Created by co-Artistic Directors Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond, RHINO features an unlikely constellation of characters past their heyday, questioning if their best days are behind them.
Created by co-Artistic Directors Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond, RHINO features an unlikely constellation of characters past their heyday, questioning if their best days are behind them.
Created by co-Artistic Directors Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond, RHINO features an unlikely constellation of characters past their heyday, questioning if their best days are behind them.
Created by co-Artistic Directors Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond, RHINO features an unlikely constellation of characters past their heyday, questioning if their best days are behind them.
Four Western Canadian dance artists and collectives receive prestigious Chrystal Dance Prize–Projects award
VICTORIA, B.C.— Through the 2025/26 Chrystal Dance Prize (CDP)–Projects, Dance Victoria commits $44,790 in commissioning support to Plastic Orchid Factory, Ángel Ramos, and Punit Singh. Belle Spirale Dance Projects is also recognized with an inaugural Chrystal Dance Prize – Stage 2 award to support Dance Victoria’s presentation of the CDP–winning workUNIVERSUS. Since 2010, Dance Victoria has awarded more than $600,000 through the Chrystal Dance Prize—Projects, enabling the development and research of new dance creations by Western Canadian dance artists and collectives in collaboration with artists living and working outside of Canada.
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.
Angel Ramos Romero. Photo: Rodrigo Villanueva
Independent dance artist Ángel Ramos (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.
Punit Singh and Jamey Wamey in We Just Out Here Loitering! . photo: Yvonne Chew
Punit Singh (Vancouver) receives $7,545 to support the creation of We just out hereLoitering!, a site-specific dance-theatre project in collaboration with James Olivo (UK) that blends raw movement, improvisation, and playful partnering. Using “loitering” as both a choreographic tool and an existential question, the work explores how wandering, waiting, and doing nothing can reveal deeper truths about productivity, public space, belonging, and our internal states. Shifting across multiple movement styles, the piece is guided by each performer’s instincts and personal history. An initial iteration premiered at New Works’ All Over the Map Festival in Vancouver. The next phase continues in the United Kingdom, where Singh and Olivo will research how loitering interacts with different landscapes, architectures, and cultural rhythms.
Belle Spirale in UNIVERSUS . Photo: Jim Coleman
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.
For more detailed information about the 2025/26 Chrystal Dance Prize – Projects winners, including artist bios, please visit DanceVictoria.com.
About the Chrystal Dance Prize
The Chrystal Dance Prize (CDP) is generated from a bequest made by Dance Victoria patron, Dr. Betty “Chrystal” Kleiman, held at the Victoria Foundation. The CDP–Projects supports exceptional dance research and/or creation between a Western Canadian dance artist, collective, or company and an international dance artist. A committee of dance professionals is assembled each year to select the recipients. Prize recipients may also have the opportunity for a residency at Dance Victoria Studios. Recent CDP–Projects winners include Ballet Edmonton, Action at a Distance, and Eric Cheung.
About Dance Victoria
Dance Victoria brings the World’s Best Dance to the Royal Theatre and supports the development of new dance for the international stage from our studios in Quadra Village. Dance Victoria is a non-profit charitable society with the mission to cultivate a connection to dance by presenting and supporting diverse local, national, and international artists, and inspiring all communities through the magic of dance. Our vision is that everyone in Greater Victoria can experience the transformative power of world-class dance. DanceVictoria.com.
For photos of the prize recipients, please contact:
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