators/directors over the course of her career so far. 

After graduating from Quinte Ballet School in 1999, Kate spent a season in the Mentor Program at Ballet BC and a season as an Intern Dancer at Toronto Dance Theatre. 

She spent the next decade in Toronto/Tkaronto, collaborating and performing with numerous companies and choreographers, most notably ProArte Danza, Kaeja d’Dance, Yvonne Ng, Company Vice Versa (Valerie Calam), Zata Omm Dance Projects (William Yong), and Matjash Mrozewski, amongst others. She was a core member of Dusk Dances for several years. Her choreography was commissioned by training programs such as YMI Dancing, Quinte Ballet School and Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, companies such as JD Dance and platforms such as At the Wrecking Ball, and Porch View Dances. 

Kate was a mobilising force in the Toronto contemporary dance community. She worked with Series 8:08 for many years, as the administrator of the Alternative Technique Class Program. She co-founded (with Tina Fushell) Ambitious Enterprises, a company that produced five At the Wrecking Ball programs of interdisciplinary dance over ten years (from 2002-2012).

With Kate Holden, Franklin founded firstthingsfirst productions in 2005. Together, the Kates commissioned and performed an impressive number of original works from independent Canadian choreographers including Marc Bovin, Kate Alton, DA Hoskins and Emily Molnar, and produced three evening-length mixed programs between 2007 and 2013. 

Kate is the recipient of the 2014 Dora Mavor Moore award for Outstanding Female Performance for the solo Gotta Go Church, choreographed by Valerie Calam.

Kate has taught contemporary dance all over Canada since 1997, in studios, public schools, pre-professional training programs, University dance programs, community dance groups, and to professionals at GMD (Toronto), the Training Society of Vancouver and company class for the dancers of Ballet BC. 

Since 2012, Kate has lived in Vancouver on the unceded and traditional territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. She is in her eighth season as Associate Director of Modus Operandi, a post-secondary contemporary dance program, where she teaches and mentors a group of 25 exceptionally talented young dance artists. She works as a dancer with Company 605, Tara Cheyenne Performance and Justine A. Chambers, amongst others. She particularly enjoys dancing for choreographers and film makers who are her former and current students (Avery Smith, Jamie Robinson, Oksana Augustine and Satya Mari). Her own choreographic work has been shown most recently at the EDAM Choreographic Series and Dancing on the Edge.

Kate is now, as she was 20 years ago, a passionate, open-minded, optimistic and curious dance artist. She loves improvisation, collaboration, making dance education more joyful, and empowering the dance artists in her community, one interaction at a time. 

For information about upcoming performances check Instagram (@kate.franklin31)