Call for Applications

Each winter New Works puts out a Call for Applications, inviting dance and movement artists to share proposals for our upcoming presentation season. Learn more about the various presentation and application opportunities below. 

2026-27 Call for Applications

Applications Open: 13 November 2025

Applications Close: 18 January 2026 

Info Session: 4 December 2025, 6pm, Online | Registration details available soon

Each year we present and support dance artists through performance opportunities and residencies. Learn more below and apply to be part of our 2026-27 season. 

All Over the Map
 Apply to perform in our free outdoor summer series on Granville Island and Vancouver Public Library, Central Library (new venue!), presented in partnership with CMHC Granville Island and VPL Central Library. 

Find full details including dates, fees, details on performance space, and what kinds of works fit well within this series: All Over The Map - Presentation Information 

APPLICATIONS CLOSED

 

Artist Residencies
 Propose a creation-focused residency in the studio or the theatre, presented in partnership with Out Innerspace Dance and the Roundhouse Community Centre. 

Find full details including dates and duration, details on residency space, and what types of projects are prioritized: Artist Residencies - Information 

APPLICATIONS CLOSED



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.

More questions? Sign up for our info session and ask us!

Info Session 

Ask us questions before you apply! New Works staff will host an online info session to walk through both All Over The Map and Artist Residency Applications and answer any questions. This is a great opportunity to better assess if these calls are a strong fit for you and your work, and ask any questions. 

Application Info Session 

Thursday, 4 December 2025, 6 - 7pm 

Online | Free 

REGISTER

 

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. 

Above: Shay Dior and Maiden China. Top: Vidya Kotamraju. Artists perform at All Over The Map 2025. Photos by Marco Esccer

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. 

 

Application Assessment 

Please review assessment details for each opportunity (detailed in the Learn More documents above). We often receive many more exceptional applications than we have capacity to support.