Dance Victoria announces 2023 Chrystal Dance Prize for Julia Taffe, Shion Skye Carter, and Amber Downie-Black
Annual award supports work that collaborates on an international level
Clockwise from top left: Amber Downie-Back (photo by Angus Gaffney); Julia Taffe of Aeriosa Dance Society (photo by Sarah Race Photography); and Shion Skye Carter (photo by Lula Belle Jedynak).
DANCE VICTORIA has announced the recipients of the 2023 Chrystal Dance Prize—Projects, which will see $47,000 to commissioning support for local artists who are collaborating with international talents.
Julia Taffe of Vancouver’s Aeriosa Dance Society receives $22,000 to support site-specific vertical dance performances and public engagement activities with Croatian choreographer Marija Scekic of Histeria Nova Artistic Organization. Aeriosa merges choreography, environment, and theatre with elements of rock climbing and contemporary performance art. Aeriosa’s new projects, partially funded through the prize, will be performed at Croatia’s Histeria Nova’s Biennale of New Movement and at the Vancouver International Vertical Dance Summit (organized by Aeriosa) from 2023 to 2025, with dance artists from the United Kingdom, France, Greece, and Canada.
Vancouver’s Shion Skye Carter has been awarded $15,000 toward the second creation phase of Threading Echoes, a performance embodying the Japanese craft of Shifu (cloth woven from washi paper). Carter is collaborating on the work with choreographer-performer Mayumi Lashbrook, and co-choreographer-dramaturg Ayumi Hamada in Ino, Japan. At the Kakishi-Seishi farm and artist residency, Carter and Lashbrook will learn the process to grow the kozo plant, make it into washi paper, and twist the paper into kami-ito (paper thread), which is woven into Shifu.
And Victoria’s Amber Downie-Back, a resident dance artist at both Impulse Theatre and Dance Victoria Studios, receives $10,000 towards the project ‘on the nature of…’ Theinterdisciplinary work explores themes of memory and nostalgia, while incorporating interactive and digital elements with dance performance and sound. Downie-Back will collaborate with Emilie van der Waals, a Netherlands-based contemporary dancer and choreographer from Sint Maarten, and sound designer Angus Gaffney.
Since 2010, Dance Victoria has awarded more than $428,000 through its annual Chrystal Dance Prize – Projects to support Western Canadian dance artists collaborating with international artists.
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