Embracing challenge, dancer Nathan Bear is one of the rising stars at Arts Umbrella Season Finale
The scholarship-winning Cree, Okanagan, and Laichwiltach artist is making his ancestors proud, performing alongside works by the likes of Crystal Pite, Marco Goecke, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
Nathan Bear’s “long, lean beautiful facility”. Photo by Michael Slobodian
Nathan Bear at right, with Lily Gentile, in the Arts Umbrella poster
Arts Umbrella presents Season Finale at the Vancouver Playhouse from May 23 to 25
WITH HIS LONG, fluid extensions and magnetic expressivity, Arts Umbrella graduating student Nathan Bear is a striking presence on the poster for the program’s Season Finale.
Appearing on the Arts Umbrella’s promotional materials for the show with dancer Lily Gentile, Bear will feature in works by the iconic likes of Crystal Pite, William Forsythe, Mats Ek, Aszure Barton, Marco Goecke, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. On another level, the artist is also a perfect poster star for the way the internationally renowned dance program can spot raw talent and develop young, diverse dancers into fully rounded contemporary artists.
The program’s artistic director Artemis Gordon reports having had more than 300 applicants from around the globe for 10 spots last year; more than 65 percent now come from countries outside of Canada—though some, like Bear, are homegrown standouts.
“I remember him standing at the barre with this incredible long, lean beautiful facility, and there was a spark,” recalls Gordon of Bear’s audition. “You could see the desire to do this, and a real joyful approach to movement. And if you’ve got that, I can work with it!
“He had not had that much professional training and was pretty green when he came in,” she adds, “and in three years he has transformed into this incredibly gifted and capable young artist.”
Bear, of the Cree, Okanagan, and Laichwiltach First Nations, started dancing at the age of four in ballet and tap, training in multiple genres at Langley’s Fusion Force Dance Studio. At 17, Bear transferred to a pre-professional program at Tri-City Dance Centre. There, he came to work with then-Ballet BC dancer and now Ballet Edmonton artistic director Kirsten Wicklund.
“She kind of was my exposure to Arts Umbrella and what the program was—about how intense it is, its diversity, and also its integrity,” Bear says.
Since his acceptance into its Graduate Program, Bear became the first recipient of Ballet BC’s Dancers of Today Scholarship. He’s also gone on to take part in a two-week summer intensive with the celebrated Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague.
The artist admits that, at first, the technical and artistic demands were a shock to his system. But he has grown as a dancer and as a person. “Arty really knows how to develop a dancer, and not just in a technical way, but how to bring the person you are as a dancer out,” Bear reflects. “I think it’s such a beautiful thing that she explores….You have to have this level of intensity.”
Bear says some of his biggest milestones under the “Umbrella” have included a 2022 trip to Nederlands Dans Theater, where he performed Crystal Pite’s masterful The Seasons’ Canon with a live orchestra at the Dutch National Opera, and met artistic director Emily Molnar, former head of Ballet BC.
One of the other major highlights for Bear was a trip with Arts Umbrella to perform at Alert Bay with BC Movement Arts Society. It was transformative and profound to meet members of the 'Namgis First Nation there, he says.
“We met with an Indigenous elder and it really reopened my mind to my culture, to what is so important to keep and not forget,” Bear relates. “And so it was really refreshing because it just brought back a lot of memories and a lot of information that I had just let go. And it was such an incredible, beautiful experience that I will hold with me for a really long time.”
Bear said he’s never seen himself as a role model for Indigenous dancers. But he knows he’s making his ancestors, and the late grandmother who kept him in touch with his Indigenous roots, proud.
“My parents and my grandparents had a very hard time growing up and had a lot of misfortunate things happen to them, like residential school and intergenerational trauma,” he begins. “And so my parents kept me sheltered from that for a long time because they wanted to give me the best they could. And in that case, I feel like I’ve made my grandmother, who unfortunately passed away when I was in first year, proud. Because I never thought in a million years I would be in the place where I am right now….If I was to think back four years from now, this was all just a dream—like a fantasy, something untouchable.
Photo by Michael Slobodian
“I’ve had the opportunity to explore so much in this world and to travel because of dance. I’ve learned from so many different people and experienced so many different things,” he adds. “And I feel like I kind of broke through the stereotype of how people can perceive Indigenous people.”
As for the Season Finale, Bear cites Belgian innovator Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s piece as one of his favourites on the program—a choice that tells you a lot about the dancer’s love of pushing himself physically.
“It's very challenging, and what I love about it is the stamina behind the piece is very hard,” Bear says. “There’s a lot of qualities in the movement that you have to grasp—it’s really challenging to find the coordination and the flow of the movement. And it’s a really fun piece to do! It’s also really nice because I have my whole class on stage with me, and so we’re all going through this together. At the end of it, it feels fulfilling, because you go offstage and you’re laying on the floor out of breath.”
Gordon reveals the Season Finale is a last chance to catch this year’s graduating students before they go to companies like Nederlands Dans Theater, Felix Landerer’s TANZ Bielefeld in Germany, and Ballet Edmonton; two more are headed to Spain, with a full 90 percent of the grads already placed.
“We mentor these kids one-on-one on artistic and emotional levels—it’s so important that we have the time to do the kind of individual, profound education that creates great artists,” Gordon explains. “We’re not just training the body; we’re training artists. That means their improvisation skills, their value in the room, their musicality in performance, their presence, and their ability to have the resilience to withstand difficulties.”
As for Bear? We can’t reveal where he’ll be going after graduating quite yet, but we can assure you it’s on to an exciting new chapter onstage. 
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