Deadline: 25-Sep-2025
The Ontario Arts Council (OAC) Dance Projects program supports the creation, production, and presentation of live and virtual dance initiatives while fostering mentorship, training, and community development opportunities for the Ontario professional dance community.
The focus areas include creation to support artistic costs of choreography and development of new work with a showing of work or work-in-progress, production and presentation to support artistic, production and presentation costs of live or virtual dance for a public including co-productions, commissions, remounting, and tour preparation, series and festivals to support presentation costs of series and festivals that promote professional choreographers and dance companies, mentorship for Indigenous artists training in Indigenous dance practices including powwow and customary dance, and for Deaf artists and artists with disabilities, and training and community development initiatives by ad hoc groups, collectives and organizations including forums, workshops, master classes, equity and access initiatives, and other activities that benefit the professional dance community.
The program offers five categories of funding with maximum grant amounts of $5,000 for creation, $20,000 for production and presentation, $15,000 for series and festivals, $2,500 for mentorship of individuals, and $7,500 for training and community development. Applications are accepted twice yearly, with deadlines on March 27 and September 25, 2025, and results announced about four and a half months later.
Eligible applicants include professional dance artists who are Ontario residents, Ontario-based ad hoc groups and collectives of dance artists or arts professionals, incorporated not-for-profit dance companies, series, festivals, and other dance organizations with a head office in Ontario, as well as other not-for-profit organizations and collectives from other disciplines that demonstrate the engagement of appropriate professional dance expertise. Individual applications are reserved for Indigenous artists, Deaf artists, and artists with disabilities in the mentorship category.
Funding supports a range of eligible costs such as artists’ fees, mentor and teacher fees, production costs, marketing and promotion, administration, venue or studio rental, virtual platform costs, archival recording, travel, accommodation, childcare, and accessibility-related expenses. The program does not fund projects outside Ontario, graduate or thesis-related projects, multi-arts or touring projects, amateur or student productions, fundraising activities, or major capital expenditures.
The OAC requires that applicants to the Production and Presentation and Series and Festivals categories include a variety of revenue sources, as the program will not cover 100 percent of project costs. Due to high demand, grants awarded may be smaller than the requested amount.
For more information, visit Ontario Arts Council.
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