Dancing On The Edge Reveals 38th Annual Festival Lineup
Canada's longest-running contemporary dance festival takes over Firehall Arts Centre, SFU Woodward's, and The Dance Centre
Dancing on the Edge Festival (DOTE) will present its 38th annual festival, featuring a dynamic lineup of more than 30 trailblazing performances from established and emerging dancemakers at various dance venues, including the Firehall Arts Centre, SFU Woodward's, and The Dance Centre, from June 4 to 13, 2026.
Spotlighting a wide range of electrifying world and Western Canadian premieres from local, national, and International Artists, the festival will offer four mixed programs featuring interdisciplinary works, improvisational choreography, and contemporary dance over its 10-day slate of performances.
“We're delighted to present another festival of imaginative, multi-layered, and virtuosic works exploring countless universal themes such as memory and relationships, knowledge sharing and the impact of environmental change, identity and its erasure, communal restoration and intergenerational trauma and grief, and the power of ancestry and love,” says Donna Spencer, DOTE Artistic Producer. “As populist culture and online entertainment increases, it has become increasingly difficult for contemporary dance artists to develop and share their work. This festival's survival reflects the tenacity of dance artists to continue creating and stimulating imagination, reflection, and provocation through their work. Dance has a way of telling stories in a manner that reaches into our hearts and bodies and transforms our thinking, connecting kinetically with our own physicality.”
Some of this year's most anticipated performances include: the world premiere of Char from Prince George's Method Dance, an interdisciplinary creation examining the evolving reality of wildfire in Central and Northern British Columbia; Microphone Controller, a full-length work from Canadian dancemaker Lukas Malkowski that reimagines the rock concert for both Deaf and hearing audiences through choreography, embodiment, and sign language; Anne, a deeply personal work choreographed and performed by Laurence Lemieux of Toronto's Compagnie de la Citadelle; the world premiere of KIN & DOVES from Vancouver's Belle Spirale Dance Projects–an innovative new work featuring Ballet BC's Sid Chuckas; and Where You Go, a collaboration between two Vancouver companies–O.Dela Arts and musica intima–inspired by Hemingway's “A Farewell to Arms,” which portrays two lovers bound by the inescapable promise of death.
Additional world premieres include: She Was Here by local choreographer Vidya Kotamraju, an unapologetic 35-minute solo dance work that confronts the quiet erasure of women's identity within marriage; Casseiopia, a new work by Indigenous artist Cheyenne Seary created in collaboration with a cast of mature dancers from Vancouver's All Bodies Dance that explores themes of tenderness, play, aging, and grief; and Joe Ink's the heart of it, a tender work about the human heart and everything it represents from Vancouver's Joe Laughlin.
Dancing On The Edge Complete Festival Lineup
EDGE 1: June 4 at 7pm & June 5 at 9pm @ Firehall Arts Centre
Tahanan/Home by Starr Muranko/Co.ERASGA (Vancouver)
the heart of it by Joe Ink (Vancouver) - World Premiere
Lighthouse by Company 605 (Vancouver) - Work in Progress
June 5 at 7pm & June 6 at 9pm @ The Dance Centre
Imago by Corpo Imago (Vancouver) - Western Canadian Premiere
EDGE 2: June 5 at 8:30pm & June 7 at 3pm @ SFU Woodward's
Casseiopia by All Bodies Dance (Vancouver) - World Premiere
Laborious Song by Daina Ashbee (Gabriola Island) - Western Canadian Premiere
Eighty Years by Jennifer Aoki (Vancouver) Work in Progress
EDGE 3: June 6 at 7pm & June 7 at 7pm @ Firehall Arts Centre
She Was Here by Vidya Kotamraju (Vancouver) - World Premiere
Char by Method Dance (Prince George) - World Premiere
June 8 at 7pm & June 9 at 9pm @ Firehall Arts Centre
Microphone Controller by Lukas Malkowski (Germany/Canada) – Western Canadian Premiere
June 9 at 7pm & June 10 at 7pm @ Firehall Arts Centre
Anne by Compagnie de la Citadelle (Toronto)
June 11 at 7pm & June 12 at 9pm @ Firehall Arts Centre
Where You Go by O.Dela Arts x musica intima (Vancouver)
EDGE 4: June 11 at 9pm & June 13 at 9pm @ Firehall Arts Centre
Wound by Modus Operandi (Vancouver)
Soft Animals by Dance//Novella (North Vancouver)
June 12 at 7pm & June 13 at 7pm @ Firehall Arts Centre
KIN & DOVES by Belle Spirale Dance Projects | Sid Chuckas (Vancouver) - World Premiere
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