33rd Annual Dancing on the Edge Festival

One of the most eagerly anticipated events in British Columbia’s contemporary dance scene, the 33rd annual Dancing on the Edge Festival will kick off with a live performance by internationally acclaimed Radical System Art/Shay Kuebler on July 8th. Festival Producer, Donna Spencer, is delighted that Canada’s oldest and longest running contemporary dance festival, will host live performances both indoor and outdoor for limited- sized eagerly awaiting audiences. “The pandemic has had a devastating effect on the performing arts community and we are thrilled to be able to provide dance artists and companies both online and live performance opportunities to support and profile their work”. This year’s DOTE will once again deliver high calibre, challenging and cutting-edge dance featuring innovative and spellbinding works. In celebration of our 33rd Annual DOTE, the festival will include a presentation of over thirty online and live stage performances featuring artists from across Canada. On offer will be some specially curated digital programming with recorded online performances, premieres of dance films, dance discussions, outdoor live performances in the Firehall’s Courtyard (for very limited audiences with safety precautions in place) and theatre performances with limited capacity, if permitted (Firehall Arts Centre Theatre). Festival Producer Donna Spencer also announced seven commission projects – the COVID Commissions, premiering at this year’s Dancing on the Edge Festival. As part of a COVID commissioning project, companies/choreographers presenting commissioned works include Ouro Collective, Raven Spirit Dance, Billy Marchenski, Immigrant Lessons, Generous Mess, Rob Kitsos and Meredith Kalaman. “We were thrilled to have offered this incentive, knowing that these commissions have enabled artists to keep creating new work, during this challenging time for all. Now more than ever we need our artists and we need to keep moving so the EDGE is working to support and encourage both.” The festival will also present works from acclaimed Canadian artists including Wen Wei Dance, Radical System Art/Shay Kuebler, Rachel Meyer, Inverso Productions/Lesley Telford, Dumb Instrument Dance/Ziyian Kwan, Alexis Fletcher/Vanessa Goodman, Future Leisure/Julianne Chapple, Company Ci/Gabrielle Martin, CAMP, Kirsten Wicklund, Shion Skye Carter & Kaiyuu, Peter Smida, and many more. Please mark your calendars for July 8 – 17 and watch out for the full festival schedule announcement later in June!