Jackie English is a Canadian television host, actress, dancer, choreographer, director, filmmaker and performer.
English was born in Toronto, Ontario. English later moved to Montreal where she graduated from McGill University in the top 5% in mechanical engineering [ citation needed ]. After university she worked for a year at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in Montreal as a consultant before becoming a full time performing artist
After leaving the corporate world, English became a host of TVOKids , TVOntario's after school block of children's programs, alongside Milton Barns, Mark Sykes and Nicole Stamp, and later Ryan Fields. English appeared in live interstitial breaks between shows such as Art Attack , Arthur , Dino Dan and The Magic School Bus . During these segments she would perform original characters including Jigsaw Jill and interview noteworthy Canadians including Robert Munsch and Perdita Felician. English also appeared in number of original TVO Kids series BOD TV, as Artbot in Artbot, Nifty Girl in Super Citizens, the mayor in The Reading Rangers, and was the in-house choreographer for music videos. Later English became the on-location host to in-studio hosts Kara Harun and Dalmar Abuzeid, where she reported on kids news including interviewing Chris Bosh, visiting Cirque du Soleil and the ROM. Best known[ by whom? ] was her 40 episodes of the series Jackie's School of Dance which was nominated for two A.C.T. Awards.[ citation needed ]
In 2011, English wrote and directed her first film, a one-minute short film called NIMBY which won first prize at the Toronto Urban Film Festival [1] where judge Atom Egoyan called it "extraordinary." [2] She then started a film collective called The Splinter Unit which produced 8 films, including Out directed by Jeremy Lalonde, which premiered at TIFF.
In 2017 English's first feature film Becoming Burlesque, [3] starring Shiva Negar with the support of Telefilm, premiered at Whistler Film Festival. The film was the opening film at the Canadian Film Festival [ citation needed ] and won Best Film at the Tryon Film Festival in North Carolina [ citation needed ] before its Canadian and American Theatrical release, followed by digital distribution in North America. English was declared a Canadian Director To Watch [4] by Broadway World.
As an actress, English has appeared in TV series CBC's Frankie Drake Mysteries , new Netflix Series Dare Me , Rookie Blue , and Beauty and the Beast.
As a choreographer, English created 60 episodes of TFO series Minivers, dances for Second City MainStage, I, Martin Short, Goes Home .
Film | |||
---|---|---|---|
Year | Film | Role | Notes |
2011 | Christmas Magic | Nurse | Hallmark |
2011 | NIMBY [5] | Writer/Director | Winner of TUFF |
2012 | Anitviral | Waitress | Directed by Brandon Cronenberg |
2015 | Duty Calls | Director / Producer | Funded by BravoFact! |
2017 | Becoming Burlesque | Writer / Director | Produced by Telefilm |
2019 | Buffaloed | Drunk Woman | Directed by Tanya Wexler |
2020 | Flashback | Violet | Directed by Christopher MacBride |
Television | ||
---|---|---|
Series | Role | Notes |
Dare Me | Deena Diaz | Produced by Netflix |
Grand Army | Shopkeeper | Produced by Netflix |
Frankie Drake Mysteries | Vera Jean | Produced by Shaftesbury |
Cracked | Passenger | Produced by CBC |
Beauty and the Beast | Janie | Aired on CBS |
Rookie Blue | Brooke Sloane | Aired on Global, ABC |
TVO Kids | Self | Produced by TVO |
The Reading Rangers | The Mayor of Docville | Produced by TVO |
Super Citezens | Nifty Girl | Produced by TVO |
BodTV | Various | Produced by TVO |
Tumbletown Tales | Various | Produced by TVO |
Artbot | Arbot | Produced by TVO |
Jackie's School of Dance | Self / Choreographer | Produced by TVO |
Martin Short Goes Home | Choreographer | Produced by Second City |
Minivers | Choreographer | Produced by TFO |
Year | Nominated work | Role | Association | Category | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2008 | Tumbletown Tales (TVO) | Voice actor | Gemini Awards | Best Children's or Youth Fiction Program or Series | Nominated |
2009 | Jackie's School of Dance (TVO) | Choreographer | Alliance of Children's Television Awards | Best Children's TV Series | Nominated |
2011 | NIMBY | Director | Toronto Urban Film Festival (TUFF) | Best Film | Winner |
2014 | Out (written by Jeremy Lalonde) | Producer | Directors Guild of Canada | Best Short Film | Nominated |
2016 | Duty Calls (written by Sean Cullen) | Director/producer | Canadian Film Festival | Best Actress in a Short [6] | Winner |
BravoFACT! | $30,000 grant | Winner | |||
2017 | Becoming Burlesque [7] | Director/writer | Tryon International Film Festival | Best Film [8] | Winner |
Audience Choice Award | Winner | ||||
Star Ranch Texas Nudist Film Festival | Audience Choice Award | Winner | |||
Canadian Film Festival | Official Selection Opening Film [9] | ||||
2019 | Diamonds in the Rough | Director | Toronto International Short Festival | Official Selection |
Robert Louis Fosse was an American actor, choreographer, dancer, and film and stage director. He directed and choreographed musical works on stage and screen, including the stage musicals The Pajama Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961), Sweet Charity (1966), Pippin (1972), and Chicago (1975). He directed the films Sweet Charity (1969), Cabaret (1972), Lenny (1975), All That Jazz (1979), and Star 80 (1983).
The Canadian Film Festival, formerly known as the Canadian Filmmakers Festival, is an annual film festival in Toronto, Ontario. Showcasing a program of Canadian independent films, it is held in March of each year and usually runs for five days.
Jackie Maxwell is an Irish-born Canadian theatre director and dramaturge. She was the artistic director of the Shaw Festival from 2002 to 2016.
Fantasia International Film Festival is a film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. Regularly held in July of each year, it is valued by both hardcore genre film fans, and distributors, who take advantage of the eclectic line up to select domestic and international films for release across North America. By virtue of the reputation developed over the last 15 years, this festival has been described as perhaps the "most outstanding and largest genre film festival in North America".
Robin Antin is an American dancer and choreographer. In 1995, she founded the modern burlesque troupe the Pussycat Dolls. By 2005, she diversified into various media including a pop recording group with international hits, a Las Vegas nightclub venue and floor show, various merchandise, and a reality television series. Since then, she has gone on to create other girl groups, including G.R.L., Girlicious and Paradiso Girls.
The Canadian Comedy Awards (CCA) is an annual ceremony that awards the Beaver for achievements in Canadian comedy in live performance, radio, film, television, and Internet media. The awards were founded and produced by Tim Progosh in 2000.
Holly G. Frankel, also known as Holly Gauthier-Frankel, is a Canadian voice actress and voice director. Gauthier-Frankel is best known for playing Fern Walters in Arthur, Sagwa in Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat, Rita in Go Hugo Go and Hugo: the Movie Star, Teri in later episodes of What's with Andy?, Loulou in Wimzie's House, and Flora in the Cinélume's English dub of Winx Club. She is also known for her alter-ego, burlesque performer Miss Sugarpuss, whom Gauthier-Frankel retired in 2016.
Raoul Maximiano Trujillo de Chauvelon is an American-Canadian actor, dancer, choreographer, and theatre director. A former soloist with the Nikolais Dance Theatre, he is the original choreographer and co-director for the American Indian Dance Theatre. Trujillo's career spans more than 45 years in film, television, and theatre, as well as hosting a series of dancing programs. He is a Critics' Choice Award nominee.
Louise Garfield is a Canadian performance artist, choreographer, film and television producer and arts administrator. Her work as a producer includes the films Zero Patience in which she has a cameo role playing a virus, and The Hanging Garden, for which she received a Genie Award nomination for Best Motion Picture.
Moze Mossanen is a Canadian independent writer, director and producer who has created a body of critically acclaimed film and TV work blending drama, music, performance and documentary. Most recently, he wrote and directed the documentary feature, You Are Here: A Come From Away Story. His other works include Year of the Lion, a dance film adaptation of the novel, Dangerous Liaisons, and Nureyev, a docu-drama about the life of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev.
Gentry de Paris is a Paris-based burlesque dancer, art director, and playwright.
Margaret Dragu is a Canadian dancer, writer, performance artist and feminist.
Nicolas "Nico" Archambault is a Canadian dancer and choreographer, who in 2008 won the first season of So You Think You Can Dance Canada. After the win, he became well known for his lead role in the 2011 Canadian film On the Beat .
Denise Faye Greenbaum is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, and director. She is the recipient of an American Choreography Award, as well as a Screen Actor's Guild Award for the 2002 film Chicago. Faye won the Dance Track Magazine Artist Award for best choreography in a feature film for her work in Burlesque. Additionally, she received nominations including the Fred and Adele Astaire Award and The World Dance Awards for her choreography in Burlesque.
Ann Shin is a filmmaker and writer based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Donna Feore is a Canadian choreographer and theatre director, most noted for her work with the National Arts Centre and the Stratford Festival.
Laura Taler is a Romanian-born Canadian artist. Beginning her career as a contemporary dance choreographer, she now works in a range of media, including performance, film, sound, sculpture, and installations. Taler's films The Village Trilogy and Heartland are heralded by Dance International Magazine as marking the beginning of the dancefilm boom in Canada.
The Clichettes were an all-women feminist performance art group formed in Toronto, Canada in 1977. Their practice is notable for injecting humour and theatricality into the sphere of performance art. The three performers initially worked using lip sync and choreography as their tools to parody pop culture depictions of femininity and later expanded their practice by including elements from science fiction and theatre in their performances. The Clichettes are notable for their impact on Canadian performance art as well as Feminist and performing arts in general.
Sophie Hyde is an Australian film director, writer, and producer based in Adelaide, South Australia. She is co-founder of Closer Productions and known for her award-winning debut fiction film, 52 Tuesdays (2013) and the comedy drama Animals (2019). She has also made several documentaries, including Life in Movement (2011), a documentary about dancer and choreographer Tanja Liedtke, and television series, such as The Hunting (2019). Her latest film, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, premiered at the Sundance Festival on 23 January 2022, and was released on Hulu and in cinemas in the UK and Australia.