| Penny Couchie is an arts leader, dancer, actor, choreographer and community-engaged artist of Anishinaabe ancestry from Nipissing First Nation. For more than three decades, she has been committed to developing excellence within her own artistry, while also supporting and providing opportunities for others.
She is the co-artistic director of Aanmitaagzi – an Indigenous multidisciplinary arts organization based in her home community. Aanmitaagzi – which means “he or she speaks” – was co-founded by Penny and her partner, Sid Bobb, to foster a return to art-making in the everyday lives of the community. Today, the organization combines art-making, education, professional development and social activism through contemporary and customary arts, nurturing historic Indigenous arts practices and exploring how these practices can be carried forward in a meaningful contemporary context.
Penny is an accomplished performer, having toured nationally and internationally both as a dancer and as an actor performing in principal roles. She also has extensive experience in choreography, direction and production. Recent choreography highlights include Misdemeanor Dream (in collaboration with Spiderwoman Theater at LaMama, New York, N.Y., 2022), The Unnatural and Accidental Woman (co-production by the National Arts Centre English Theatre and Indigenous Theatre, Ottawa, 2019), The Serpent People (presented at The Citadel, Toronto, 2017), Material Witness (in collaboration with Spiderwoman Theater at LaMama, New York, N.Y., 2016), and When Will You Rage? (for Planet IndigenUS, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, 2015).
Penny trained as a dancer and instructor at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre and earned an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Aboriginal studies and drama from the University of Toronto. From 1998 to 2003, she participated in the Aboriginal Dance Project at the Banff Centre for the Arts as a student, choreographer and teacher.
Over the past 20 years, Penny has guest-taught at schools throughout Canada and the United States – including at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre, where she has been a faculty member and choreographer since 1998. From 2002 to 2010, she was also co-director of Earth in Motion, which produced seven Indigenous choreographers’ workshops in Toronto.
In 2016, Penny received the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Dance – recognizing an Ontario artist for their original artistic voice within an artistic tradition.
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