October 2025 Newsletter

Dance West Network

Connecting Artists and Communities in Motion

October 2025

AGM

Wed Nov 19, 5pm-6pm

you can secure your spot online by contacting jullianna@dancewest.net

2026 marks our 20th anniv

Book Launch! Please join us! January 30 2026

Mainstage

MAINSTAGE

Click HERE to view 31 artist projects on our online showcase !

Thank you to the artists for your applications.

PLUS

off-PuSh, In Person Showcase Jan 29, 2026 4:30-6:30pm

Birmingham Studio, Scotia Bank Dance Centre 677 Davie St.

AND

Mainstage Marathon: Industry Online Pitch Session

Jan 15, 2026 9am-12:30pm

Check our website dancewest.net for more details soon

Community Engagement

Announcing 2 new Community Dance Connectors

Ana Sosa - Haida Nation, Haida Gwaii

Galen Olstead - Ktunaxa peoples. Cranbrook

Dance West Network engages with a group of dance artists and community cultural leaders- aka Community Dance Connectors, CDCs - providing peer-to-peer networking to share ideas and resources, as well as offering access to funds, training and planning assistance.

For CDC Summary of 2024-25 project highlights - click HERE

DADAO, Des Arts Dehors/Arts Outside

Congratulations to the 2025-26 DADAO artist cohort!

Pallavi Bharadwaj - mentor Lee Su-Feh

Linden Yin Choi - mentor Ziyian Kwan

Palak Dhiman - mentor Marissa Wong

Sarah Kennedy - mentor Jennifer McLeish-Lewis

Aurore Liang artiste et ses collaborateurs - mentor Olivia C. Davies

Punit - mentor Natalie Tin Yin Gan

soma anima arts (Kinesis Dance Society) - mentors P Megan Andrews, Alana Gerecke

Katie Wertz - mentors Brenda Kent Colina “Bee,” Julie Lebel

For more info, click HERE

Summer catch-up

Camino y Despedida (Walking Farewells)
Camino y Despedida, an interdisciplinary performance embracing culture, language, and identity, co-created by six Latin American artists from Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia which interweaves dance, live music and multilingual text to explore the emotional landscapes of migration and hope.

Co-presented by TEMPO Dance & Visual Art and the Vancouver Latin America Cultural Centre (VLACC) at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, August 29 & 30, 2025.

Produced in partnership with The Roundhouse and Rice & Beans Theatre, and with the support of Dance West Network through the CASC Grant from the City of Vancouver, plus support from Migrant Journeys and the Vancouver International Dance Festival.

Alliance Francaise Vancouver

A new collaboration highlighting five artists from DADAO 24-25 - Aurore Liang (QC), Sarah Kennedy, Judith Colibrí, Jhoely Triana, Isaac Gasangwa/ Elite Squad - in roving performances throughout the new Alliance Francaise Vancouver building, June 7 2025.

To see video, click HERE

Update: Digital Library

DIGITAL LIBRARY - NORTHERN BC CURRICULUM

We're thrilled to announce that our Digital Library is part of the curriculum of a one year program (with option to extend to two years) produced by Method Dance Society, located on unceded Indigenous Territory of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, Prince George.

This program offers post-secondary dance education focused on career development through a practice-based curriculum

For more info: https://www.methoddance.ca/thejunction

DIGITAL LIBRARY

Dance West Network is delighted to offer a series of seven recorded conversations featuring 14 local and primarily IBPOC artists who share their reflections and stories on the role dance plays in their lives, and how dance can impact all our lives.

Each newsletter we will share with you the podcast of one of these conversations for you to listen to, and to share if you wish.

If you would like to see the full conversation with performance excerpts in video form, as well as a beautiful tool-kit - great if you are working with youth as a dance teacher or mentor - that accompanies the conversation, please contact debora@dancewest.net.

This month we will share the conversation between Olivia C. Davies and Edmond Kirkpatrick (bios here) titled Contemporary in the Right Now.

This is great listening if you want to learn more about what contemporary dance encompasses today, if you want to answer some of your quandaries about “what exactly is contemporary dance?” Enjoy!

THANK YOU

Thank you Dawn Briscoe for your more than three years of work supporting Dance West Network! Wishing you all best on your next steps.

Community News

Mascall Dance presents workshop:

BODY ORIGINS with Mariko Tanabe

Monday Oct 6 - Thursday Oct 9

Mascall Dance warmly welcomes Mariko Tanabe, visiting from Tiohtià:ke, the island of Montreal, unceded ancestral lands of the Kanyen’kehà:ka (Mohawk) people.

A dancer and creator at heart, Mariko brings decades of leadership in dance and somatics to her private practice and teaching, supporting individuals of all backgrounds in creative growth, embodied presence, and ancestral connection.

Mariko is a Certified Teacher and Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering®, an Infant Developmental Movement Educator, a Registered Master Somatic Movement Therapist, and a Certified Practitioner of Ancestral Healing.

Click here: for more info & register

Drop ins are available by prior arrangement. Please contact operations@mascalldance.ca

The Dance Centre presents the Global Dance Connections series

CO.ERASGA

Eternal Gestures

October 9 & 10, 2025 at 8pm

Eternal Gestures is a trilogy of evocative solo works commissioned from Indigenous Coast Salish-based choreographers Starr Muranko, Michelle Olson and Margaret Grenier, and performed by Artistic Director Alvin Erasga Tolentino.

Info and tickets: https://thedancecentre.ca/event/co-erasga-2025/

The Dance Centre: Dance Dialogues #1

Wed Oct 15, 7-8pm

Justine A. Chambers and Ryan Tacata (friends, academic colleagues, and art collaborators) speak to, with, and through their overlapping creative practices. Framed by gestures and forms produced by garments and garment-making techniques, they weave their way through a conversation, stitching together musings on artistic practice and everyday life.

For more info and tix

Aerial & Acro Classes for Professional Dancers – Nov 2025

Corporeal Imago - in partnership with The Dance Centre and supported by New Works - is offering FREE ($25 registration fee) aerial and acrobatic dance classes for professional dance artists in Vancouver, starting the week of November 4, 2025

Courses are available for beginner and intermediate levels, supporting dancers seeking to further strength, skill, and expressive range.

Learn more & register:

Training opportunity for Dance Instructors - Dancing with Parkinson's Canada

Sarah Robichaud is offering a 2-day, intensive teacher training in collaboration with David Leventhal, Program Director and founding teacher of Dance for PD ®.

Acquire powerful tools that will allow you to deliver a globally recognized, research-backed method that connects art, science, and community, and to be part of launching new live, in-person classes in BC!

November 13–14, 9am–6pm

The Dance Centre, 677 Davie Street, Vancouver BC

Apply here: https://bit.ly/dwpvancouver25

NOV 17-29, 2025 IPAA Intertribal Gathering

IPAA's Intertribal Gathering travels to different communities bi-annually, featuring local artists in Indigenous performance showcases, spotlighting Indigenous leaders in the region and encouraging national artistic leaders to connect with the work emerging across Turtle Island (North America).

ITG is an opportunity for Indigenous artists and arts professionals, and our allies, to connect, exchange knowledge, learn from each other, and experience performances from top Indigenous artists over our 3 day event.

https://ipaa.ca/intertribal-gathering-2025/

Registration is now open!

Dance West Network gratefully acknowledges that our work is situated on the traditional, ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF DANCE WEST NETWORK

Individual donations happily accepted, click HERE