Career Conversations: Meet the Mentors (SCA Version)
With With Milton Lim, Leslie Kuny, and Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi
Monday, February 24, 2025 | 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM (PST)
Online | FREE
Presented by the SFU Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology (FCAT), please join us for a panel discussion featuring School for the Contemporary Arts alumni and mentors Milton Lim, Leslie Kuny, and Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi.
Our panelists will share insights into their career paths in artistic and community practice, reflecting on their experiences since graduating from SFU. They will offer guidance on navigating creative industries and engaging with communities through the arts.
This is a wonderful opportunity to hear firsthand experiences from our alumni!
Meet the Mentors: Career Conversations is open to FCAT students and alumni looking to gain insights, guidance, and inspiration regarding professional opportunities in the arts, and those who wish to learn more about mentorship opportunities in FCAT.
Find out more about the FCAT Mentors program HERE.
Biographies
Milton Lim
Milton Lim (he/him) is an award-winning digital media artist, game designer, and performance creator. His research-based practice entwines publicly available data, interactive digital media, and gameful performance to create speculative visions and candid articulations of social capital. This line of inquiry aims to reconsider our repertoires of knowledge aggregation and political intervention in the contemporary context of big data and algorithmic culture. Milton holds a BFA (Hons.) in theatre performance and psychology from Simon Fraser University.
He has created works for and performed in various international festivals, venues, and galleries across Canada and in Portland, Seattle, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Bristol, Edinburgh, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Münster, Ancona, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Darwin. He is an artistic associate with Theatre Conspiracy, a co-founder and key archivist with the videocan national video archive of performing arts documentation, one of the co-creators behind culturecapital: the performing arts economy trading card game, and one of the co-creators of asses.masses: the video game. In 2022, his work on asses.masses received the prestigious National Creation Fund from the National Arts Centre of Canada and it is now touring internationally in 7+ languages.
Leslie Kuny
Owner & Artistic Director | Certified Dance Adjudicator | Award-Winning Dance Educator & Choreographer
Leslie Kuny is the Owner and Artistic Director of Absolute Motion Performance & Dance, a premier dance studio in South Surrey BC. With over 20 years of experience in the dance industry, Leslie is a highly respected educator, choreographer, and mentor, known for her dynamic approach to performance and her ability to cultivate talent in dancers of all ages.
As a certified dance adjudicator through The Dance Leadership Institute and the Professional Adjudicators Alliance, Leslie brings a discerning eye and deep knowledge of dance technique and history to her judging and mentoring roles. Her extensive career has included collaborations with organizations such as the Vancouver International Dance Festival, RJC High School, Playland Amusement Park, Collabor8!, and BellyFit International.
A proud graduate of Grant MacEwan and Simon Fraser University with a BFA in Dance, Leslie is a passionate advocate for the power of dance as both an art form and a vehicle for personal growth. She has trained and inspired hundreds of students across the Lower Mainland, instilling in them not only technical excellence but also a deep love for movement and self-expression. As an educator, Leslie rejects the outdated norms of dance education associated with shame and guilt, and instead focuses on a human-centred approach built on trust and humour with students of all ages.
Her accomplishments as an educator have been recognized by the broader community, and is the recipient of the Shine Dance Festival Mentor Award and the “Coach of the Year” award from the Surrey Now Leader. As a sought-after choreographer, she has created award-winning works that push the boundaries of artistic expression, consistently earning accolades for their innovation and emotional resonance.
With a reputation for creating a supportive, collaborative environment for both students and colleagues, Ms Kuny continues to build the next generation of dance artists. Her unique blend of artistic vision, technical expertise, and commitment to excellence allows her to build successful, competitive artists through authenticity, joy, laughter, and encouragement.
Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi
Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi is an Iranian composer and performer. She writes for hybrid instrumental/electronic ensembles, creates electroacoustic works, builds instruments, and performs electronic music. She explores the unfamiliar familiar while being motivated by musical extremes; finding ways to play with various musical thresholds is something that she is currently attracted to.
Incorporating her Iranian background and merging contrasting aesthetics is present in her creative work. Being a cross-disciplinary artist, she has actively collaborated on projects evolving around dance, film, and theater. She is the co-founder and producer of Fashion x Electronics, a collective focused on creating interdisciplinary works based on fashion and electronic music.
Kimia’s work has been showcased by organizations across the globe and her work has been performed internationally. She holds a BFA in Music Composition from Simon Fraser University’s Interdisciplinary School for the Contemporary Arts. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Music Composition at Stanford University.