Catrina von Radecki co-founded the Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival in 1998 and acted as the Co-Artistic Director and General Manager of the festival until 2015. In 2015, she became the Festival Artistic Director. Catrina has created innovative programming with artists coming to Guelph from across Canada and Internationally and has assisted in developing educational and outreach programs, which reaches children form JK- to Grade 12. Catrina co-founded, directs and teaches through the Guelph Youth Dance Training Program since 2005, a dance program which runs throughout the year for children ages 4-19 years. The emphasis of the program is to provide a unique space for children to express themselves creatively, develop body awareness, strength and flexibility and to provide non-competitive venues to perform.
Catrina taught dance to pre-professionals at the innovative European Dance Development Centre in Arnhem, Holland and Dusseldorf, Germany and has also taught children and adults (including classes for students, both adults and children, with disabilities) in Montreal, Kitchener, Waterloo and Guelph. She has danced for the internationally renowned Compagnie Marie Chouinard (Montreal), Dance Alliance (Germany) and various independent choreographers (Montreal, Guelph). Catrina has been creating her own works since 1992 when she graduated from Concordia University’s dance department (Montreal). Catrina became certified in Open Source Forms in 2017.