Dance Victoria Announces $30,000 to Support Two International Collaborations with its Annual Chrystal Dance Prize
Dance Victoria recently announced that Justine A. Chambers and David Ferguson are the recipients of the 2016 Chrystal Dance Prize for Independent Dance Artists.
Justine A. Chambers has been awarded $20,000 for her project with Berlin-based artist, Laurie Young, which will explore the relationship between audiences and performers, and everyday gestures as dance, such as in her recent work, Family Dinner, Enters and Exits. Chambers will collaborate with Laurie Young in British Columbia through residencies at Dance Victoria and The Dance Centre, as well as in Berlin, with the goal of creating a full-length work.
David Ferguson has been awarded $10,000 for his project, We Are Diamonds, with South Korean artists Hyoseung Ye and Jung ah Chung, and Victoria-based artist Miles Lowry. The impetus for the project is Ferguson’s interest in the scientific process of transforming cremated ashes into diamonds – a process that German researchers propose yields 7 to 10 diamonds per body. Using this as a metaphor for everyday life, Ferguson will explore how bodies are vulnerable to daily physical and emotional pressures affecting their mobility. Ferguson will create a full-length work through residencies in Victoria and South Korea.
“The Chrystal Dance Prize applicants were particularly strong this year, with some amazing proposals and ideas presented. Chambers and Ferguson were selected because of their outstanding credentials and comprehensive, well articulated proposals,” said Stephen White, Producer, Dance Victoria, on behalf of the jury. “We’re excited to be supporting these international collaborations.”
About the Artists
Justine Chambers is a founding member of projet bk, and Artist in Residence/Associate Artist to The Dance Centre. She has collaborated with battery opera, adelheid dance projects, Company 605, Tara Cheyenne Performance, Oded Graf and Yossi Berg, Science Friction, Wen Wei Dance and Mascall Dance. As a dance teacher, she works with Arts Umbrella, Working Class, Toronto Community Love-In, Modus Operandi Training Program, and Ballet BC. She is also a rehearsal director with Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Tara Cheyenne Performance and Ballet BC.
David Ferguson is a writer, painter, and producer of dance and film. As a Founding Artistic co-Director of Suddenly Dance Theatre in Victoria, he has been a producer/curator of projects such as the annual Romp! Festival. As well, he has premiered works at Belfry’s SPARK! Festival. He is Artist in Residence with the City of Victoria where he is creating two bilingual dance-videos on peer victimization and bullying with local artists Miles Lowry and Lynda Raino.
About the Chrystal Dance Prize
Dance Victoria brings the world’s best dance to the Royal Theatre and supports the development of new dance at its beautiful studios in Victoria’s Quadra Village. The Chrystal Dance Prize – Independent Dance Artists is Canada’s richest prize for international collaboration supporting new works by independent dance artists living in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia or the Yukon who are working with a dance artist(s) outside Canada.
In 2017, Dance Victoria will award $40,000 to independent and emerging dance artists. The prize can include a two-week residency at Dance Victoria Studios and the potential of presentation in an upcoming Dance Victoria season.
The Chrystal Dance Prize is generated from a substantial bequest made by Dance Victoria patron, Dr. Betty “Chrystal” Kleiman, to the Victoria Foundation. An international committee of dance professionals is assembled each year to select the recipients. In 2016, the panel included artists from Vancouver, Sweden and the Czech Republic.
Photo headshots available of the CDP winners by contacting [email protected].