Trevor Copp -- theatre performer, gay activist and three-time regional Burlington Latin dance champion -- is set to return to the stage. After appearing in the emotionally charged The Last 15 Seconds, directed by Majdi Bou-Matar, Copp takes on another gay role, in Body 13, with Bou-Matar's  MT Space, a Kitchener/Waterloo-based theatre company. Theatre Passe Muraille, Canada's oldest alternative theatre devoted to the development and production of new Canadian work, describes Body 13 as a “look at characters driven by their sexual desires – propelled forward or derailed because of love across cultural differences.”

“The day Majdi, who I knew from doing our masters together at Guelph, called me to offer me the part, I had no reason to believe I'd ever work as an actor again,” Copp says. He had been busy enough focusing on his job as creative director of Burlington’s Tottering Biped Theatre. His company's production of First Dance is to be restaged this February in Hamilton. First Dance challenges the rigid heterosexual conventions that institutionalize discrimination against same-sex dance couples. “Where there are two men dancing, one is playing the woman. It’s the same problem of using the same model and just doing substitution. What’s next?” asks Copp of the rigid heterosexual roles same-sex couples are expected to play even in an intimate gay wedding dance.

With his Tottering Biped Theatre projects and productions like Body 13, “I have had to quit everything except acting,” Copp says happily.

Body 13 runs Wed, Jan 16 to Sat, Jan 26 at the Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace, 16 Ryerson Ave. $30-35, $25-30 students/seniors/arts workers, and $15 under 30. passemuraille.on.ca

First Dance runs Thurs, Feb 28 to Sat, March 2 at Theatre Aquarius, 190 King William St, Hamilton. $27. theatreaquarius.org