On March 11, at the opening night reception of the Vancouver International Dance Festival, Lisa Gelley was awarded the 2015 VIDF Choreographic Award. Gelley is a performer, teacher and choreographer in contemporary and urban dance in her hometown of Vancouver and co-director of the 605 Collective. “It is a rare thing in our field to be acknowledged at the earlier stages of our careers, and so I am incredibly honoured to have been selected for this year’s VIDF Choreographic Award,” says Gelley, who also thanked the festival and its founders, Jay Hirabayashi and Barbara Bourget, for creating the opportunity, as well as her main collaborator Josh Martin and the many other creative partners she works alongside. “It is the overlapping of [all of my dance] roles that continues to inspire my current practice, and together they have accumulated into the beginnings of what I hope will be a long choreographic career.”
The cash award of $2500 is given every two years to an outstanding emerging choreographer and alternates every other year with the Larisa Fayad Memorial Grant in Lighting Design. The Choreographic Award is made possible by donations to VIDF’s Endowment Fund (administered by the Vancouver Foundation) from individual donors, and matching funds from the Department of Canadian Heritage. In addition, one dollar from every VIDF membership sold (it is a member-driven organization) is allocated to the VIDF Endowment Fund.
Tagged: Awards, Contemporary, Uncategorized, BC , Vancouver