Artist Support

New Works envisions community as a space where all artists have support to operate from a place of abundance, sustainability, and resilience.

Since 1998, New Works has offered stable, affordable, and responsive strategic management and administrative support to some of Vancouver’s most innovative dance artists. We are proud to collaborate with our partners, big or small, to offer support as best serves the artist or organization at each stage of its lifecycle. In the past this support has taken a range of forms from hands-on holistic organizational management, project and touring support, and production management, to assisting an organization in incorporating as a non-profit, building strategic and marketing plans, and developing transparent financial practices. Over the course of a season individual artists seek support with New Works through grant writing, design, and marketing clinics, alongside ongoing mentorship relationships and personal consultation and feedback. We strive to support through resource sharing, making space for peer-to-peer knowledge exchange, and networking across local, national, and international communities.

Looking for support on your next project? Reach out and start a conversation with us.

Mentorship & Management Partners

Help Desk: Strategic Management Training Initiative For Independent Dance Artists is a project supported by the Deux Mille Foundation and the City of Vancouver - Culture Learning and Sharing grant.

Action at a Distance

The company is directed by choreographer Vanessa Goodman, a woman and mother who shares her experiences through physical, visual and sonic practices. Focusing on creating experiential generative systems to build immersive environments.

About

Action at a Distance Dance Society is a contemporary dance company located on ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō, səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. The company is directed by choreographer Vanessa Goodman, a woman and mother who shares her experiences through physical, visual and sonic practices. Focusing on creating experiential generative systems to build immersive environments. The company’s work is driven by questions surrounding intimacy through performance-based practices. Since Goodman became Artistic Director, the company's work has been presented locally, nationally and internationally in Canada, The USA, Europe, the UK and South America. The company is inspired by artistic collaboration across multiple disciplines, with a mission to create environments and facilitate engrossing experiences for those who engage with the work. An inclusive dialogue is fostered with the community as part of each project through open studio showings, workshops, and discussions surrounding the work. Performance is made possible by those who witness it, and the company views the audience as the final collaborator in each project. // Work: Graveyards and Gardens; Photo by David Cooper; Performers Vanessa Goodman and Caroline Shaw

www.actionatadistance.ca

Aeriosa

Dance on earth, in air. Aeriosa creates dance in unexpected places, in unusual ways. Aeriosa’s artistic direction merges choreography, environment, and theatre with elements of rock climbing and contemporary performance art.

About

It can no longer be said that vertical dance is a new art form; its modern trajectory traces back through almost 50 years of contemporary dance choreography and presentation. Deeper research into world cultures reveals that aerial performance traditions have been bringing communities together to enact ceremony, display prowess, and celebrate life for many generations. Although vertical dance is still not well known, there are places scattered around the world today where artists have established communities dedicated to this practice. Over the past 20 years, Aeriosa has formed one such hub on the West Coast of Canada, and we are delighted to be contributing to the global development of the art form. // Photo by Chandra Krown.

www.aeriosa.com

Daina Ashbee

My choreography is an investigation of the body in order to address the subconscious. A deepening of my own consciousness. The art of dance brings me closer to my own body and to the awareness of my own thoughts and processes.

*Supported by the Deux Mille Foundation.

About

Artist, director and choreographer Daina Ashbee is based in Canada, born in Nanaimo, British Columbia and known for her radical works at the edge of dance and performance. At the age of 26, she had already won two awards for her choreographies. She was a double prizewinner at the Prix de la danse de Montréal, winning both the Prix du CALQ for Best Choreography of 2015-2016 for her choreographic installation When the Ice Melts, Will We Drink the Water?, and the Prix Découverte de la danse, for Unrelated (her first choreography). Daina was named by the prestigious German TANZ magazine as one of 30 promising artists for the year 2017 and named one of 25 to watch by the American publication, DANCE in 2018. In 2019, she won a New York Dance and Performance Award, Bessie, for Outstanding Choreographer. In 2021, at the age of 31, she had two separate Retrospectives of her performance artworks; one in Montpellier, France and the second in Montreal, Canada. In 2022 she became the recipient of The Clifford E. Lee Choreographer Award from The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada. Recognized as one of the most prolific choreographers of her generation, since 2015 her work has been presented over one-hundred times in 18 countries and over 40 different cities. Her work being presented in some of the most prestigious festivals (The Venice Biennale, Oktoberdans, the Munich Dance Biennale, Montpellier Danse) and on the stages of the world. She is a teacher of movement, choreography and therapeutic practices. She has taught at the Venice Biennale College in Venice, Italy, as a guest at The University of Stavanger, Norway and at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia U.S.A. Daina presented her workshops at Nulty Bod/ZeroPoint Festival in Prague, in Guadalajara, Mexico, across Canada and especially in Montreal, Quebec., for the past 14 years. In 2022 she taught in Costa Rica, across Canada and in Norway. // Photo by Patrice Mathieu 2022

www.dainaashbee.com

Gaurav Bhatti Dance

*Supported by the City of Vancouver - Culture Learning and Sharing grant.

About

Gaurav’s dance is rooted in the north Indian classical form of Kathak, but is contemporary in its sensibilities. He has trained under Saveeta Sharma (Ottawa), Lata Bakalkar (Mumbai) and Aditi Mangaldas (Delhi). As part of Aditi Mangaldas’ repertory, he has performed at major venues in the UK, Germany, Singapore, Russia and India. His own choreographies have been performed and screened in India and North America. // Photo by Arcelita Ocana

www.gauravbhattidance.ca

Ne.Sans Opera & Dance

Established in 2017 by Artistic Director Idan Cohen in Vancouver, Canada Ne. Sans Opera & Dance is re-imagining and reconnecting Opera & Dance.

* Supported by the City of Vancouver - Culture Learning and Sharing grant.

About

Directing opera through contemporary dance opens a whole new world of collaborative opportunities: an environment that involves working with singers, dancers, musicians, visual artists and designers. By experimenting and constantly expanding our knowledge of multi-disciplinary art forms, we are forging what we see as a natural hybridization of the Arts. Our ambition is to create exciting, thought-provoking, artistically challenging art- and to strengthen and inspire our community. New Works has been supporting Ne.Sans projects and tours since 2022.

www.nesans.net

Out Innerspace

Out Innerspace Dance Theatre is devoted to creating exciting and integral contemporary dance works. Determined to be innovative yet accessible, they push beyond traditional aesthetics and forms with unreserved ingenuity.

About

Through research and experimentation, OIS celebrates the importance of challenging the preconceptions of what can be expected, experienced and expounded in contemporary dance. Artistic Directors David Raymond and Tiffany Tregarthen challenge each other to commit to their imaginations in order to expound their mutual voice, seeing no limitation to how they can push the idioms of dance as they know it. With an equal appetite for amusement and poignant meaning they combine their contrasting points of view to make a radically intricate and indicative dance language. They value the body and human experience as unlimited resources for discovery and meaning and rely on diligent process, rigorous free play and diverse inspiration to start something new and ever changing. New Works has been supporting contemporary creators David Raymond and Tiffany Tregarthen + their training initiative, Modus Operandi, since 2012. In 2018, OIS brought on a second administrative staff member employed and supported by New Works, and shared administrative resources. New Works has helped OIS during the development and touring of Vessel, Me So You So Me, Major Motion Picture and current piece Bygones. In 2021, as New Works relocated its’ office to Arts Umbrella Q7 where OIS operates, there is even more opportunities for collaboration and creative partnership between the organizations.

www.outinnerspace.ca

OURO Collective

Fusing hip-hop, waacking, breaking, popping, and contemporary dance as their foundation, each street dancer has trained with the original founders of their respective dance styles and brings specific knowledge to the group aesthetic.

*Supported by the City of Vancouver - Culture Learning and Sharing grant.

About

OURO Collective (OURO) creates and produces new dance works on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations and the City of Vancouver. We wish to express our gratitude to the Indigenous people who have ties to this territory and acknowledge that we are guests on this land we work, play and live in as artists and settlers. OURO was founded by Cristina Bucci, Rina Pellerin, Maiko Miyauchi, Dean Placzek, and Mark Siller in 2014, and is currently entering their tenth season together. OURO was created to support and promote street dance artists/culture. As individual artists coming from diverse cultural and dance backgrounds, OURO sees collaboration as a catalyst for dialogue, creative innovation, and community building. United around the common goal of pushing the boundaries of how street dance-based works are created and presented, OURO is dedicated to creating performances that explore the full range of possibilities and identities the group represents. OURO Collective advances the public’s appreciation of street dance culture through dance classes, events/workshops, with a focus on youth engagement activities in smaller communities in BC and through creation of high-quality dance work for public presentation.

www.ourocollective.com