Vancouver International Dance Festival announces 2025 programming

With 25 performances, it’s the first event under the new leadership of Deanna Peters and Victor Tran

THE NEW CODIRECTORS of the Vancouver International Dance Festival have announced programming for the 25th anniversary edition taking place from March 5 to 15 (with offsite events happening from March 2 to 22).

Deanna Peters and Victor Tran have taken over after fest founders Jay Hirabayashi and Barbara Bourget stepped down.

There are three themes for VIDF 2025: women-led projects to celebrate International Women’s Day; street dance on stage and on the concrete; and dance that features live and original music.

Higlights of the 2025 fest include Papillon by Montreal’s We All Fall Down, a collision of street and contemporary dance touching on human connection, supported by live music blending jazz, hip hop, and drum’n’bass.

Sujit Vaidya’s Breathe in the Fragrance is an ensemble work for three dancers and three musicians that combines traditional Indian dance elements with queer fantasy in a a celebration of mogra (Indian jasmine). South Africa’s Lorin Sookool performs Woza Wenties!, a political and personal solo in which movement traces the violent erasure of Black African identity. Edmonton’s Mile Zero Dance presents The Disaster Show, a dance, live-music, and augmented-reality installation that looks at the vulnerability of the human body in the face of climate change.

Charles Koroneho from New Zealand offers a live digital-performance installation at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC’s Haida House, exploring the concepts of digital artifacts and Indigenous futurism. Salome Nieto and Julio Medina are butoh and autoethnographic dance artists who are collaborating on a duet exploring their Mexican heritage and living in the diaspora. Shion Skye Carter and Miya Turnbull will explore their Japanese Canadian heritage, personal experiences, and traditional rituals like the tea ceremony.

Among the other shows is a double bill of new contemporary dance works by eight dancers created by Belle Spirale and Fernando Hernando Magadan. Hoor Malas draws from Middle Eastern roots in a solo that explores the profound impact of cultural heritage on individual expression. Montreal’s Elie-Anne Ross offers a dance-theare solo in the popping street-dance style, using stream of consciousness to reclaim body and mind. Luciana Freire D’Anunciação and Kelly McInnes present a duet evoking symbiosis, interspecies kinship, and reciprocal ecology. Charlie Khalil Prince performs a solo that observes the body as a site of resistance. Heather Stewart of little house offers a solo that centres on addiction and recovery, while BRKFST Dance Company presents a group work utilizing breaking—hip hop’s first dance form—to illustrate the complex dynamics between family and friends as life’s tasks pile up.

Then there is The Xchange: Street Dance Crew Exhibition Battle, a free event featuring street dance crews from the Lower Mainland, Montreal, Minneapolis, and Seattle. Stage Crasher! is a post-show social for audiences and artists to come together after the first week of shows and dance the night away with local DJs. Origami & Movement is a family-friendly workshop with Turnbull and Carter that explores “self-portrait origami” and gestures inspired by paper and folds. BlackOut Collective is a vogue ball centering 2SLGBTQIA+ and IBPOC communities, featuring walkers, DJs, emcees, and the city’s first all-Black judges panel.

The fest features more than 100 artist collaborators.

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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.

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