Wardrobe Technician Program 2026

Born in Montreal, Mélanie Ferrero comes from a rich and diverse heritage (Italian, German, French, Irish, and Basque) and has been immersed in the arts since early childhood. Drawn first to music, she later developed a passion for theatre, visual arts, and communications. A formative year of study in Spain deeply shaped her artistic path, where she discovered a vibrant language and culture that nurtured her lifelong love for dance, music, and art in all their forms.

After completing university studies in arts and communications, Mélanie pursued various artistic disciplines before joining the costume department of Cirque du Soleil’s Quidam. Step by step, she built strong collaborations with Montreal’s performing arts institutions, including Théâtre du Rideau Vert, Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, and the Place des Arts.

Since 2004, she has been part of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, where she worked alongside renowned costume designers such as François Barbeau, one of her mentors. In 2012, she became Head of the Costume Workshop. A true conductor of creative collaboration, Mélanie Ferrero brings together skilled artisans around a living textile work of art, while designing unique costumes for contemporary dance and performing artists across Montreal’s vibrant scene.
 

Artistic director, scenographer, and costume designer with over 25 years of international experience. She has designed more than a hundred productions across theatre, circus, opera, and visual arts. A multidisciplinary artist, she has collaborated with Michel Lemieux & Victor Pilon (4D Art), The 7 Fingers (Shana Carroll, Gypsy Snider), magician Luc Langevin, Jean Grand-Maître (Alberta Ballet) 2014-2021, and Cirque du Soleil since 2003 on major productions: 

Delirium Arena (2005)_Iris Los Angeles (2010)_Pan American Games Toronto (2015)_Paramour – New York (2016)_Volta – Big Top (2017)_Crystal – Arena (2018)_Vitori – Malta (2019)_Alegria – Big Top, Montreal (2019)

Currently in creation: LUDO (11th collaboration with Cirque du Soleil)

Since 2020, her company has been based in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, where she develops unique and intimate performance evenings in the small town of Waterloo. There, she owns her creative studios and runs a unique cultural bar in the region: SISSI BUVETTE.
 

Laura Elliott is a longtime teacher, choreographer, producer, and activist within the Winnipeg community. She is the executive director of the Fat Babes Dance Collective, a co-producer of Skylines Dance and Film Series, and works full-time in the wardrobe department at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Within her role at the RWB she has had the deep privilege of creating and developing costumes for dancers of all levels, ages, abilities, and shapes. She has worked on classical projects such as Coppelia, Swan Lake, Etudes, and Don Quixote, and more contemporary works supporting artists such as Cameron Fraser Monroe, Gabriela Rehak, Sahel Pascual, Meredith Rainey, Yosuke Mino, Rachel Cooper, and Philippe Alexandre Jacques. She is deeply passionate about creating costuming that both suits the choreographic vision, and the artist who wears it.

Michel Savoie has been a stage costume cutter for almost 35 years. Having worked for all the performing arts, in cinema, television and circus he’s as passionate about historical costumes as for performance and fantasy costumes but his greatest joy is to collaborate artistically with different designers from all over the world. For a few years now he has devoted a part of his time at teaching students in the university programs of Theater and Fashion at UQAM but he’s still fully active at making beautiful costumes for many productions.