Mary Louise Albert is based full time in Sointula, British Columbia and is actively growing the BC Movement Arts Society (that she founded in 2015 and is the Artistic & Executive Director and Co-Founder, producing and facilitating a professional contemporary dance series, artist creation residencies, community outreach and digital dance projects in rural and remote coastal communities of BritishColumbia.
Albert previously held a 15-year position (2004 - 2019) as the ArtisticManaging Director of the Norman Rothstein Theatre (NRT) and the multidisciplinary international Chutzpah! Festival, growing the festival from a small local cultural event to an international 4 week festival focusing on dance, music and comedy.
A former professional dancer, choreographer and teacher, she worked for 20 years nationally and internationally as a solo dance artist and as a company member with the Judith Marcuse Dance Company, Anna Wyman Dance Theatre, Karen Jamieson Dance Company as well as apprenticing with Les Grands Ballet Canadiens. Albert has performed work by choreographers such as Mark Morris, Crystal Pite, Lar Lubabvitch, Robert North, Serge Bennathan, Allen Kaeja, Judith Marcuse, Grant Strate, Peter Bingham, Tedd Robbinson, Judith Garay and ChristopherHouse, to name a few.
She has an extensive teaching background that includes Arts Umbrella, Sessional positions at Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts, Harbour Dance Centre, Goh Ballet as well as adjudicating for dance festivals throughout WesternCanada.
Transitioning from professional dance at the age of 46, Albert won the nationally awarded Eric Bruhn Memorial Award from the Dancer Transition Resource Centre to attend the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) School of Business, graduating with a Post Diploma of Technology in Business Administration (Dean's Award) and Capilano University, graduating with an Advanced Arts and Entertainment Management Certificate.
Albert is the recipient of the 2011 Canada Council for the Arts’ John Hobday Award for Excellence in Arts Management, one of two awarded nationally annually. She was an appointed member of the City of Vancouver’s first Arts and Culture Policy Council, was an Executive Board member of Temple Sholom, and was a five-year member of a Program Advisory Committee for the BCIT School of Business and past member of the Board of the Gate House Theatre in Port McNeill and the Sointula Museum Historical Society. Recently Albert was the Co-Directed and Co-Videographer of a 40- minute documentary video - Sointula: History & Memories which won a 2024 Heritage BC award and was short-listed for a Governor Generals History Award in Excellence in Community Programing. She recently received a BC Arts Council Professional Development grant to pursue a Professional Bookkeeping Certificate.
