About Us
breaking Down Barriers to Access
Artists Mentoring Youth creates and develops programs in response to the artistic and social needs of women, non-binary and gender diverse youth from equity-deserving communities in the Greater Toronto Area by engaging lead artists, program directors, and artistic mentors who come from similar backgrounds – artistically, culturally, and otherwise – as our participants.
We break down barriers to participation by:
The Land Where We Live and Work
Artist Mentoring Youth and our programming take place in Tkaronto, which is subject to the Dish With One Spoon Covenant, a precolonial treaty between the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe to share and care for the land. We are grateful to all who have cared for this land for generations: the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, the Wendat, and most recently the Mississaugas of the Credit, and many other Indigenous peoples and communities.
AMY is committed to fostering artistic work that acknowledges and explores our relationships to the land, in creative communities that build and strengthen our relationships to each other.
Performing Arts Training and Programming By Us, For Us
The Artists Mentoring Youth (AMY) Project is committed to transforming the arts landscape by offering free, accessible, affirming performing arts training & creation programs for gender diverse youth and women from equity-denied communities. With the mentorship of professional artists, AMY participants learn to tell their stories with honesty, integrity, and artistic rigour.
AMY understands that inequity in the performing arts industry is rooted in the inequitable systems that shape society. Some young people have the privilege of private lessons, outings to the theatre, and regularly seeing people who look like them in starring roles on the screen and the stage. Others do not. We aim to interrupt the inequities in performing arts industries by creating supportive, dynamic, anti-racist, queer- and trans-affirming, artistically excellent communities with equity-deserving youth of diverse lived experiences.
Spotlighting and Supporting Marginalized Voices since 2005
Meet Our Team
Jules Vodarek Hunter – Creative Director
jules@artistsmentoringyouth.ca
In 2015 Jules was a participant in the AMY Project Creation Program and has been deeply shaped by the mentorship, community and friendships that emerged from there. Jules has led and organized creative programming for The AMY Project, Toronto Fringe, Workman Arts, and Summerworks. As a stage manager they have worked on a multitude of theatre and community engaged arts projects including, Talking Treaties (Jumblies Theatre 2018), Flin Flon Cowboy ( Flin Flon Collective 2018-2024), Almedia the Glorious & Lion Woman (AMY Project & Summerworks) and other indie productions across Toronto. With Morgan, Jules co-created Fat Fables, a program for Trans, Queer & Fat folks to gather together to make art and tell their stories.
Jules is currently a practicing student therapist and training at the Centre for Training in Psychotherapy. They are excited and curious as to how their art practice and psychotherapy practice will blend, intertwine and evolve.
Jules is of Slovak/Czech and Scottish decesnt and a a settler living in Tkarón:to. Jules loves to be in their garden, learn about and connect with the plants and herbs, cook great food and spend time with loved ones, including their cat Ghost.
Blythe Haynes
Board Member
Marjorie Chan
Board Member
Erin Brandenburg
Board Member
Sehar Bojani
Board Member
Bessie Cheng
Creation Program Director
Bessie Cheng (she/they) is an award winning queer Chinese-Canadian writer and actor. She graduated from the Playwriting and Devised Theatre program at York University. Her first play, Dirt, received the Ellen Ross Stuart Award from the Ontario Arts Foundation and was nominated for the RBC Emerging Playwright Award from Playwrights Guild of Canada. She is a recipient of the 2021 Promising Pen Award from Cahoots Theatre and is named one of their theatre-makers that will help shape the next 30 years in Canadian theatre.
Bessie is also a co-founder of Silk Bath Collective, creating the Fringe hit, Silk Bath. Their production, Yellow Rabbit, enjoyed a sold-out run at Soulpepper Theatre in 2018. The collective just closed their world-premiere of their latest show, Woking Phoenix, at Theatre Passe Muraille to critical acclaim.
Bessie has participated in AMY Project as a participant, a headshot photographer, a guest artist, and a co-assistant director. She is thrilled to be co-directing the program this year with Celia!
Celia Green
Creation Program Director
With a practice spanning choreography, directing, writing, performance, and care-work, Celia (they/he) is especially interested in investigating mundane experiences of the human condition that are messy and challenging, pulling apart those feelings and isolating them through performance.
Celia’s work has been supported by English Theatre Berlin, the Toronto Dance Love-In, Toronto Dance Theatre, Nightwood Theatre, The SummerWorks Festival, Dancemakers and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. He was the curator of GOODIE BAG!, a week-long event that offered that offered free massage, tattoos, portraits and acupuncture for transgender and gender non-conforming performers.
Major influences include La Pocha Nostra, Dana Michel, Faye Driscoll, and Jess Dobkin. Near and dear collaborators include Augusto Bitter, Bilal Baig, and Merlin Simard.
Recently Celia was part of this years Conversations on Performance cohort at the Festival TransAmeriques in Montreal. They are currently an artist in residence at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.
Morgan Davis
Fat Fables Program Director
Morgan (they/them) is a Black, Fat, Queer, trans masculine-of-center artist, peer supporter, and facilitator passionate about the power of storytelling. In addition to working at Supporting Our Youth (SOY) as a community program worker for over three years, and being their drag persona Chocolate Baby Daddy, you may have seen them performing in Pride TO, Buddies In Bad Times, and Blockorama. Now Co-Creative Director at AMY, they are also the co-creator of Fat Fables, our performance arts creation program for Fat 2SLGBTQ youth. Morgan is thrilled to co-lead the future of the AMY Project and continue the legacy lifting voices and stories.