Biography
overview
Timea Wharton-Suri serves communities through her work as an educator, curator, producer, and arts executive. For decades she has studied, performed, taught, curated, produced, programmed, administrated, and advocated for dance in Canada.
While gaining this experience, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Dance from York University, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Arts and Media Management Graduate Diploma from Schulich School of Business. She continues studies in Black liberation and dramaturgy.
Timea has worked in various capacities with several organizations: In senior administrative positions at dance Immersion, Toronto Dance Theatre, Dancer Transition Resource Centre, and Toronto Arts Council; in curatorial roles with TO Live, Canadian Stage, and dance Immersion; as a strategic consultant to KasheDance and Nova Dance; and as a performer with Ronald Taylor Dance, Ballet Creole, and Higher Ground. Timea has envisioned, launched, and managed community arts ventures in Canada, including the 2022 AMANI Project with Right Path World Arts. She has also mentored numerous emerging artists who have gone on to contribute meaningfully to the arts as a way of paying it forward for those who mentored her along her journey.
artistic practice
Timea performed full-time for several years with African Diasporic dance companies such as Ballet Creole and Ronald Taylor Dance before opening a dance/fitness studio – one of the first that now proliferate in urban centres. She has produced events independently and for TO Live, North York Arts, Holla Jazz, Toronto Comic Arts Festival, Toronto Dance Theatre, and the Remarkable Women Awards, and curated dance performances for dance Immersion, TO Live, and Canadian Stage. In the 2021-2022 season alone, performances that Timea conceived of, produced or co-presented earned a total of 18 Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations. A frequent moderator, Timea has conducted on-camera artist interviews and panels for Toronto International Festival of Authors and Harbourfront Centre Performing Arts, CPAMO, Canadian Stage, The Dance Current, and On The Move.
arts management
On the management front, Timea served as the Interim Managing Director of Toronto Dance Theatre in 2020, and previously in administrative roles for the Dancer Transition Resource Centre, TVOntario, and Toronto Arts Council (TAC), where she managed the dance and literary arts portfolios. At TAC, she successfully advocated for expanded funding for dance and literary artists, and worked with Canada’s largest communities of dancers and writers to administer a $2.5 million grants budget. She co-develop the What’s Your Story?, Toronto Lit Up, Long-Term Dance Projects, Cultural Leaders Lab, Performing Arts Facilities, and Animating Toronto Parks programs that increased access and exposure for hundreds of marginalized artists. In 2019, Timea co-developed and facilitated curriculum delivery for dance Immersion's Legacy Leaders Arts Project Management course. Working in partnership with Right Path World Arts, Timea co-developed and produced The AMANI Project 2022 to spotlight and archive the work of Black Canadian artists.
community roles
Working with many communities, Timea has served as a Big Sister mentor, taught thousands of movement classes to adults and youth, and has been engaged as a speaker for the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists, CPAMO, On the Move Conference, dance Immersion, Dance Umbrella of Ontario, NIA Centre for the Arts, Diaspora Dialogues, Writers Union of Canada, Toronto Public Library, Centennial College, Royal Academy of Dance, Ontario Book Publisher’s Organization, and Schulich School of Business. She was the Chair of the Board of Directors of The Dance Current from 2019 - 2021, and is a member of the International Association of Blacks in Dance, Ontario Non-Profit Network, and Black Founders Network. She has held advisory roles with the National Arts Centre, Dancer Transition Resource Centre, and Dancemakers, and is currently on the board of directors of Work in Culture and the advisory committee of Yorkville University's Creative Arts Program.
Timea is currently in a blended artistic and administrative role as the Curator & Program Director at dance Immersion, and independently mentors artists through all stages of development.