Dance

Fluid Fest 2025 Call for Submissions by Alberta Artists

Deadline for submissions April 9, 2025

Applicants will be notified of results by May 1, 2025

Submit your application HERE. Website HERE. Details below.

For the Fluid Fest, Calgary’s premiere art, contemporary performance and dance festival (and our sparkly petri dish of possibility) we sink into the interconnections between distinct local creative voices and artists coming our way across many kinds of borders.

For Fluid Fest 2025 we are seeking submissions from Alberta (Treaty 6 and 7) artists. We invite proposals for evening length and mixed-bill presentations as well as our infamous festival cabarets. We are also keen to know about developing site-specific and small scale venue projects for inclusion in season presentations.

Springboard Performance aims to feature many local artists that together celebrate the beautiful multiplicity of voices that is Alberta- from the wacky and experimental to the political and poignant, show us who you are and what you care about through your distinct artistic offering.

Priority to artists of underserved communities and those with a focus on community animation.

Fluid Fest 2025 will take place the last two weeks of October. Dates will be confirmed with contracted artists.

Cabaret Submission Details:

• Works 5 - 6 minutes in length
• Presentation in a small venue with 6-8 total acts
• Very low technical needs
• Emergent and developing works, work-in-progress or improvisationally-based pieces welcome. This is the place to develop ideas and test with creative colleagues and an audience
• 1-2 performances
• Artist fees $350-$500

Mixed Bill and Evening-Length Submission Details:

• Works 15 - 80 minutes in length
• Possible venues include DJD or cSpace theatres, the Erratics Indie Art Club or site-specific locations, featured with 0-3 other works
• Technical rider required, or at least specific notes on technical needs, set-up, strike and storage
• Preference to fully developed works that have not yet premiered in Calgary, or where significant development has been made since a previous presentation.
• At least 2 performances
• Artist fees for mixed-bills between $1500 - $2500
• Artist fees for evening-length between $4000-$5000

Submissions must be made through this Google form, requiring:

• A short piece description or proposal
• Why this piece and why the Fluid Fest is the right context for it
• An artist statement or CV
• Link(s) to video footage.
• For the mixed-bill and evening length submissions we will also require technical details.

Somewhere in America, an army of pre-teen competitive dancers navigate ambition, friendship and desire, as they plot to take over the world. And if their new routine is good enough, they’ll claw their way to the top at Nationals in Tampa Bay. Each plié and jeté puts them one step further from childhood and one step closer to discovering their own identities.

The Alberta premiere of Clare Barron’s Dance Nation follows a group of girls as they fight to find themselves and be heard in a world that wants to pin them against each other. In the midst of turmoil, these characters are confronted with an important question: what does it take to win? And what are they willing to sacrifice to become victorious?

It is intended for ages 13+. Visit SkirtsAfire.com for a list of content warnings. 

Dance Nation is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com

March 6 - 16 at the Gateway Theatre, Edmonton
Tickets and more information at skirtsafire.com/dance-nation