Prix de la Danse de Montréal makes place for digital broadcasting

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Montreal, April 27, 2021 – The Prix de la Danse de Montréal (PDM) announces new criteria intended to revive the creation and inventiveness of its milieu, to awaken the imagination of artists and dance presenters and to create new opportunities for creative and technological exploration.

Broader Criteria in Times of Pandemic

If theaters have been closed for most of the year, dance creations and their presentations must live on! The 2021 PDM has adapted its criteria for this pandemic period in order to make room for digital works and works presented via digital technologies, in addition to those presented live in theaters. Thus, to revive dance and adapt to our new reality, the PDM will accept different modes of digital broadcasting, such as installation pieces, videographic and cinematographic works. These expanded criteria can be summed up in three points:

Exceptionally, the 2020-2021 season is to be extended from June 30, 2021, to August 31, 2021. The award ceremony will still take place in November, as usual.
A Quebec artist who has created or danced a digital work – Web production, film, multimedia work, etc. – broadcasted during the 2020-2021 season is eligible for the various PDM awards.
An international artist who has created or danced a digital work presented by a Montreal presenter/broadcaster during the 2020-2021 season is eligible for the Grand Prix de la danse de Montréal, as is a local artist.

All dance works that were presented either live or through a digital technology are therefore automatically eligible, but can still be deposited on the PDM website to facilitate the jury’s work.

The Drive to Persist, Create and Present

The PDM hopes that creators will be inspired to mobilize their teams to make exceptional works, and that presenters will support these efforts to make this end of season bloom artistically. The PDM wishes to encourage inventive forms and partnerships that have yet remained unexplored. After this challenging past year, artists and audiences alike deserve to be part of a movement of creative effervescence, in which no proposal is too small or too big, because what is important is to create and to present dance works.

“With these new criteria, the Prix de la Danse aims to stimulate unexpected creations and collaborations. We look forward with enthusiasm and encourage choreographers and dancers to create, together, films or any other type of multimedia work. We also want to motivate dance presenters, who have seen their theaters closed over the past year, to forge new partnerships for creation and presentation through the technologies that we know or that we are discovering.” – Marie Chouinard, President, Les Prix de la Danse de Montréal