Plastic Orchid Factory (Vancouver), founded by award-winning dance artists and choreographers James Gnam (he/him) and Natalie LeFebvre Gnam (she/her), receives $29,000 towards a new international collaboration with choreographers Guy Nader and Maria Campos (Spain). Using contact improvisation as a starting point, the work explores how dancers transfer, absorb, and redistribute weight, while bodies lean, fall, and reroute to test trust, balance, and timing. Improvised interactions intertwine with precise, rhythm-driven structures, creating a hybrid movement vocabulary that emphasizes endurance as a form of listening within a shared rhythm. This collaboration is a living conversation across geography and dance traditions, composing choreography in the space between bodies—immediate, relational, and insistently alive.

Gemma Ritchie (she/her) from North Vancouver, B.C., received $4,800 through ARAD to begin a BA in Ballet and Contemporary Dance at the Rambert School in London, UK. She trained classically at Vanleena Dance Academy and has competed across many different genres, but her focus and heart lay in classical and contemporary dance. Ritchie completed her Royal Academy of Dance Ballet Examinations and was awarded her Solo Seal in May 2025. She has attended dance intensives with Ballet BC, Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Modus Operandi. Ritchie spent the last year training at the University of Arizona, School of Dance, where she was featured in performances at the Stevie Eller Dance Theatre.

Elizabeth Hrushowy (she/her) from Vancouver, B.C. is awarded $3,000 through the CDP–Training to continue her training with Elephant in the Black Box (EBB) Junior Company in the south of France. She previously trained in the Pre-Professional Program at Vanleena Dance Academy in North Vancouver and has continued her development through numerous high-level programs and intensives across North America and Europe, including the Nacho Duato Trainee Program and Oregon Ballet Theatre School. Hrushowy completed her Royal Academy of Dance examinations through Solo Seal. Alongside her pre-professional studies at EBB, she is working toward Diplomas of Choreographic Studies (D.E.C.) in both classical and contemporary dance through the Conservatory Pau-Béarn-Pyrénées.

Clara Keefer-Urquhart (she/her) from Ladysmith, B.C. is awarded $3,000 through the CDP–Training to continue her postgraduate studies with VERVE, Northern School of Contemporary Dance (UK). Keefer-Urquhart has trained in Graham technique, contemporary, ballet, jazz, theatre, and tap, and toured with Dancestreams Youth Company. She continued her studies at Harbour Dance Centre and Modus Operandi before graduating from École de Danse Contemporaine de Montréal, where she performed works by Ohad Naharin, Sofia Nappi, Catherine Gaudet, and Dana Gingras. She performed with Ballet BC in Bolero X and has worked with other international choreographers such as Oona Doherty, Andrea Costanzo Martini and Alethia Antonia. Keefer-Urquhart is now developing her personal practice rooted in dynamic technicality and intuitive movement and will use these funds to support her continued training in the UK and achieving her Master’s in Dance and Performance.

Belle Spirale Dance Projects (Vancouver), led by co-Artistic Directors Alexis Fletcher (she/her) and Sylvain Senez (he/him), is recognized with an inaugural Chrystal Dance Prize – Stage 2 Award. This award supports the presentation by Dance Victoria of a previously CDP-funded work. In 2023/24, Belle Spirale was awarded the Chrystal Dance Prize—Projects to support the creation of UNIVERSUS, a double bill choreographed by Fletcher and Fernando Hernando Magadan (Spain). Dance Victoria will present UNIVERSUS at the McPherson Playhouse on January 16, 2026.

Independent dance artist Angel Ramos Romero (they/he, Victoria) receives $8,245 for CLUBGARDEN, an experimental project that reimagines the relationship between performer and audience. Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s Burnt Norton, the work explores time, memory, transformation, and possibility through a queer Latinx perspective. As part of this project, Ramos, a queer Mexican-born artist trained in ballet, contemporary dance, and vogue, will collaborate with international artists Farid Sarmiento, Salvador Chocolatl, and Victor Rugerio (Mexico). Beyond performance, the project includes a short dance film and offers open rehearsals and classes for BIPOC and queer communities in Victoria, BC.

Amélie MacDonald (she/her) from Victoria, B.C. is awarded $1,500 through the CDP–Training to continue her training at Re.Search Professional Dance Program in Turin, Italy. MacDonald is a BC Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts supported emerging artist who started her dance training at age 3, exploring Ballet, Jazz, Modern and Gymnastics. In 2021, she moved to Vancouver to attend Modus Operandi Post-Secondary training program under the direction of Tiffany Tregarthen, David Raymond, Kate Franklin and Maiko Miyauchi. As a recent graduate of the program, MacDonald has had the opportunity to work closely and perform works by choreographers such as Ella Rothschild, Yin Yue, Shay Keubler and Mariko Kakizaki. She has attended intensives that include Vim Vigor Summer Intensive (USA), Dart Summer Intensive (Germany) and Ballets Jazz Montréal Summer Intensive. MacDonald was selected to join Ballet BC Annex for their 2025 season and toured works by Vanessa Goodman and Alexis Fletcher.