Call for Applications

Each winter New Works puts out a Call for Applications, inviting dance and movement artists to share proposals for the 2027/28 season. This includes applications for our free outdoor dance performance series and also for Artist Residencies in the studio or the theatre, presented in partnership with Out Innerspace Dance and the Roundhouse Community Centre.

The Call for Applications opens in Fall 2026.

If you are interested in applying, please stay tuned to our New Works Newsletter and Instagram for the Call for Applications and Info Session dates.

Interested to know about the artists in our current 2026/27 season?
Read this article to learn more. → 2026/27 Application Updates

Frequently Asked Questions Regarding International Applications:

Considering the scale of this presentation opportunity and our internal staff capacity, we are sadly unable to support applications from international artists at this time.

If you are a Canadian artist based outside of the Vancouver Lower Mainland area, please consider the feasibility of this opportunity carefully. We are not able to support travel costs on top of artists fees, so thoughtfully assess if this makes financial sense for you and/or if you can access other travel funding towards this performance. If you are an out-of-town artist we strongly encourage you to address your travel or funding plans in your application.

New Works is managed by a small, but dedicated staff team who passionately care about working with artists. Both of these open call programs usually receive many more applications than we have capacity to support. In efforts to share opportunities with a diversity of artists, please note we will not consider applications from those who have been successful in a specific program within the last three years. 

 

More questions? Please feel free to contact us at info@newworks.ca

New Works Advisory Committee 

Who reviews all the applications? How are decisions made?

Good question. Once the call closes, all applications are carefully reviewed by New Works staff to confirm eligibility, then shared with Program Advisory Committee for feedback. 

Program Advisory Committee

Each season New Works brings together a Program Advisory Committee of four dance artists who are currently practicing and creating in Metro Vancouver. Committee member artists are invited to sit a two year term and then replace themselves. This means the committee is self renewing. Through this process we keep a shifting body of peers involved in application review and recommendation as identified and nominate by their colleagues. 

The Advisory Committee is charged with reviewing all eligible All Over The Map and Artist in Residence applications and presenting their recommendations to the New Works Programming Director and Executive Director. Following the committee's selections, programming is finalized by the staff programming team. 

 

2026-27 Advisory Committee

Juan Imperial

Bio
Juan Imperial is a Filipino, Queer artist, teacher and community leader with roots in vogue and waacking. Since the age of 14, Juan has been dedicated to uplifting and supporting the queer street dance scene and local queer, trans and BIPOC youth. Juan has taught at VanVogueJam, FORM film festival, SFU, UBC, and Emily Carr among other spaces across Vancouver. His dance practice involves the merging of contemporary, street dance and spirituality, studying in programs such as Modus Operandi’s Link program. In the Canadian ballroom scene, Juan has won over 22 grand prizes across their nearing decade long career. Juan is the first ever Butch Queen Vogue Femme and Hands Performance of the year and has been instrumental in raising the third generation of Vancouver's vogue scene.

romham gallacher

Bio
romham pàdraig gallacher: i'm an independent crip dancer & choreographer learning what new/ awkward/ beautiful creations and connections we can make by exploring the peripheries of ever-changing tangled/ disagreeable/ inconvenient dancing bodies; bringing our insides out, mapping them, then undoing and imagining different borderless futures together.

Simran Sachar

Bio
Simran Sachar is a choreographer, dancer, teacher, writer, and actor who currently dedicates time to their artistic practice in Vancouver, Canada on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. A captivating anomaly in contemporary, commercial, and street dance, her work, rooted in her lineage and lived experiences, bends W*acking towards the grotesque and the spiritual, using rhythm to carry what endures. She works across TV/film, theatre, XR, and public art. Recent highlights include co-choreographing Today is the evening to strike lightning (Indian Summer Festival, 2025), co-directing These hands are still at work (Surrey Art Gallery), premiering her XR film The Edge of The Underworld (2024), and her live work ACT TWENTY FIVE. Her films BETA बेटा and LUNACY have screened nationally, with LUNACY earning an Audience Choice Award.

Shahir Krishna

Bio
Shahir Krishna is a multidisciplinary artist, holistic educator, restorative yoga teacher, somatic counselor, and integral facilitator. His current life's work is to support all beings to restore a loving connection with themselves, communities, and earth through community-based arts education. He holds a master’s degree in Contemplative Education from SFU and a bachelor’s degree in Film and Cultural Studies from McGill. His practice weaves insights from Buddhism, animism and developmental psychology, offering encounters with the uncanny wisdom inside each of us. He was born in Malawi, with ancestry hailing from Karnataka and Gujarat, India. Shahir was part of the DanceWest‘s “Re/centering Margins” Dance Residency 2024, and was Indian Summer Festival’s Community Artist in Residence for 2025.

Partner Evaluation

The summer Artist in Residence opportunity at Q7 is presented in partnership with Out Innerspace. Following the committee's recommendations, Artist in Residence applications for Q7 studio space are finalized and confirmed by a mixed group of New Works and Out Innerspace staff.