.Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library, Central Library

Pop Up Dances Festival

September 18 & 19, 2026

September 18 - Performances start at 12pm | 2pm | 4pm
September 19 - Performances start at 1pm | 2:30pm | 4pm

Guided performances start on the North Plaza at the Georgia Street Promenade entrance.

Vancouver Public Library, Central Library (across various indoor and outdoor spaces).

All presentations are completely free to attend.

Get ready to see the Vancouver Public Library transformed. New Works is thrilled to bring back Pop Up Dances Festival to the Central Library, for two spectacular days of live dance and movement in unexpected spaces. Discover performances in plazas, through the library floors, all the way up to the beautiful rooftop garden.

This year, the Festival features five captivating performances by five celebrated artists and collectives:

Action at a Distance & All Bodies Dance Project
Elizabeth Louie & Denae Harpham (former Ballet BC Annex dancers)
Juolin Lee
Rita Spirit (Rita Barieieva)
Sarah Hutton & Aiden Cass (Generous Mess)

Audiences are invited to pop in for a quick glimpse or stay for a full guided experience, as this Festival promises to delight everyone of all ages, rain or shine.

Registration is not required to attend, but we ask that you register so that we can anticipate audience size, and communicate with you about any updates or changes to the event.

Meet the Artists

Action At A Distance & All Bodies Dance Project

About the work

Arboles

Accumulation is a site-responsive performance that brings together artists of multiple lived experiences, developed in collaboration between Action a Distance and All Bodies Dance Project. True to its name, the work grows through an accumulation of experiences, skills, perspectives, and relationships gathered over time. Rooted in collaboration and transparency the project embraces collective authorship and explores how dance-making is socially responsive.

Vanessa Goodman | Artistic Director of Action At A Distance

Artist Bio

Vanessa Goodman lives, works, and creates on the ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō, Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. She holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University and is the artistic director of Action at a Distance. She is drawn to art that carries meaning beyond aesthetics, using choreography as a means to explore liminal expressions within the human condition. Her choreographic practice weaves together generative movement and sonic embodiment to create immersive performative environments. Her work tours locally, nationally and internationally. Awards and honours include The Chrystal Dance Prize (2019 & 2024), the Schultz Endowment from the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (2019), The Isadora Award (2025). Her work has toured Canada, the United States, Europe, and South America. www.actionatadistance.ca Photography by Ben Didier

Naomi Brand | Co-founder of All Bodies Dance Projects

Artist Bio

Naomi Brand (she/her) is a dancer, facilitator, and educator working on Coast Salish Territory. She has cultivated a distinctive artistic practice that spans work with professional dancers and community-engaged dance with diverse populations. Naomi has performed in works by numerous Canadian choreographers, and her own choreography which ranges from solos, to large ensemble works have been featured in venues and festivals across Canada as well as in Poland, Italy, Uruguay, and Croatia. In recent years, her work has centered on accessibility, inclusion, and community-building through dance practice. She is the Artistic Director of All Bodies Dance Project, a faculty member at Langara College, a Community Arts Programmer with the Vancouver Park Board. Most importantly, she is a mother. Photography by Luciana Friere D'Anunciação

Elizabeth Louie

Artist Bio

Elizabeth Louie (she/her) is a former Ballet BC ANNEX dancer. She was born in Vancouver, BC, where she trained at Arts Umbrella since the age of 5. After completing the Professional Dance Program at Arts Umbrella, she joined the Graduate Dance Program under the guidance of Artemis Gordon. During her time at Arts Umbrella, Elizabeth has been fortunate to work with and perform works by Crystal Pite, Marco Goecke, William Forsythe, Fernando Hernando Magadan, Kidd Pivot, Mats Ek, Lukas Timulak and Aszure Barton, among many others. She has also participated in the Young Choreographers Mentorship Project under the mentorship of Crystal Pite. In the 2024/25 season she had the pleasure of being in Ballet BC’s Annex Program, and a guest participant with Ballet BC in 2025/26. Photography by Marcus Eriksson

Denae Harpham

Artist Bio

Denae Harpham (she/her), originally from Saskatchewan, is a contemporary dancer based in Vancouver. Denae trained under several reputable commercial dance educators during her time with the Source Dance Company before shifting her focus to contemporary dance. Denae has completed the Modus Operandi Link program and its full-time post-secondary training program, as well as The Performance Research Project. During these programs, Denae studied repertoire by Out Innerspace, Crystal Pite, Yue Yin, Spenser Theberge, and Shay Kuebler, among many others. Denae toured West Coast Canada with Ballet BC’s Annex Program, performing works by Medhi Walerski, Micaela Taylor, and Zachary Seto for students across British Columbia, and has worked closely with Shay Kubler on the development of a Norwegian Cruise Lines Production. Denae’s dance career has taken her around the globe, dancing in Europe, Australia, the United States, and across Canada. She is grateful for the experiences that have shaped her journey thus far and looks forward to where dance will lead her next. Photography by David Cooper

Juolin Lee

Artist Bio

Juolin Lee is a Taiwanese-Canadian dance artist gratefully living on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. Juolin’s understandings of dance were influenced by her engagement with the Vancouver based companies and artists she greatly admirers, such as The Biting School, Hong Kong Exile, Co.Erasga, Odd Meridian Arts, and Battery Opera. As a creator Juolin is drawn to the connections between the living and the non-living matter, the spaces she inhabits, and the stories she inherits. Through openness and curiosity, Juolin wishes to continuously unpack her idea of self and her relationship with the world. juolin.com Photo by Evan Morash

Rita Spirit | Rita Barieieva

Artist Bio

Marharyta (Rita) Barieieva is a Ukrainian-born, Vancouver-based street dance artist, DJ, and event producer. Her work is rooted in freestyle, storytelling, musicality, and street dance foundations. She studied in the full-time street dance program at Åsa Folkhögskola in Sweden and has taught, performed, competed, DJed, and collaborated internationally across Europe, Asia, and North America. Rita is the founder of the Cypher Killa Dance Festival and is currently developing the collaborative performance project Time in Two, connected to freestyle and storytelling through performance, while exploring perceptions of time and how limitations can open space for something new. linktr.ee/djritaspirit Photography by Shawn Kim

About the work

Time in Two is an improvisation-based street dance performance project exploring shifting perceptions of time and emotional states connected to uncertainty and limitation. Rooted in freestyle practices, the work investigates how surrendering to changing circumstances can open new possibilities for movement, play, experimentation, and connection, while allowing audiences to experience time as stretched, repetitive, slowed, or unstable. What began as a response to limitation gradually evolved into an exploration of vulnerability, presence, and what it means to stay with an experience rather than push past it. Through improvisation, rhythm, repetition, and collaboration, Time in Two explores how emotional states can reshape the experience of time itself.

Sarah Hutton & Aiden Cass | Generous Mess

Artist Bio

Sarah and Aiden first collaborated during their graduate project at Modus Operandi. Their shared interest in physical research, partnering, and collaborative creation led to the formation of their collective, Generous Mess. In July 2021 at Dancing On The Edge Festival they debuted the first iteration of their duet ‘by means of each other’ - a work inspired by their life as creative and romantic partners. Their first ensemble creation ‘heirloom’ was shared at the EDAM Spring Choreographic Series in March 2022 in Vancouver, BC. Since 2020, they’ve had the pleasure to expand and explore works through residencies and showings at Dance Victoria, Dance Deck (Vancouver, BC), and Decidedly Jazz Dance (Calgary, AB). They premiered the latest version of their duet at Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancer’s 60th Anniversary Season. Most recently, Generous Mess premiered a new commission set on Lamondance June 5 & 6 at BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts, in North Vancouver, BC. Generous Mess is privileged to work and play in so-called Vancouver on the unceded, stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Photography by Emilie Bland

About the work

You see someone on the street and stop, taking each other in. On the bus, a child reaches across and reminds you to look outside. You brave an elevator ride in your pajamas and end up laughing with your neighbour. Small moments that catch you off guard. Brief moments of recognition. Tiny openings that turn strangers into companions. Glimmers of hope that beneath the rush of daily life, we are wired for connection. This new site-specific dance work unfolds in the Vancouver Public Library's Central Branch, drawing inspiration from the fleeting encounters and shared experiences that bring us closer to one another. Through movement, the work invites audiences to notice the quiet threads that connect us.

Popping Up through the Years

Pop Up Dances was first presented in partnership with CMHC Granville Island in 2007. Since then the series has returned through the seasons under different names, animated different venues from a metal workshop on Granville Island to a park in Port Coquitlam, and held space for many different artists. Pop Up Dance has featured the experimental work of so many celebrated Vancouver-based artists, and we love hearing treasured memories from past staff, volunteers, and artists about their first wild and wacky Pop Up experience!

In Fall 2024 we renewed our presenting relationship with the Vancouver Public Library, Central Library, having last worked together in 2018 on a World Poetry Day pop up series. It has been especially exciting to renew these relationships and support Vancouver artists as they create and perform work across unique Library spaces.

Pop Up Dances 2025
September 19 - 21, 2025
Popping Up through the Years | 2024
Host Joylyn Secunda guiding the audience at Pop Up Dances 2024. Photo by Marco Esccer.
Popping Up through the Years | 2023
Host by Nick Gold (Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg) addresses the audience at Pop Up Dances 2023. Photo by Joffrey Middleton-Hope.
Popping Up through the Years | 2017
Bloco Energia leads the way across Granville Island at Pop Up Dances 2017. Photo by Juan Contreras.
Popping Up through the Years | 2014
Kat Single-Dain performs at the Arts Club Scene Shop at Pop Up Dances 2014. Photo by Yvone Chew.
Popping Up through the Years | 2019
Salome Nieto performs at Pop Up Dances: World Poetry Day 2019 at VPL Central Library.