EVENTS
The Dance Centre announces its 2025-2026 season
The Dance Centre’s 2025-2026 season presents a comprehensive program of exciting performances, accessible community programs, and creative residencies, featuring a diverse roster of artists working in a variety of dance genres. The Global Dance Connections series features Co.ERASGA, Action at a Distance/Vanessa Goodman, James Gnam/Plastic Orchid Factory, Justine A. Chambers, Ame Henderson + Matija Ferlin, Corporeal Imago and FakeKnot. The Discover Dance! noon hour series includes Sujit Vaidya, Flamenco Rosario, Idan Cohen/Ne. Sans Opera & Dance, and Danny Nielsen. Choreographic research is supported through residencies and labs, and residency exchanges with partners in Montreal, Toronto and New Zealand will support artistic growth and creative exchange. Community programs include the annual Scotiabank Dance Centre Open House and International Dance Day events, and The Power of Dance program workshops for schools, youth and seniors.
(Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St, Vancouver, September 2025 – June 2026)
The Dance Centre and PuSh International Performing Arts Festival present Justine A. Chambers: The Brutal Joy
The Brutal Joy unfurls Black line dancing and sartorial expression as intellectual discourse, reverie, and devotion to Black-living. Created by acclaimed Vancouver-based choreographer Justine A. Chambers, the work is rooted in her childhood memories and developed in collaboration with her Black matrilineal heritage. A dazzling scored improvisation for dance, lighting, and sound, The Brutal Joy draws from the Electric Slide and Black dandyism as embodied knowledge sources for self-actualization and future possibilities.
(Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St., Feb. 5–6)
Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet presents Carmina Burana and T’əl: The Wild Man of the Woods
Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB) presents a striking double bill of celebrated favourite Carmina Burana, featured alongside the evocative West Coast premiere of T’əl: The Wild Man of the Woods. Carmina Burana fuses bold, athletic movement with Carl Orff’s thunderous score to create a visceral experience that transcends traditional storytelling. Hailed by critics and audiences alike, T’əl, created by RWB alumnus Cameron Fraser-Monroe, is an historic collaboration of Indigenous artists that fuses storytelling, contemporary ballet, and classical music, narrated in both English and Ayajuthem by Elder Elsie Paul, and scored by JUNO-nominated Cris Derksen.
(The Centre Vancouver, Feb. 9–10, 2026)
Matriarchs Uprising Festival
A celebration of contemporary dance by Indigenous women from Canada and Australia, offering six unique programs of live performance from Feb. 18–21, alongside artist-led Talking Truths circle conversations, dance masterclasses, community workshops, and the IndigiDance on Screen film series running Feb. 16–21.
(Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie Street, Feb. 16—21)
Dancers of Damelahamid present the Coastal Dance Festival
Dancers of Damelahamid present the 19th annual Coastal Dance Festival, honouring Indigenous stories, song, and dance from across Canada and around the world. Featuring ancestral and contemporary performances by Northwest Coast and international Indigenous artists, the festival includes all-ages matinees, evening performances, an artist sharing series, and a film screening of So Surreal: Behind the Masks.
(Anvil Centre, 777 Columbia St., New Westminster; Museum of Anthropology, 6393 NW Marine Dr., Vancouver, Mar. 3—8)
The Dance Centre and Vancouver International Dance Festival present Ame Henderson Projects + Provincija: Show Gone
Canadian choreographer Ame Henderson and Croatian director Matija Ferlin collaborate in Show Gone, a new cross-disciplinary duet that plays with light and darkness to explore the felt experience of endings—political, social, and personal. Through repeated “snap to black” moments and shifting tableaux, the work exposes the impossibility of controlling narrative, as cycles of confession and revelation slowly transform endless endings into the suggestion of a beginning.
(Scotiabank Dance Centre, 677 Davie St., Vancouver, Mar. 13—14)
