Raoul Pillay

Biography

Raoul Wilke, a multifaceted 2x Dora Award winning artist, is the co-founder of The Moon Runners dance crew and dance faculty at Toronto Metropolitan University. As a black emerging artist, he’s accolades extend within different communities, opening doors for new collaborations. He was a model for Seika Boye’s “This Living Dancer” in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Ontario and battled for Team Canada in China for an event called KOD. Over the summer of 2023 he got to produce his own production commissioned by dance immersion, which recently received 2 Dora’s, one being for best music composition and another for best production. He also received a Johanna under the mentorship of Natasha Powell.

As a leader of street dance community within Canada, he has mentored various companies and dance schools over the years, on the importance of the historical context, within these vernacular street forms and the value of themselves. He has learnt under the mentorship of Moncell Durden, Chester Whitmore, Travis Knight, Lisa Latouche, and many more inspiring artists, who define themselves as educators, as well have doctorates in this work. As a student of dance, he continues to live by the quote, “See the music, Hear the Dance” by Balanchine.

This year he can be seen, teaching both locally and internationally under the same people that had once mentored him. Bridging the generational gap and adding the nuance, that a youthful approach brings to deeply rooted work