Ruby Cabaret
RUBY CABARET | Mile Zero Dance’s 40th Anniversary Salon
As part of Connections//Collisions
Two programs with a wide range of artists and the presentation of the Progressive Artist Award.
Join us for two nights featuring two different artist line-ups!
February 20 + 21
7:30 PM
$20 MZD Member
$25 General Admission
Mile Zero Dance is located at 9931 78 Ave NW
RUBY CABARET Night 1 (FEB 20) | Artist line-up features:
Tia Kushniruk presents attempted everything / 1995 – ?
an attempt at everything right now
Moses Motors presents Bowieoke
January 10, 2026 marks the 10th anniversary of the death of David Bowie. With his birthday two days prior on the 8th and my own date of birth being January 9, 1976, I will forever be held between the birth and death dates of the Starman.
Mere months before he passed, I pulled together a somewhat convincing look simulating Serious Moonlight 1980s era Bowie and sang Let’s Dance with a live band at a Halloween karaoke show. Right then and there, in my blue suit, polka dot tie, and bleached blonde hair, I decided to become a Bowie tribute artist. Wigs were ordered, makeup tips were procured, and a variety of songs and eras were explored at karaoke bars and thrift stores. But once he was gone and the worldwide tributes subsided, it just didn’t hit the same and I set aside my dreams of singing telegrams and hosting Bowieoke parties.
Seven years later, Moses Motors suddenly emerged from my psyche a fully formed drag persona. Enough time had passed for me to embrace the opportunity to revisit performing in tribute to David Bowie and delve into the time-honoured drag tradition of celebrity impersonation. And delve into Bowie I have, from singing Let’s Dance at my Fresh Fruits debut in May 2023, to co-producing two Bowie drag tribute shows in 2025 (Diamond Dawgs and Diamond Dawgs: Sound + Vision).
At the Ruby Cabaret, in the spirit of milestones, I bring you the Moses Motors Bowieoke experience, 10 years after Ziggy Stardust left this world and 50 years after I was born to this earthly plane.
Medgine Mathurin (Poet Laureate)
Medgine Mathurin will present poems on the topic of tenderness and the body: To the Tender I Buried. Her poems will range from the themes of body image, chronic illness, and tenderness.
Showcasing an archival dance film: My Summer Vacation by Ken Berry (co-artistic director, Debra Shantz)
+ the evening will include the presentation of MZD’s Progressive Artist Award!
RUBY CABARET Night 2 (FEB 21) | Artist line-up features:
Danni Daysky Okemaw presents Grandmother’s Dress
Grandmother’s Dress honours the Woodland Strap Dress as part of a movement to bring back a dress worn by our grandmothers. Through the research and teachings shared by beautiful Indigenous women, I’ve learned about my own community’s relationship to this dress. For me, dancing this style is a personal act of reclamation and revitalization, and a way to carry those teachings forward.
Chris Bullough presents The Wild Truck
Country Music Entertainer, Tyler Wainwright Jr. shares a story between songs.
Cindy Baker presents Hideous Fruit
In Hideous Fruit, Baker sets out to build a mutually compassionate relationship with a basket of strawberries.
Showcasing an archival dance film: Black Angels by Cynthis Welles. Featuring many early Edmonton contemporary dancers including Kathy Ochoa, Charlene Tarver, Wendy McNeill & more.
Featuring
Tia Ashley Kushniruk (亚 女弟)
Tia Ashley Kushniruk (亚 女弟) is a dance performance artist based in Treaty 6 Edmonton AB. She works primarily with dance improvisation and tableau, seeking idiosyncrasies and humour within highly virtuosic presentations that blend performance art and hyper performativity. She has a fascination with online cringe images and culture and its translated immediate tactile equivalents. Photo credit | naomi caufield
Moses Motors
Moses Motors (he/they) was conceived in the back of a 1973 Monte Carlo parked behind the General Motors Oshawa Assembly plant, but was raised on the booms and busts of the Alberta Advantage. A guest on this land, but firmly rooted north of the river in Amiskwaciwâskahikan for over 30 years, he’s been running the roads between Treaty 6 and 7 territories since 1994. Relatively new to drag, but a seasoned performer with a fresh coat of paint, he’s here to part the waters and lead you to freedom.
For a slow burn king/thing, they can go from zero to sixty-nine in a heartbeat, especially when there’s some Bowie on deck, or rock bangers of any kind, CanCon classics being top notch. Just wait till you see what’s under the hood… there’s no denying you’ll want to get behind the wheel. Crank the tunes and let’s cruise!
Medgine Mathurin
Medgine Mathurin is a Haitian-born spoken word artist and advocate. She is the author of the multilingual poetry chapbook Waiting in the Land of the Living / Attendre dans le monde des vivants published by The Polyglot. She currently serves as the Poet Laureate for the City of Edmonton.
Her work has been featured on CBC, Global TV, at SkirtsAfire Festival, and the Edmonton Poetry Festival. In 2025, Medgine attended the Banff Centre for Creativity 2025 Summer Writers Program where she received mentorship from award-winning American poet and performer Douglas Kearney. Medgine was selected as a participant in the 2022 Mentorship Program with the Writers' Guild of Alberta and became a mentor in the 2022 Horizon Writers Circle, a mentorship program for underrepresented writers living in Edmonton. Follow her at @medginespeaks and medgine.ca.
Danni Daysky Okemaw
Danni Daysky Okemaw is Anishinaabe and Swampy Cree from Berens River First Nation and God’s River First Nation in Manitoba. Born and raised in Winnipeg, she now lives in Edmonton, Alberta (amiskwaciwâskahikan). She is the Community Engagement and Alumni Relations Coordinator at the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta, where she organizes and supports Indigenous events, celebrations, and community-centred programming across campus.
Danni began dancing at three years old, training in ballet and entering the powwow circle as a Jingle Dress dancer. As she grew, she expanded her training into Contemporary, Modern, Ballet, Lyrical, Hip-Hop, and other styles. She has danced in the Fancy Shawl, Jingle Dress, Women's Traditional and Woodland Strap Dress categories, and she currently dances in the Old Style Jingle Dress and Woodland Strap Dress categories. Through her movement practices, she honours Anishinaabe culture, language, and teachings, and she firmly believes that movement is medicine—reconnecting people to healing, land-based teachings, and intergenerational relations.
A dancer, organizer, and community leader, Danni co-founded Nimihitotan (Let's Dance in Cree), a monthly Indigenous dance workshop series celebrating Indigenous movement, cultural resurgence, and community connection. She has also helped organize Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations and Indigenous Pride programming at the University of Alberta, supporting the visibility, joy, and resiliency of Indigenous, Two-Spirit, and LGBTQ+ students.
Danni is currently completing her Master of Arts in Native Studies, examining the relationship between Indigenous dance and movement, cultural resurgence, language revitalization, and intergenerational healing. Coming from a family of Anishinaabemowin and Ininímowin language keepers, she is committed to continuing her parents’ legacy of Indigenous language revitalization for communities across Turtle Island.
Chris Bullough
Chris Bullough (he/him) is an award winning local theatre artist, creative and Community Animator with Sage Seniors Association. Chris holds a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the University of Alberta where, for his thesis, he created Or The Whale, an adaptation of Moby Dick, with wishbone theatre. Other directing highlights include: Bone Wars (Punctuate! Theatre, Sterling Award - Production ) and Shimmer Wishbone Theatre, Sterling Award - Directing). Currently, Chris is an ensemble member of DieNasty!, The Live Improvised Soap Opera, is a selected artist in the RELAY joint initiative between Mile Zero, Studio 303 and Plastic Orchid Factory, and is remounting his solo theatre piece Undiscovered Country as a part of the "February Festival” at Theatre Network.
Cindy Baker
Committed to ethical community engagement and critical social enquiry, Cindy Baker's interdisciplinary research-based practice draws upon 25 years working, volunteering, and organizing in the communities of which she is part, engaging with queer, gender, race, disability, fat, and art discourses. Helping found important community and advocacy organizations over the course of her career, including the Saskatoon Diversity Network and the Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Coalition of Canada, notable awards include Toronto International Body Image Film & Arts Festival's Body Confidence Canada Award, and Toronto's South Asian Visual Arts Collective (SAVAC)'s Collaborator of the Year Award.