Applications open on September 20. Expression of Interests are due by 5:00 pm PDT Friday, October 18, 2024.
The Chrystal Dance Prize (CDP) – Projects supports exceptional dance research and/or creation between a Western Canadian dance artist, artists, collectives or companies and an international dance artist or artists (interpreter or choreographer). Since 2010, Dance Victoria (DV) has awarded more than $484,000 through CDP – Projects. In 2024, Dance Victoria will allocate a total of $60,500 to the Chrystal Dance Prize – Projects.
2024/25 Guidelines and Application Procedure
Please be sure to read the application procedure and guidelines before making your submission. The deadline for 2024/25 expressions of interest is 5:00 pm PDT, Friday October 18, 2024.
2023/24 Chrystal Dance Prize – Projects
Justine A. Chambers (she/her) receives $13,000 to support One hundred more, a 60 minute contemporary dance work originally created for the stage choreographed and performed by Justine A. Chambers (Vancouver) and Laurie Young (Berlin). The Chrystal Dance Prize will support the creation of the work as a one to one scale video installation in a gallery space.
Justine A. Chambers is a dance artist and educator living on the ancestral and traditional territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and səlilwətaɬ Nations. Her movement based practice considers how choreography can be an empathic practice rooted in collaborative creation, close observation, and the body as a site of a cumulative embodied archive. Privileging what is felt over what is seen, she works with the social choreographies present in the everyday. Her most recent works are activations of the aesthetic practices of Black vernacular line dance and Black sartorial gestures as de-colonial imaginings. Her choreography is concerned with the provisional questions: “What If?” And “Now what?” as processes towards imagining otherwise. Chambers’s work has been hosted by Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery, Libby Leshgold Gallery at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Western Front, Sophiensaele, National Arts Centre, Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at University of British Columbia, Tek Gallery at Simon Fraser University, Artspeak Hong Kong Performing Arts Festival, Agora de la Danse, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, and Art Museum at University of Toronto. She was the recipient of the Lola Dance Award (2017), Chrystal Dance Prize (2017 & 2023) and was long listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2023. She is currently an instructor at the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University and completing a MFA in interdisciplinary art. Chambers is Max Tyler-Hite’s mother.
Alexis Fletcher (she/her) & Sylvain Senez (he/him) of Belle Spirale Dance Projects receive $15,000 towards a new creation presented as a two-piece performance choreographed by Fletcher and Fernando Hernando Magadan (he/him, Spain/Holland), respectively. Relying on the universality and strength inherent in the dancing body, eight dancers explore the frail line between safety and endangerment, our ephemeral nature, and the resilience to nurture hope in our world that stands at cross-roads. In this celebration of interconnectivity, the project brings together some of BC’s most prominent dance artists with acclaimed international dancers and collaborators. Cross-cultural exchange is a key inspiration as the artists ignite the research stage with Indigenous leaders at HOST Consulting. Additional collaborators include lighting designer Victoria Bell (she/they); and dance artists Justin Duarte, Livona Ellis, Marisa Gold, Will Jessup, Oksana Maslechko, Justin Rapaport (he/him), and Lazaro Silva.ontext.
Belle Spirale Dance Projects is an arts organization led by Artistic Directors Alexis Fletcher and Sylvain Senez. It is based in Vancouver, Canada, on the unceded Indigenous territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.
Formerly principal artists with Ballet BC as well as Sylvain being rehearsal director there for 20 years, we started building our creative partnership in 2015. Since that time we have developed our community-minded, grassroots presentation platform, The Dance Deck, which has become a beloved staple of the annual summer scene in Vancouver. This series, presented in our backyard outdoor theatre space, is dedicated solely to the work of other artists and is volunteer-run by us, our family, and our neighbourhood.
In 2016 we began co-creating independent mainstage works with Alexis as choreographer/performer and Sylvain as visual designer. To date, we have created and produced 9 original works with a diverse group of collaborators and co-creators. We currently hold the position of Artists in Residence at Chutzpah! Festival, and our work has been generously supported Dance Victoria, Ballet BC, Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, Presentation House Theatre, New Works, Vernon Performing Arts Centre, The Gordon Smith Foundation, Dancing on the Edge, InFrinGing Festival, Shadbolt Centre and Dance: Made in/fait au Canada.
Belle Spirale is a platform for the work of many artists; through our collaborative processes we produce our own creations as well as commission original works by both emerging and established choreographers. We collaborate with exceptional dance artists and designers from the local, national and international independent community for all of these projects in order to continue building our diverse repertoire of poetic, relevant and engaging contemporary dance works. We believe in a hands-on and heart-centred approach to art making that supports the development of both our own creations as well as the work of other like-minded creative spirits.
Through the cross-disciplinary nature of our pieces, a primary value in our work is to engage, build interest and inform a broad range of audiences: from educated dance audiences, to peers, to people who have never been to a contemporary dance performance. Our works strive to create a powerful and tangible connection with our audience, and we believe dance to be a distinct and powerful tool for connection, communication and togetherness.
Caroline MacCaull (she/they) & Sammy Chien (he/she/they) of Chimerik 似不像 receive $15,000 for Inner Sublimity, a work that showcases the complexity of life, the light and shadows we all face. This duet, created in partnership with Horse Dance Theater 驫舞劇場 with Wu-Kang Chen 陳武康 as Movement Collaborator/Advisor (Taiwan) and Wen Huang 黃雯 as Creative Producer (Taiwan), utilizes cutting-edge interactive technology and deep somatic movement explorations while combining East and West cultural knowledge, spiritual practices, and movement to intentionally expand the narrow view that Western society has imposed upon spirituality. By questioning these different paradigms, the artists begin to open new dialogues, new connections, and new potential for collective healing.
Sammy Chien and Caroline MacCaull co-run Chimerik 似不像, a multi award-winning interdisciplinary non-profit organization consisting of artists from underrepresented groups (people of colour, LGBTQ2S+, Immigrants, Women in arts and technology, Linguistic/Language minorities, neurodiverse people, Youth and next generation) from various age groups, backgrounds, levels of experience, and disciplines (film/video, new media, VJ, VR, projection & lighting design, experimental music, sound art, visual arts and contemporary dance/theatre performance). Chimerik 似不像 has collaborated on over 300 multi-disciplinary projects which have been exhibited internationally. Some selected credits are: World Design Expo, Digital Arts Festival of Taipei, Lacking Sound Festival, New Form Festival, ISEA (International Symposium of Electronic Arts), Digital Carnival Festival, Taiwan Best Design 100, Tokyo Performing Arts Meeting (TPAM), PUSH international Performing Arts Festival, Vancouver New Music Festival.
History of the Chrystal Dance Prize
The prize is funded through an annual disbursement from the Chrystal Dance Fund held at the Victoria Foundation. Learn about Dr. Betty “Chrystal” Kleiman and past winners.