Sontje Skabo
2025–2026 Artist-In-Residence

ARTIST BIO

Sontje Skabo is a contemporary dance artist currently based in Winnipeg, Canada. Originally from Europe, she trained extensively across Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy before joining the School of Contemporary Dancers’ Senior Professional Program in partnership with the University of Winnipeg, where she is completing her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Dance.

Her professional experience spans international and Canadian collaborations with choreographers such as Stephanie Ballard, Jennifer Essex, Mehdi Farajpour, Andrea Pivatto, Gaile Hiley, and Casimiro Nhussi. Sontje has performed in renowned events and venues including the Multipla Dança Festival in São Paulo, the Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers’ Emerging Artist Initiative, and and ORIANTHEATRE’s SoundGraphy, created by Mehdi Farajpour and performed in Tampere.

Sontje’s choreography has been featured in productions like Fieldnotes from the Side of Nowhere and twenty-four, which toured Canadian Fringe Festivals including Vancouver, Winnipeg, Kingston, and Guelph.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Sontje Skabo and Lee Frketich are collaborating on a shared residency project titled Body Heat.

This work will explore body heat as both a physical experience and as a symbolic and emotional connection between people. We want to investigate the contrast between the exact ability to measure and display the change in body heat as a result of various actions and the emotional implications of these actions as an intangible experience. The work is going to investigate how warmth equals presence, using temperature as a measure of closeness and contact.

We are interested in heat, a medium we constantly feel, but rarely see, becoming visible as a form of expression and communication. The project will explore the traces we leave behind through our body temperature, on objects, in our environment, and on each other. We want to experiment with materials that respond to temperature, like thermochromic pigment, to add a visual layer to this invisible concept.

“Body heat” is currently in the research and experimentation phase. We have been researching thermal imaging from art and science, as well as the symbolic use of temperature in literature and myths. Our next steps include testing different materials and their reaction to heat, as well as getting into a studio and exploring the body heat shared in movement, through partnering.

RESIDENCY DATES AND EVENTS

Residency:
November 24 – December 5, 2025

Open Studio:
Saturday, November 29, 2025
1:00 – 3:00pm
Space to Create – 2B-468 Main Street
Pay What You Can
TICKETS

Accessibility Information:
17-step staircase
Gender-inclusive washrooms
ASL interpretation offered upon request

Public Sharing:
Friday, December 5, 2025
7:00 – 8:30pm
The Output – Artspace – 100 Arthur Street
Pay What You Can
TICKETS

Accessibility Information:
Physically accessible
Gender-inclusive washrooms
ASL interpretation offered

Essayist: Daniela Fernandez
Facilitator: Barbara Segovia

Bárbara González Segovia (she/they/ella/elu) is a brown, queer, Latinex immigrant, deeply passionate about community, Human Rights and social justice.

She studied Arts with a focus on Cultural Promotion, and completed postgraduate studies in Human Development.

For the last decade, Bárbara has been working with grassroots and nonprofit organizations, particularly in issues related to environmental protection, Indigenous governance, women’s empowerment, and, most recently, the intersection of human rights and technology. Whether through program coordination, organizational development, facilitation or community organizing, she is committed to working from an anti-oppressive and people-centered lens.

Above all, Bárbara is a caring and joyful soul who loves the Amazon forest, her grandma, water bodies, crafts, and her chubby cat.

Daniela Smith-Fernandez is a multimedia artist and writer who is Chilean-Canadian by birth, francophone by choice. Varied life experiences have led her to travel in Central America, live in a tent, spend six years in Montreal, work in theatre and teach art to children. This also includes a degree in cultural anthropology and studying tailoring, textile surface design and French language education. When not making art, she works as a bartender. She is a member of Miradorx Art Collective, a group of women and gender diverse Latin artists on the prairies. Passionately multilingual and multicultural, she makes her home in Saint Boniface.

WRITTEN ESSAY BY DANIELA SMITH-FERNANDEZ

Lee Frketich and Sontje Skabo 2025-2026 YLDE Artist Residency Public Sharing, December 5, 2025
Photo credits: Pablo Riquelme

This residency is made possible with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council, and the Winnipeg Arts Council.