Re-centering/Margins Residency - Surrey 2026

Saturday Oct 10 2026 at Clayton Community Centre

For reservations: https://purchase.surrey.ca/EventAvailability?EventId=23001

Bulkley Valley Concert Association presents

Witsuwit'en Territory (Smithers)

Sophie Dow

Agrimony

Saturday, Oct 10 at 7 PM | Della Herman Theatre

For tickets: https://www.instagram.com/p/DdxZqBLFaNS/

CALLS FOR ARTISTS
DADAO Des Arts Dehors/Arts Outside 2026-27

Applications Due: Thursday May 28th at 11:59pm

Guidelines: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g4NLcBptD4v4nZkH9D9NdeQtYBM6XnqL8LNn5dxlbtk/edit?usp=sharing

FESTIVAL ACCÈS ASIE 2026

Mouvements croisés

“Mouvements croisés” brings together three emerging choreographers—Juolin Lee, Simran Sachar, and Sevrin Emnacen-Boyd—to present two powerful works that explore memory, identity, and rebirth.

PROGRAM

Solo Juolin Lee – Soup of Forgetfulness
Inspired by a Taiwanese myth, this solo traces the passage between memory and rebirth, where forgetting becomes a liberation from the past.

Duo Simran Sachar and Sevrin Emnacen-Boyd – We’ve been here before
Harmony persists whether intentional or accidental. An outside lurks beneath the performance of harmony, and a discordant harmony emerges in the event of an unlikely encounter. What can expose the finitude of time?

For details, click here: https://accesasie.com/evenement/mouvements-croises/

Online ticket sales for this event will begin on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at 1:00 PM.

Showings by DADAO Artists:
Linden Yin Choi, Palak Dhiman, Sarah Kennedy, Punit, and Rachel Helten - soma anima arts

Location: Alliance Française Vancouver
6161 Cambie St

Time: 11am-12:30pm

For more info on the artists: https://dancewest.net/dadao-2025/26

https://www.alliancefrancaise.ca/event-rsvp/dance-performances-des-arts-dehors-arts-outside-104890/

Re-centering/Margins Residency - Surrey 2026 Showing
With Artists Madeleine Cruz & Mia Pelayo, and Puneet Singh

Informal showings of new work and post-performance conversation with Vidya Kotamraju,
Alvin Tolentino, and Betcy Mathew (residency artist).

More information: https://dancewest.net/surrey-residency-2026

Rotary Centre for the Arts

Okanagan Nation Territory

This workshop offers a gentle way to feel more familiar with how meaning is shaped through hands, lines, and movement. Think of it as a brief backstage glimpse into how stories are built in Bharatanatyam.

Vidya Kotamraju leads participants into the storytelling language of Bharatanatyam, where participants explore some of the shapes, gestures, and rhythms that appear in Vidya’s performance, Maktub: Ashes to Alchemy that will be performed the following evening on April 30 as part of RCA Presents FLUX.

Learn more about RCA Presents: FLUX here.

Energy Never Dies

CULMINATING EVENT: Community Sharing & Celebration

‍ ‍
with lead artists: Josh Ongcol and James Cabrera

333NERGY STUDIO

For more info: click HERE

Bulkley Valley Concert Association

Wet’suwet’en Territory (Smithers)

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.

Although deeply personal, the piece resonates universally as a reflection on the bittersweet journey of immigrants and refugees. Its themes are timely as immigration policies shift, mass deportations rise, and global conflicts intensify, fostering misunderstandings and division.

A continuación, Camino y Despedida, una presentación interdisciplinaria que abraza la cultura, el idioma y la identidad, co-creada por seis artistas latinoamericanos de México, Brasil y Colombia, que entrelaza danza, música en vivo y texto multilingüe para explorar los paisajes emocionales de la migración y la esperanza.

Aunque profundamente personal, la obra resuena de manera universal como una reflexión sobre el viaje agridulce de inmigrantes y refugiados. Sus temas son oportunos, ya que las políticas migratorias cambian, las deportaciones masivas aumentan y los conflictos globales se intensifican, fomentando malentendidos y división.

Dance West Network and West Kootenay Regional Arts Council

Topography of Dance in Canada (online convo).

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.

The conversation includes:

*Knowing your local areas/”Field Advantage”

*Places to pitch

*Planning a tour

The professional and touring dance artist guiding the conversation is Sophie Dow. Conversation également disponible en français.

There will be ample time for Q&A. 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.

Please note that we will send you the zoom link directly to the email used for registration on the morning of the event.

We hope you can join us ! To register

This online event is a co-production with Dance West Network in collaboration with the West Kootenay Regional Arts Council.

RevRev Burlesque

Secwepemc (Secwepemcul’ewc), Ktunaxa, Sinixt Territory (Revelstoke)

Rev up and get ready Revelstoke for a fantastic night of Burlesque and drag! Many local artists (such as Jackie Daytona and Big Dickie Daytona) will take the stage before the fabulous Nick Miami Benz (@benzdontbreak, https://nac-cna.ca/en/bio/nick-miami-benz), coming to us from Vancouver, takes the gallery stage with burlesque force!

At the Revelstoke Visual Arts Centre

For more info and tix

Conversations and Essays on Dance in British Columbia:

A Dance West Network Anthology

published by Dance Collection Danse Press/es in 2026

In 2025-26, Dance West Network celebrates its 20th Anniversary!  

Dance West Network (DWN) proudly marks its 20th anniversary, celebrating two decades of connecting artists and communities around their mutual love of dance. Since its founding, DWN has supported and created multiple artist-driven connections across BC communities and cultivating community and presenter partnerships to support dance across so-called British Columbia and beyond.

To commemorate this milestone, DWN is thrilled to announce the publication of Conversations and Essays on Dance in British Columbia: A Dance West Network Anthology, published by Dance Collection Danse, the premiere dance publisher in Canada, in partnership with Simon Fraser University. This anthology features essays and reflections from artists who have shaped DWN’s legacy and centres Indigenous, racialized, and queer dance artists whose work has often gone unrecognized in mainstream platforms. Featuring a who’s who of dance in Vancouver with established and up-and-coming dance artists and writers like: Margaret Grenier, Shion Skye Carter, and Simran Sachar, to name a few, this book also offers an incredible triptych of essays created with the participation of six Indigenous artists based on Coast Salish lands.

The book will have its official launch on  Friday Jan 30, 2026, 3:30pm at Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, 149 West Hastings, Room 2555 at Simon Fraser University as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Please RSVP here

Co-edited by Jane Gabriels, Ph.D. and Executive Director with Peter Dickinson, PhD and Professor and Director, School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University.

Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations, Vancouver

QUEERFM - Canada’s longest running 2SLGBTQIA+ radio show

101.9FM

Interview with dancer/choreographer Marco Esscer on QUEERFM CiTR 101.9 FM, as well as celebration of Dance West Network’s 20th Anniversary! Listen on 101.9FM

Dance West Network

INDUSTRY EVENT: Dance Artists Check-in and Showcase

Please contact: jane@dancewest.net if interested in joining

MAINSTAGE MARATHON

One morning of dance ~

You are invited to join us to learn more about the work of this years' Mainstage Dance Artists.

Each artist will share their 5min pitch and have 1min for interaction with presenters and invited guests. We'll see a group of works for 60min, take a short break, and keep on going with that same format of 60min/break until we see everyone's work.

For a listing of all the aritsts, please visit: https://dancewest.net/mainstage-202526

Dance workshop with

Ralph Escamillan

Capitol Theatre,

Territory of the sn̓ʕay̓ckstx Sinixt (Nelson)

Location: Dancefusion, 610 Vernon Street

This class will encapsulate Ralph's current interests of integrating textile/weaving techniques through the body—Scraping, Knotting, Shuttle, Hit, and Plucking—generative movement developed from his Philippine Textile work "PIÑA". This movement vocabulary will be used in the new expanded group version of "Croquis" presented at the Capitol Theatre on January 10th, 7:30pm. Mainly a structured improvisational class, Ralph will also teach a section of the work halfway through, to better explore the tools through unison.

This class is meant for pre-professional/professional dancers—please bring a sock option, and longer pants to cover your legs.

Limit of 15 Participants

$20 per participant

Ralph Escamillan: Croquis

Capitol Theatre,

Territory of the sn̓ʕay̓ckstx Sinixt (Nelson)

“There's this magic that happens when you live in the world of improvisation,”

Croquis is a durational performance that explores the idea of a “croquis”—a quick, expressive sketch of a garment, often the first step towards bringing an idea into tangible reality. Within the context of this work, the pencil is the body and the paper a modular canvas—dissecting the desire to imprint and archive oneself into physical space. 

This solo pulls inspiration from Ralph Escamillan’s personal memories, his ongoing fascination with codes of fashion, and his appreciation for the act of crafting and constructing objects and materials by hand.

Central to this work is a garment constructed entirely out of paper. The physicality of this solo is entirely reactionary to this garment, inspired by the silhouette of the historic ball gown skirt, the duality of which has been synonymous with ideas of celebration, femininity and pomp, while also representing a type of confinement and mourning.

Trailer

Project Created by: FakeKnot

Key Artistic Collaborators:

Choreographer & Performer Ralph Escamillan
Choreographer’s Assistant Daria Mikhaylyuk
Managing Producer Francesca Piscopo

Opening Act by Slava Doval and Acacia Schachte

Imaginal
Slava Doval and Acacia Schachte

Inspired by the metamorphic journey of the imaginal cell, dormant, ancient, and destined to become, Imaginal unfolds in the liminal space between what was and what longs to be.

This duet traces the quiet, powerful transformation of two beings in motion. Through gesture, weight, and breath, they explore opposites: softness colliding, stillness giving way to velocity.

They lean into push and pull, rise and fall, allowing the body to speak of balance as a dance between extremes. In one another’s presence, they are mirrored, revealing the unseen forces that shape them.

Shadow and light pass between them. The past whispers through the bones. Skins are shed. The echoes of old selves dissolve, making way for the quiet arrival of something new.

Possibility stirs.

Imaginal invites the audience into a shared space of becoming, a reflection of the thresholds we cross in times of change. It is a reminder that through seeing the self in another, we transform. Through one another, we meet the deepest parts of who we are becoming.

GEOMETRY OF POWER

A dance-theatre performance that delves deeper into the historical and ongoing impacts of the 1884 Berlin Conference!

This educational dance-theatre performance that delves deeper into the historical and ongoing impacts of the 1884 Berlin Conference, exploring its legacy of division in Africa and connecting it to contemporary global issues of unity, self-determination, and collective action. The show aims to empower audiences to recognize their role in shaping a more equitable future.

Length: 75 minutes

Trailer, click HERE

Tickets: $50

To purchase tickets, click HERE

Crimson Coast Dance Society

Snuneymuxw homelands (Nanaimo)

Indigenous People’s Day Celebration for Youth

Meet Alex Wells, Lil'wat Nation

Curator and host, Adam Manson

Alex Wells and Adam Manson will share practices, protocol, songs and dances from their Nations through performance, teachings, workshops and dialogue.

More info: www.crimsoncoastdance.com

Alliance Française

Territories of the xwməθkwəyəm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səlílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations/Vancouver

Vous êtes invités à une présentation publique à l'Alliance Française Vancouver de cinq spectacles de danse de Des Arts Dehors / Arts Outside (DADAO) présentés par Dance West Network et l'Alliance Française de Vancouver ! Venez découvrir des performances de danse d'artistes de Colombie-Britannique et du Québec :
___
You are invited to a public showing at Alliance Francaise Vancouver of five dance performances from Des Arts Dehors / Arts Outside (DADAO) presented by Dance West Network and Alliance Française Vancouver.
Come discover dance performances by artists from British Columbia and Québec :

Registration and for more information about the artists