Artist Residency Program

Untellable Movement Theatre, in collaboration with Lynn Panting Dance, is excited to announce our Artist Residency Program for 2025. We are seeking innovative projects that align with our commitment to accessible professional dance and movement theatre, site-specific performances and digital dance.

What We Offer

  • Studio Space: Access to a professional studio to develop and refine your artistic vision.

  • Mentorship: Guidance from experienced mentors to support your creative journey.

  • Technical and Administrative Support: Resources to help you manage and realize your project.

Residency Details

  • Duration: June to September 2025

  • Residency Fee: $2,500

  • Discretionary Budget: $1,000 for artistic support, which can be used to collaborate with additional dancers, artistic collaborators, mentors, or outside experts.

Our Mandate

Untellable’s Residency Program is dedicated to supporting:

  • Accessible Dance: Projects that make dance and movement theatre accessible to diverse audiences.

  • Broad Appeal: Works that resonate with a wide range of viewers.

  • Site-Specific Performances: Dance in unexpected places, bringing movement to unique and unconventional spaces.

  • Digital Dance: Exploring the intersection of dance and digital media to create innovative experiences.

  • Community Connection: Engaging with the community through outreach and collaborative activities.

We are looking for artists and projects that embrace and reflect these values. If your work aligns with our mandate, we encourage you to apply and join us in creating meaningful, accessible dance experiences.

We encourage movers at every stage of their practice to apply.

Artists in Residency are subject to Untellable’s Best Practices.

Applications are open on April 1, 2025.

Untellable recognizes the need for further equity, diversity and inclusion in dance, movement theatre, and trans-disciplinary performance. Untellable strives to recognize and undo structural inequities, to be inclusive and to support diversity in programming. We welcome and encourage applications from artists who may come from communities that are historically on the margins or are traditionally under-represented in cultural institutions.  

2025

Residency

Applications open April 1, 2025.

The deadline is April 29, 2025.

Application Checklist

  • Current CV

  • Video Links to work

  • Statement of Interest (Why this residency? Why now? Why Untellable?)

  • Statement of Project (What are you looking to do with us? How can we help support you?)

If possible we encourage applicants to answer our “statement of interest” and “statement of project” questions via a short video. Written submissions are also welcome, 750 words maximum per question.

Applications and accompanying links must be emailed to untellablemovementtheatre@gmail.com by 11:00pm (NST), April 29, 2025.

Untellable Movement Theatre transitioned from the Starting Point Mentorship Program to a more comprehensive Artist in Residency Program in 2022. This change emerged from extensive conversations with our community, which highlighted a significant need for dance studio space and support for building creative practice, over creative product.

“ So much of our lives as creatives are dictated by strict rules and deliverables to funders, programmers, etc. The freedom and joy I experienced in this open creative process as a result of the trust Untellable placed in me and my work was valuable beyond words, and without a doubt led to some of the most rewarding and valuable explorations I have experienced in the studio in a long time.”

-Kai Bryan, Artist in Residence 2023

Past Residencies

Alex Fehr 2022

Untellable was delighted to support emerging choreographer, Alex Fehr, in the next phase of his movement journey. Known as an accomplished technical performer, Alex spent the summer exploring site-specific work, as well as digital dance with collaborators Andrya Duff and Chris Hibbs.

Originally from Regina Saskatchewan, Alex studied across Canada training extensively in classical ballet, contemporary and tap. Upon graduating from school, Alex danced for Minnesota Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Theatre Vanemuine, Latvian National Ballet and Kittiwake Dance Theatre.

Kai Bryan 2023

Kai Bryan is an award-winning visual artist and drag clown. Kai's movement practice includes aerial circus, dance, contortion, and clowning, all of which become tools for decadent, serious, and silly drag performances. As an installation artist and garment designer, Kai is keen to explore the ways these movement repertoires interact with their environment. Kai is a regular host and performer with many organizations and festivals including Lawnya Vawnya, Neighbourhood Dance Works, Wonderbolt Circus, and the St. John's International Circusfest. They are the recipient of the VANL-CARFAC Emerging Artist Award (2014) and Milestone Award (2021), and of grants from the City of St. John's, ArtsNL, and the Canada Council. Kai adores collaborative practice, and is a member of St. John's most bizarre drag collective the Phlegm Fatales. Kai is inspired by science fiction, horror cinema, and aquatic creatures.

Through the Untellable residency, Kai worked with Robyn Breen, Josh Murphy, and Sara Tilley to explore and develop movement repertoires inspired by their favourite shapeshifter: the octopus. Kai will be workshopping this movement towards a larger, multi-media/installation piece that uses the octopus as a poetic symbol for trans experience.

photo of Kai Bryan by Scott Humber

Keely Whitelaw 2024

Keely is an aerialist who took a back route into artistic movement through a life of sport. To make sense of the untellable meaning she finds above the ground, she is engaged in doctoral research of kinesthetic consciousness to find pockets of expression in technically restrained movement.

During this residency, Keely worked to translate her aerial and climbing sensibilities to more horizontal planes. Specifically, the craggy coast that has been moving her since her recent return to the island. She worked with various film techniques to capture diverging and converging perspectives, hoping to come closer to touching what it is to move with this raucous coast.