Join Seika Boye, AGO’s artist in residence, interview legendary vogue dancer Twysted Miyake-Mugler; who hosted six youth vogue dancing workshops and a ball through the AGO’s Free After Three youth program. Part of Seika’s current project at the AGO is thinking about how people tell the stories of their life in dancing and dancing life. Through interviews, writing, archival research and dancing with others, Seika works to push people and institutions to value dance and dancing communities.

Twysted Miyake-Mugler got his start with dance at the age of 8, where he was in a hip hop dance group at Firgrove community centre, in Jane & Finch. This is where he found his passion for movement, and artistic expression. He was introduced to dancehall through a competitive dance group formed by him and his friends called “Dream Team”. At the age of 16, he was introduced to an entirely new form of dance that embraced the femininity of black gay men, something he had never been exposed to before: The art of Vogue.

Twysted began teaching himself how to vogue and connecting with the international ballroom scene. He joined the Canadian House of Monroe as a founding member, and competed at his first ball in July 2008, where he won the “Virgin Vogue” category at Detroit Pride. Since then he has won balls in locally & in Western New York, and is now a Canadian ballroom pioneer organizing balls in Toronto & Montreal. In January 2013, he was inducted into the NYC Iconic House of Miyake-Mugler as the First International member.

Credits Include: Red Bull Music Festival, Absolut, Dole, The Drinksmith, Amazing Race Canada, Harbourfront Centre, Breakfast Television, Egale Canada ad featuring Cindy Lauper, CBC Arts, Toronto Fashion Week, Toronto Pride, Hamilton Pride, Fierté Montreal, Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario College of Art & Design, SOY - Supporting Our Youth, Suono Il Popolo festival in Montreal, Toronto International Film Festival, and has been featured in 4 music videos as a voguer.

Seika Boye is a scholar, writer, educator and artist whose practices revolve around dance and movement. She is a Lecturer at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of the Toronto, where she teaches practical and lecture courses.

From 1995-2010 Seika performed and presented her choreography across Canada. She danced professionally with Ballet Creole, Electric Company Theatre, Judith Marcuse Projects, Lucie Mongraine, Sarah Febrarro and other independent choreographers. Most recently, Seika has worked as a movement dramaturg with Syreeta Hector (Distant Histories, 2018-19); Deanna Bowen (The Long Doorway, 2017/Gibson Duets 2019); Heidi Struass/adelheid dance (re*research choreographic intensive, 2018); and Djanet Sears (Adventures of Black Girl in Search of God, 2015).

Invested in movement histories and the archive, Seika’s current research explores blackness and dancing in Canada. In 2018, she curated the archival exhibition It’s About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900-1970(Dance Collection Danse Gallery/ OCAD Ignite Gallery). Her publications include writing for Dance Chronicle, Canadian Theatre Review, alt.theatre,The Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, Performance Matters, Dance Collection Danse Magazine, and The Dance Current. Besides being Director of the Institute for Dance Studies (UofT), she participates in and collaborates on a range of research communities and projects including the Toronto Photography Seminar and Gatherings: archival and oral histories of Canadian performance (SSHRC Partnership Development).

Seika’s book project Dancing on Dime: Social Dance within Toronto’s Black Population at Mid-century, is contracted to McGill-Queens University Press. Her research was supported by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship and SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship. She completed her doctoral degree at the University of Toronto in 2016. Seika was recently appointed as an Adjunct Curator at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Seika lives and works in Toronto with her husband and their two sons.