Principal dancer and producer of PointeTango Dance Company
Erin Scott-Kafadar grew up in a house full of dance. Whether she was dancing in the studio during her mother’s ballet class or joining the circle of Turkish folk dancing at her father’s restaurant in Türkiye, dance and music were always a big part of Erin’s life. She was born in Montreal, Canada where she completed a ten-year professional degree in Classical Ballet at L’École supérieure de ballet du Québec during which she started her professional career as a ballet dancer in 2010, touring with Le Jeune Ballet du Québec and with Ballet Ouest de Montréal’s production of ‘The Nutcracker’. Directly after graduating from L’ESBQ, she joined the Ballet Eddy Toussaint and was quickly promoted to Principal Dancer to tour with the company internationally for four years.
In 2016, Erin embarked on a new artistic path with her long time partner in life and in dance, Alexander Richardson, and made the choice to dive into the world of Argentine tango. She began her training in Buenos Aires, where she studied with maestros Francisco Forquera, Gabriel Missé, “Los Totis”, Natalia Hills, Hugo Mastrolorenzo, Aoniken Quiroga and many others. She is currently the principal dancer of PointeTango Dance Company which has led her to perform on stages and dance floors with her partner Alexander Richardson in Buenos Aires, on cruise ships internationally and in festivals and events across Canada.
She has starred in award-winning shows ‘Para Dos’ (2018), ‘Into the Tango’ (2019) and was scheduled to perform in an international tour of PointeTango’s newest show ‘Tango in the Dark’ (spring/ summer 2020) before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. While the theatres remained closed, Erin continued to perfect her craft and dove into the challenges of adapting PointeTango’s work into film projects. She has starred in the feature film ‘Tango in the Dark’ made in collaboration with Toronto’s Payadora Tango Ensemble and “In Search of the Abrazo”, a film created with a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.
In the summer of 2022, PointeTango was finally able to return to the stage with their new show “Tango, to the Pointe”. PointeTango was awarded a residency at the National Ballet of Canada to work on the creation of ‘Tango, to the Pointe’ through the support of their Open Space Programme. The show received reave reviews while touring across Canada to theatres in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Halifax, Vancouver, London and Victoria, BC as part of the World Accordion and Tango Festival which they have been invited back to for the festival’s 2023 edition.
In 2023, PointeTango worked with the Payadora Tango Ensemble to produce short films for the orchestra’s “The Legend of the Carau” project. She was part of the filming in Buenos Aires, Argentina where she had the chance to work with one of the World Champions of Argentine tango; Hugo Mastrolorenzo and broadway tango legend; Francisco Forquera.
The company has finally premiered their live show of “Tango in the Dark” starting with a sold-out run in Montreal and touring to Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria with shows in Ontario incorporating the live music of the Payadora Tango Ensemble. Erin has begun her career as a grant writer for PointeTango, winning the company grants from the Canada Council for the Arts to create a film for dance, produce live presentations of ‘Tango in the Dark’ and to travel across Canada to present their work.
“Erin makes dancing on pointe shoes look effortless” ★★★★★ – Saskatoon Star Phoenix
PointeTango Dance Company 