Chrystal Dance Prize - Projects

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.

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.

https://bellespirale.ca/

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.