Dance West Network CO-PRODUCTIONS 2024/25

This project began with an Open Call for Artists

Dance in Surrey:
Community Showing & Conversation  

Friday, June 6, 2025, from 7:30pm - 9:00pm

Dance West Network, in collaboration with the Surrey Civic Theatres, presents a collection of performances from dance artists based in and/or having strong connections to Surrey. 

Featuring: 

B's Dancing Roses

Linden Tsz Yin Choi

Ria Goel

Vidya Kotamraju

The Paul Tavai-Latta Polynesian Dancers & Co

Mia Pelayo (video)

Puneet Singh 

Plus a performance by Punit Singh, who will also facilitate a public talkback 

Artists Bios

Topography of Dance in Canada:

Audrey Gaussiran & Sophie Dow

Registration HERE, April 19 11am.

Registration is limited to 12 spots.*

*If there is no availability and all the spots are reserved, please reach out and send an email to jane@dancewest.net. We are open to speaking about alternative possibilities.

APRIL 19, 2025, 11am -12:30pm

Responding to reflections from rural/remote dance artists in BC, we are again offering this conversation specifically for dance artists working outside Vancouver.

In this workshop/conversation, dance artists will learn how to align their work with resources that are available to support them and will have an increased understanding of what steps to take to move forward and get their careers even more in motion.

Specifically, the conversation includes:

*Knowing your local areas/”Field Advantage”

*Places to pitch

*Planning a tour

Collaboration between Dance West Networks and the Burnaby Art Gallery

A Studio Provoked: A Dancer’s Response 

Sunday, November 3, 2024, 1-2:30 pm

featuring residency alumni:

Nick Miami Benz, Isaac Gasangwa, Vidya Kotamraju, Ana Sosa

Each artist responds to the artwork in the exhibition and the historic setting of the Burnaby Art Gallery.

Guests are invited to a reception following the performances.

Click HERE for more information

Photos courtesy of the artists, (L-R, T-B): Isaac Gasangwa, Vidya Kotamraju, Nick Miami Benz, Ana Sosa

Highlights from the essay written by Charlie Colbourne

Nick Miami Benz held a presence unlike any other as the first performance. Every strand of their hair pulled and pried the artworks off the walls and into conversation with their gesture of daring command.”

Ana Sosa: “She ran, paused and posed glimmeringly in the midday light. She was prefaced with text of an eager heart and awaiting debuts. She stood with us in pauses, waiting in the wings of the hearth.”

Isaac Gasangwa: ”Isaac changed hands, and offered himself as beholder. He prompted the audience to continue the beat of his drum as he danced. We clapped. This changing of hands spoke to the relinquishing of power that the artists participated in— offering a new home to their hearts fractured over parchment in this house once again incarnate.”

click here to read the complete essay

Vidya Kotamraju: The way that she placed her gesture on the floorboards held a brilliant magnetism. She prompted such destabilization. The tactility, the physical action made visual, physical manifest— the auditory significance of the human body in the space and in doing so changing the space.”

“Definition is limitation, how, therefore, does one represent by definition what is boundless.” The inscription on the gallery wall instructs us, and I am called to posit that that definition was not what took place on that Saturday. What took place was a conversation that could only have been made into real dialogue through the presence of everyone who was in that room”  Charlie Colbourne