2024 COHORT
Performance Research Project (PRP) is a mentorship and development platform for early to mid-career dance professionals led by Lesley Telford. PRP offers a small cohort daily training and creative research processes with personalized mentorship attuned to the goals and perspectives of each individual. The focus is on creative personal growth, networking, career development, and building new collaborative relationships with local choreographers. PRP provides a space for dance artists to connect, learn, question, experiment, collaborate, perform, and grow with the goal of developing a sustainable artistic career.
The Fall Session 2025 includes:
• 10 weeks, 4 hours/day
• Personalized mentorship throughout, including 2 private mentorship meetings
• Choreographic research with Arash Khakpour, Anya Saugstad and Lesley Telford
• Guest workshop with award-winning Indigenous artist Margaret Grenier
• Professional photo shoot and video recordings (*optional)
SCHEDULE
September 22nd-November 28th, 2025
Monday-Friday
10am-3pm
CLASS 10-11:30 am daily
M/W/F in partnership with TSV
T/Th led by Lesley Telford/ Inverso Productions
CREATION 12-3 pm daily
PAST SEASONS PRP (images)
The Fall Session 2025 includes:
• 10 weeks, 4 hours/day
• Personalized mentorship throughout, including 2 private mentorship meetings
• Choreographic research with Arash Khakpour, Anya Saugstad and Lesley Telford
• Guest workshop with award-winning Indigenous artist Margaret Grenier
• Professional photo shoot and video recordings (*optional)
SCHEDULE
September 22nd-November 28th, 2025
Monday-Friday
10am-3pm
CLASS 10-11:30 am daily
M/W/F in partnership with TSV
T/Th led by Lesley Telford/ Inverso Productions
CREATION 12-3 pm daily
PAST SEASONS PRP (images)
- Collaborations with Ballet BC, Chor Leoni , Bard on the Beach, Pi Theatre, Inverso Productions, Mascall Dance, Vancouver Film School
- Creation processes with Serge Bennathan, Noam Gagnon, Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, Idan Cohen, Heather Myers, Vanessa Goodman, David Raymond, Livona Ellis, Brandon Alley, Rachel Prince and Lesley Telford
- Workshops and classes led by Crystal Pite, Renee Segouin and Eric Beauchesne / Kidd Pivot, Yvan Dubrueil / Nederlands Dans Theater, Clyde Archer/LEV Sharon Eyal, Khoudia Toure, Christophe Dozzi (NL), Yannick Bouquin (France), Sarah Reynolds (NL), Ayman Harper/ Forsythe repertoire, Marla Waal/ ELDOA, , Béatrice Larrivée/Gaga
- Improvisation events and improvisation research
- Choreographic workshops with participating dancers
- Repertoire by Crystal Pite, Jiri Kylian, William Forsythe, Johan Inger, Medhi Walerski, Sharon Eyal, Lesley Telford
- Dancers have worked with actors, writers, musicians, opera singers and movement sensor technology
Testimonials
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Performance Research Project is filling a gap within the dance world. It offers time and space for young professionals between contracts and dancers transitioning out of training institutions to create and research, by providing a sense of continuity with daily training and rehearsal.
Steph Cyr / Independent Artist
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PRP provided me with a professional, intimate and experimental setting to dance during a transitional period and has been monumental for my growth as an artist. Under Lesley's mentorship I feel I’ve become a more open-minded, versatile and confident dancer and as a result I have become more hireable in the current dance world. I will carry the skills I have acquired during this time into the subsequent phases of my career.
Kenzie Brousson
PRP 2018-19 / Stadttheater Flensburg,Germany
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Building a network is an invaluable skill as a freelance artist and through the program I have forged relationships with emerging and established artists in the Vancouver dance community and internationally, laying the groundwork for future collaborations. The personal mentorship and guidance has proved invaluable in helping me navigate a pivotal moment in my career and has fuelled momentum for me to continue down this new path as an independent artist.
Kiera Hill
PRP 2020-21 Independent artist, formerly with Ballet BC and Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal
PRP 2020-21 Independent artist, formerly with Ballet BC and Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal
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Alumni
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Alumni have gone on to work with local and international companies and have created their own choreographic projects with careers as independent artists.
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In Canada
Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal Ballet Edmonton 605 Collective Inverso Productions/ Lesley Telford Action at a Distance/ Vanessa Goodman Vision Impure/ Noam Gagnon Les Productions Figlio/ Serge Bennathan Wen Wei Dance TWObigsteps collective Falling Company Rachel Meyers Mascall Dance/ Jennifer Mascall The Darlings CAMP Project20 / Donald Sales The Response/ Amber Funk Barton |
Internationally
Luzerne Tanz Theater, Switzerland Mainfranken Theatre, Germany Theatre Pforzheim, Germany Theatre Augsburg, Germany Theater Nordhausen, Germany Staattheater Flensburg, Germany Staattheater Hannover, Germany Compañia Contemporanea de San Martin, Argentina |