Applications open for Louise Bentall Biennial Award for Emerging B.C. Choreographers

The 2025 prize is worth $10,000 to research, develop, or produce new work

Livona Ellis. Photo by Michael Slobodian

DANCEHOUSE AND THE Hawthorne Foundation are now accepting applications for the 2025 Louise Bentall Biennial Award for Emerging British Columbia Choreographers.

Just as with the inaugural award in 2023, which went to Livona Ellis, the 2025 award supports the winning artist financially with $10,000 to research, develop, or produce new work. This year, the jury will also choose a second-place winner, who will receive a cash prize of $5,000.

The award was created in memory of Louise Bentall, who was a long-time board member of DanceHouse and who worked and volunteered for many local dance and theatre organizations, in addition to taking part in many charitable activities in support of the performing arts and social justice communities of the Lower Mainland. She died in 2017, and the prize honours her memory by advancing support for Vancouver’s dance community.

With ongoing funding from the Hawthorne Foundation and administrative support from DanceHouse, the award is given every other year and is juried by a diverse panel of arts professionals.

In 2023, honourary mentions were given to the runners-up Alyssa Favero and Joshua Ongcol.

Applications are judged based on the overall presentation of the proposal and the vision and potential of the artist. Applicants must submit a project description, a CV, two letters of support, a project budget, and up to two video links relating to the proposal through the DanceHouse website.

Individual emerging choreographers working in all styles of dance, including multidisciplinary projects, are encouraged to apply by January 26, 2025.

There is no upper age limit on applicants, but choreographers residing in B.C. who have completed pre-professional training and have held at least one public performance of their work are the intended recipients. Students are not eligible to apply to fund further studies or training. Companies, collectives, and organizations are not eligible.

The winner will be announced on April 25, 2025 at DanceHouse’s presentation of Belgian dance-theatre company Peeping Tom’s Diptych.

Featured

Gail Johnson

Gail Johnson is cofounder of Stir. She is a Vancouver-based journalist who has earned local and national nominations and awards for her work. She is a certified Gladue Report writer via Indigenous Perspectives Society in partnership with Royal Roads University and is a member of a judging panel for top Vancouver restaurants.

Articles

Dance reviews: Rising voices, fresh talent, and vivid worlds at Dancing on the Edge's second week

Quick takes on three atmospheric works: Modus Operandi’s Wound, Dance//Novella’s Soft Animals, and O.Dela Arts’ Where You Go

With MY HOUSE, Ralph Escamillan brings the spirit of Ballroom to contemporary-dance stage

At The Dance Centre, new FakeKnot production taps into deep community ties to celebrate the family bonds and playful energy behind the voguing

With Kin & Doves, Belle Spirale Dance Projects draws on deep connections in Vancouver scene

At Dancing on the Edge, Alexis Fletcher and Sylvain Senez develop a new piece alongside one by Ballet BC’s Sid Chuckas

LIFT Festival uses dance to connect generations, June 3 and 4

Inverso Productions event includes performance featuring Claudia Moore, Calder White, Anne Cooper, Savannah Walling, and more at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre

New Works hosts All Over The Map performance series this July and August

Annual event brings free outdoor dance to the Granville Island Picnic Pavilion and the VPL Central Library’s rooftop

Lukas Malkowski’s Microphone Controller is a rock ’n’ roll show with a difference

The choreographer and performer’s character-driven Dancing on the Edge piece is informed by his perspective as the child of a deaf parent

FakeKnot’s Ballroom culture–infused MY HOUSE premieres at The Dance Centre, June 19 and 20

Ralph Escamillan’s subversive, playful new work brings the Ball from the runway to the stage

Jade Circle brings together dance, music, projections, and storytelling, at the Kay Meek Arts Centre May 20 to 22

Artist Jasmine Chen relearns Mandarin and discovers lost family history in multidisciplinary, personal show

In Corporeal Imago's Drift, an otherworldly landscape prevails over human bodies

At The Dance Centre, world premiere by Gabrielle Martin and Jeremiah Hughes moves away from aerial arts and toward conceptual innovation

Ballet BC unveils a 2026–27 40th season with works by Crystal Pite, William Forsythe, Imre and Marne van Opstal, and more

Principal dancers from the National Ballet of Canada perform a guest duet and artists-in-residence Margaret Grenier and Starr Muranko share a creation after their five-year collaboration with the troupe

At Arts Umbrella’s Memento Mori, every moment on stage is a lifetime

Featuring works by Crystal Pite, Marcos Morau, Sharon Eyal, and more, the season finale is a celebration of presence, community, and the beauty of fleeting time

Denmark’s Uppercut Dance Theater pushes the limits of movement in BENCHED

Choreographer Stephanie Thomasen’s piece has no plot and instead invites audience members to imagine their own storylines

Arts Umbrella Dance Company hosts Memento Mori: A Season Finale Performance, May 21 to 23

Vancouver Playhouse show features works by several world-renowned choreographers, including Crystal Pite, Sharon Eyal, and Medhi Walerski

Dance review: In FOR GLASS, the artists of Ballet BC display uninhibited emotion

Set to music by Philip Glass, Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber’s latest piece focuses on everyday moments and palpable intimacy

Dancing on the Edge announces 30-show program for June 4 to 13

Amid the offerings are names like Lukas Malkowski, Belle Spirale Dance Projects, O.Dela Arts and musica intima, and much more

Co.ERASGA’s Undivided Colours bridges forms, from Bharatanatyam to Asian Flamenco, May 14 and 15

Marking Asian Heritage Month, the show features names like Kasandra La China, Andrea Nann, and Sujit Vaidya

Ziyian Kwan and Alvin Erasga Tolentino win top B.C. dance artist prizes

The Dance Centre announces Lola Award and Isadora Award for Vancouver choreographers

With FOR GLASS, Ballet BC dancers push and succumb to live string quartet’s rhythms

Star choreographic duo Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber return with a full-evening premiere that draws on the emotional layers in Philip Glass’s music—and in the company members themselves

In Enemy Lines, Mayumi Lashbrook unearths a history she was never told

At the Firehall Arts Centre, the Toronto-based choreographer reckons with the forced displacement of Japanese Canadians and the cycles of fear-based thinking that still echo today

High-energy show BENCHED comes to the Vancouver International Children's Festival, May 26 to 31

Production by Denmark’s Uppercut Dance Theater features breathtaking physicality and inventive humour

Wen Wei Wang rediscovers himself as a choreographer, with powerful meditations on life in Last Breath 最后的呼吸

On Belle Spirale Dance Projects’ Exhale program, the Vancouver artist creates his first piece since leaving Ballet Edmonton—complete with live vocals and a central metal sculpture

Corporeal Imago's Drift makes its world premiere at The Dance Centre, May 21 to 23

Compelling production features choreography by Gabrielle Martin and Jeremiah Hughes in collaboration with five performers

Co.ERASGA presents Undivided Colours in honour of Asian Heritage Month, May 14 and 15

Showcase features performances by Sujit Vaidya, Toronto’s Dreamwalker Dance/Andrea Nann, and more

In Stephanie Lake Company’s Manifesto, thundering percussion meets dance

In this DanceHouse and Vancouver New Music copresentation, the Australian performers feed off the energy of nine drum kits on a stylized stage

At the Firehall Arts Centre, Enemy Lines illuminates a historic injustice, May 6 to 9

Mayumi Lashbrook’s dance-theatre piece centres the forced removal of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War

The Dance Centre secures long-term site, with $6 million land purchase at Davie and Granville

With its lease coming up in 2029 on land owned by Scotiabank, the future of the dance hub had been uncertain

At Ballet BC's UNITY, Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber deliver a world premiere, May 7 to 9

Batsheva Dance Company alumni draw on Gaga movement for the searingly intimate piece with a full-company cast

All-women ensemble Solidaridad Tango brings Tango Fantasia to the Shadbolt Centre, April 18

Celebration of sound and dance sets music from the Golden Age of tango alongside modern gems

Belle Spirale Dance Projects stages two world premieres at Exhale, May 1 and 2

Wen Wei Wang’s Last Breath and a new piece by Alexis Fletcher, Sylvain Senez, and Ariana Barr explore the virtuosity of established performers

Dance review: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark captures complex tale through movement and design magic

At DanceHouse, Robert Lepage’s inventive visual touches and Côté Danse’s expressive contemporary choreography offer a surreal, boldly contemporary new take on narrative ballet