crew & Creatives
El Toro came together with the collaboration of talented artists and film crew. Something more about working with multi-disciplinary artists and crew members to look within their own imaginings of El Toro, the mightiest diner in St. Boniface.
Danielle Sturk - Director
A recipient of multiple arts awards from national, provincial and municipal arts councils, Danielle Sturk is a bilingual multi-disciplinary artist with a BA in Film/Theatre from the University of Winnipeg. Sturk began her career as a dance artist and choreographer, performing nationally and internationally from 1986-1997, with the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers, Margie Gillis Foundation, William Douglas Danse and has worked with choreographers such as Jean-Pierre Perreault, Jane Mappin, Sharon Moore, Stephanie Ballard, Ruth Cansfield and Gaile Petursson-Hiley. She co-founded and co-directed the dance company Graffiti Tango in Montreal from 1990-1996. Sturk created the dance and film interdisciplinary work FLESH+MACHINE as Artist-In-Residence at Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers in the fall of 2017.
As filmmaker, her combined films d’auteur have been screened at over thirty film festivals and broadcast on most major Canadian English and French networks, such as CBC, Radio Canada, APTN, UNIS, TV5, MTS TV, Vision TV and for the National Film Board of Canada. She has been commissioned by the Canada Council for several web-based video projects, including artist portraits of Governor General Award recipients
in Visual and Media Arts.
Alongside her screen-based projects, she continues to produce live multidisciplinary stage events, and acts as National Artistic Director for the national broadcast concert “Indigenous Day Live” (formerly Aboriginal Day Live) on APTN live from multiple cities and stages across Canada, programming Indigenous musical and dance performances, and overseeing curated media art on LED screen on stages.
Diana Thorneycroft - visual Arist
Diana Thorneycroft is a Winnipeg artist who has exhibited various bodies of work across Canada, the United States and Europe, as well as in Moscow, Tokyo and Sydney. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2016 Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction, an Assistance to Visual Arts Long-term Grant from the Canada Council, several Senior Arts Grants from the Manitoba Arts Council and a Fleck Fellowship from the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Thorneycroft taught as a sessional instructor at the University of Manitoba's School of Art for 25 years. Since 2010 she has been focusing on her studio practice full time, and has gallery representation in Canada, the US and Europe.or.
Peter Graham - Visual Artist
Peter Graham was born in Etobicoke, Ontario and now lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 2011 he received his B.F.A. from the University of Manitoba. Since then, he has taught etching classes for Martha Street Studio (Manitoba Printmakers Association), and has led non-toxic etching workshops for the Arts West Council at Clear Lake, Manitoba and at the University of Manitoba. He is currently employed as a studio technician at Martha Street Studio. In his practice, which includes painting, printmaking and drawing, he employs a quirky sense of humour to explore Canadian history and daily life in Winnipeg.
Peter has received honourable mentions for his work from the Manitoba Society of Artists and is supported by the Manitoba Arts Council. The Province of Manitoba, and other public and private collections in Canada, the U.S.A. and Europe hold his work.