COFFEE WITH: Burnaby choreographer premieres Something(s) Relative at Scotiabank centre

Shannon Moreno is a former ballerina who now does choreography through her own dance theatre company, Science Friction.

MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER

Working in a foreign country can be tough, but Burnaby’s Shannon Moreno’s life has been all about learning on the fly.

The most recent gig was in Germany as a ballet mistress/assistant at the Osnabrueck Stadttheater, where she helped coordinate everything from costumes, sets and schedules to actors, the orchestra and the dance company.

Without a handle of the German language—or culture—it was certainly a challenge.

“Every day I had to make sure I crossed my Ts and dotted my Is.”

Then there were the times she failed to run decisions by the “über boss,” recalled Moreno, 35, with a laugh.

“I got hauled into his office often. He’d yell at me in German and half of it I wouldn’t understand. I’d nod my head and smile and pretend to take it in.”

But for Moreno, challenges like this have always been invigorating.

“I was breaking out of my comfort zone. Everything else after that is easy.”

Moreno has taken it all in stride. After all, the need to be adaptable was something she learned as a girl starting out in ballet.

She started dancing at age three in Kelowna where she lived at the time. Her teacher recognized her talent and told her parents to keep her dancing.

“It’s the freedom of movement,” Moreno said of her love of the art form. “The fact I was allowed to move and do pretty much what I wanted. There’s something about that—and I could always dance with people too.”

At 10, she attended the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s summer school and knew this was what she wanted to do with her life. The school accepted her for the regular school, but “my parents were like, ‘no, you’re too young.’ They said I’d have to wait until I was 12.”

At 12, Moreno hadn’t forgotten her parents’ words, and convinced them to let her go.

At the time, there was little in the way of opportunities for classical dance in the Vancouver area, she said, and while she got the occasional bout of homesickness, she “got used to it.”

Moreno said she was an independent and mature kid, and moving away from home at a young age prepared her for the constant travel of a career in dance, with its whirlwind of cities and languages.

“As a dancer it’s something you have to want to do. Fortunately in my line of work you get to see the world and you don’t have to pay for it either.”

Her stops included stints with Rudra Béjart Ballet in Switzerland, the Gothenberg Opera Ballet in Sweden and the Deutsch Oper am Rhein in Germany, along with Link Dance and Wen Wei Dance in Vancouver.

Back home, she met fellow dancer Farley Johansson, who became her partner, and they returned to Europe to work. They would have kept moving around, but then about a year ago, their son Mattias Johansson was born.

“It totally shifts your perspective of what you do,” she says.

Moreno and Johansson formed a dance theatre company, Science Friction, and she is currently a Dance Centre artist-in-residence for the season and guest teacher for Ballet BC. Her job now is choreography, and Science Friction will premiere one of her works, Something(s) Relative, at the Scotiabank Dance Centre in Vancouver, until Feb. 18.

But home and family is still top of mind. “Mattias is my best creation so far. He’s constantly changing, it’s quite spectacular to watch.”

Ticket info: 604-606-6400 and www.thedancecentre.ca.