BRIDGE PROJECT 2026 APPLICATIONS
BRIDGE PROJECT APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN
DUE SEPT 1 | NEW THIS YEAR Velocity adopts an expansive definition of the word emerging. For us the word encapsulates emerging relationships between artist and institution, new choreographic partnerships, re-emerging into the scene, emerging into their first choreographic work in their professional career, and more. Whether you are new to Seattle, new to dance making, or are a well known or seasoned Seattle artist who wants to explore a new idea and connect with new audiences, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out if you’d like to talk about how this program reframe could mean Bridge is for you!
Velocity’s Emerging Creative Incubator, Bridge Project, is a platform where Seattle based choreographers are able to build or re-establish a relationship with Velocity and its audiences. Every year, this five week residency offers three choreographers up to 50 hours of rehearsal space each to research and present a new 20 minute dance work at 12th Ave Arts. Velocity provides each choreographer with an artist stipend, rehearsal space, creative mentorship, and administrative support during the research and presentation processes.
We will be selecting three movement-based artists who have not made choreographic work in Velocity’s incubator programs (Bridge Project, OUT THERE, Co-Productions, Made in Seattle, CAiR) in the last five years. Ideal applicants are interested in connection, mentorship (both as mentor and mentee), and challenging/deepening their choreographic process towards local emergence or re-emergence. One of the three positions in the cohort is reserved for an Emerging Artist who has been making choreographic work for three years or less.
If you have questions or would like to speak to someone about your application, please contact Shane Donohue: shane@velocitydancecenter.org
No Girls No Masters, Bridge Project 2025, Photo by Jim Coleman
SELECTED CHOREOGRAPHERS WILL RECIEVE
- 50 hrs of rehearsal space (Valued at $1500)
- Artist Stipend of $1500
- Lighting design by Velocity technical staff
- Mentorship and production support from Velocity staff and Curating Artist in Residence
- 4 in-person performances that are fully produced
- Documentation + Photos of the new work
VELOCITY'S CURATORIAL STATEMENT
This statement guides how we make choices and how we invite artists into collaborations with us. It’s a living commitment—evolving as we do.
At Velocity, we support dance driven by experimentation—not defined by a specific style or aesthetic, but by a commitment to research, risk, and inquiry. Our curatorial approach is rooted in our values: artist leadership, equity and inclusivity, leading with relationship, curiosity and rigor, and liberation for all. We support artists that work to shift harmful or outdated norms. We prioritize depth, clarity, and process over product. To us, excellence means thoughtfulness, innovation, and resilience.
We are drawn to artists who experiment with how dance is made, shared, and experienced. We want to know how you’re working not only with movement, but with process, collaboration, and engagement with intended communities. We seek artists researching deeply within their movement form, considering the social and political realities shaping their work, and the many ways performance can communicate and have impact—before, during, and after the show. We’re also interested in artists reimagining how work gets made: experimenting with new strategies, challenging models of authorship and power, and reshaping how we plan, fund, and talk about dance.
At Velocity, we curate to cultivate. We see artist development as a relationship that grows over time. Our programs are designed to support this ongoing process, allowing us to build trust and understanding, deepen our collaboration, and expand the scope of our shared work. We believe meaningful partnerships require mutual investment, shared risk, and shared reward. When we curate, we’re not only thinking about what’s ready now—we’re also thinking about how we can grow with an artist so we’re ready to take on larger, more ambitious projects together when the time is right.
Our decision-making is collaborative and led by artists. Curation at Velocity is led by the Executive Director and the programming staff, and often includes the wider Velocity staff and invited community artists, who serve either as project-based panelists or more long-term advisors. We prioritize hiring administrators who are artists themselves, so that our processes remain artist-led.
CRITERIA
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Criteria |
Description |
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Proposal demonstrates that the artist’s work is emerging based on Velocity’s expansive idea of the term. The artist must be a resident of the Greater Seattle Area and available for all dates listed. |
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Proposal articulates a research concept that is compelling and clearly translates to a movement based presentation within a performance and shows artistic alignment with Velocity’s Curatorial Statement. |
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Proposal demonstrates that this project would provide clear benefit to the artist’s development. |
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Proposal articulates how an investment in this project will benefit the wider Seattle community. Projects interested in hosting an audition will be scored higher on community impact. |
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The proposal clearly articulates an embodied research concept that culminates in a new 20-minute work that is achievable, given both the artist’s experience and skills and the time and resources available. |
Within Criteria 1 –
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- “emerging” – Velocity adopts an expansive definition of the word emerging. For us the word encapsulates emerging relationships between artist and institution, new choreographic partnerships, re-emerging into the scene, emerging into their first choreographic work in their professional career, and more.
- “Greater Seattle Area” – For the Bridge Project, we mean Greater Seattle Metropolitan area, which includes King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties. This project is specifically aiming to benefit residents of this region, so you must live and/or work in this area to be eligible for the Bridge Project.
- “available for all dates” – We mean that you are available to be present either physically or in some cases virtually for the entire duration of the dates listed. Selected applicants will set their rehearsal schedule during the residency, but they must be available for all meetings, technical/dress rehearsals and performances.
Within Criteria 5 –
- “Feasibility” – Bridge Project is a 5-week opportunity to create a short work to be presented alongside two other short works within a live theater context. We encourage you to stretch the limits of what is possible, but your proposal will be strongest if you help us understand how this proposal will exist within this context, and consider what is achievable given the resources and time available to you. We see the Bridge project as a catalyst for ideas, and many alums go on to expand their work beyond the original scope of the first performance, so keep in mind that this first iteration does not need to be the final product, but just the first premiere of your larger idea.
Application workshop 1 / JUL 18 | 12 - 1 PM PST (Highly Recommended)
CLICK HERE to sign up
Application workshop 2 / AUG 14 | 6 - 730 pm PST (Highly Recommended)
CLICK HERE to sign up
IMPORTANT DATES
SELECTED CHOREOGRAPHERS MUST BE AVAILABLE FOR ALL OF THE FOLLOWING:
- Fri, OCT 10 | 12-1:30pm – Production Meeting about Budget, Funding, Rehearsal/Audition Collaboration
- Fri, OCT 24 | 12-1:30pm – Production Meeting- Framing, talking about your work and contextualizing.
- JAN 6-FEB 1 | Artists will schedule their own times with Creative Producer no less than 50 hours for the 4 weeks of rehearsal (12.5 hours a week)– Intensive residency @ 12th Ave Arts
- Wed, JAN 14 | 5-7PM – Art Talk Meeting @ 12th Ave Arts
- Wed, JAN 21 | 5-7PM – Art Talk Meeting @ 12th Ave Arts
- Sat, JAN 24 | 12-4PM – Production showing @ 12th Ave Arts
- 1 hour for each artist – showing and then discussion with designers
- All artists present for each artist
- Wed, JAN 28 | 5-7PM – Art Talk Meeting @ 12th Ave Arts
- FEB 2-3 | TBD – 2-hr tech rehearsal @ 12th Ave Arts
- Tues, FEB 3 | 6pm – 3-hr tech run @ 12th Ave Arts
- Wed, FEB 4 | 6pm – 3-hr dress rehearsal @ 12th Ave Arts
- FEB 5-7 | 7:30pm [Saturday 2pm + 7:30pm] – Performances @ 12th Ave Arts
Art Talk Meetings – These are casual meetings with the artists in the Bridge Cohort and Velocity Staff. These are moments to ask questions about their work and generally get to know each other better.
Curator Bios
AMY O’NEAL, Curating Artist in residence
Shane Donohue, creative producer
Tracey Wong, Artist
Incoming curating artist in residence
Amy O’Neal is a dancer, choreographer, curator, and dance educator. A sought-after artist for over two decades, she teaches and performs nationally and internationally and choreographs for live performance, dance film, music video and virtual reality. From 2000 to 2010, along with musician and composer Zeke Keeble, O’Neal co-directed locust, an experimental multidisciplinary video, music, and contemporary dance company. Inspired by hip-hop culture and experimental cinema, locust‘s work created social commentary with humor and heavy beats. From 2010 until now, she creates experimental dance work merging Black social dance practices from hip-hop and house culture and contemporary dance while directly addressing race, gender and the sampling nature of innovation. She premiered her first evening-length solo in 2012 where she examined her influences, questioned her relationship to Blackness as a white woman, and paid homage to her teachers and dance heroes. As a practicing guest of Black dance culture, she has participated in experimental and all-styles battles, co-organized and co-produced Seattle House Dance Project, and developed hip-hop curriculum for the University of Washington. Her passion and research meet at the intersection of the hip-hop, house and contemporary dance communities. Within this intersection she explores the complex differences, nuances and layers of hybridized movement vocabularies. For example, in her eighth evening-length work, Opposing Forces, O’Neal and five Seattle-based B-Boys explored fears of feminine qualities in our culture through the hyper-masculine form of Breaking. Opposing Forces toured from 2014 to 2017, and an award-winning documentary about the show called How it Feels premiered in 2019. City Arts Magazine wrote, “O’Neal synthesizes complex themes with a cohesive, penetrating aesthetic. Her latest work transcends disciplines and boundaries. It is a bridge between worlds, a translator for opposing points of view, a force for good.”
O’Neal is a grantee of Creative Capital, National Performance Network, National Dance Project, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Artist Trust, and 4 Culture. She is a two-time Artist Trust Fellow, DanceWEB/ImpulsTanz scholar and Herb Alpert Award nominee with a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts, where she was awarded the first Distinguished Alumni Award in 2014. While at Cornish, she danced and toured with the Pat Graney Company from 1998 to 2001and Scott/Powell Performance from 1997-2004. . O’Neal has been an Artist in Residence at Bates Dance Festival, Headlands Center for the Arts, the US/Japan Choreographer’s Exchange, and Velocity Dance Center. Since 2001, she has worked both on stage and screen with musician/comedian, Reggie Watts, former band leader for “Late Late Show with James Corden.” She has improvised with Watts in NYC comedy clubs, toured together in original stage shows, choreographed his iconic 2010 Comedy Central video F…, S… Stack, and in 24 hours, created an evening-length dance/music show with him. Along with NYC based artist Ani Taj, she co-choreographed Runnin’, a virtual reality music video for Watt’s Wajatta project with electronic music artist John Tejada. Runnin’ premiered at the New Frontier VR showcase at Sundance Film Festival and won Best Interactive at SXSW in 2019. Also in 2019, she choreographed a virtual reality project for Procter & Gamble promoting more diversity in productions for the advertising and film industries called Look Again which premiered at Cannes Lions Festival in France.
After 20 years in Seattle, O’Neal relocated to Los Angeles in 2016 and started The Rhythm Assembly, a freestyle techniques class merging the social and exploratory natures of hip-hop and contemporary dance at Ryan Heffington’s studio, The Sweat Spot, which closed in 2020. She joined the faculty of the University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance in 2018 where she teaches hip-hop, house and freestyle techniques, composition and improvisation, contemporary dance, and lectures on Black social dance history, practice, and media literacy. She feels the most at peace when she can embody her full human experience as an artist and is passionate about creating space for others to do the same.
Shane Donohue is a Seattle based dance artist currently working as co-top with Drama Tops. He works closely with zoe | juniper as a dancer and rehearsal director. He has set work with, and for, Zoe Scofield at the University of Washington, Strictly Seattle, Whim W’him, Bard Summerscape’s production of “Le Roi Arthus” in 2021. His work has been seen in Next Fest Northwest. He also works as an artistic collaborator and performer with Kim Lusk, Kinesis Project, Scott Shoemaker’s “:PROBED”, and BenDeLaCreme and Jinkx Monsoon’s Holiday Special in the live, national tour and on Hulu. Shane graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point with a BA in Dance.
Tracey Wong 黃麗塋 (she/her) is a Teochew-American interdisciplinary dance artist that lights up and inspires spaces through her art. She was born and raised in Seattle, WA in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, raised by her loving parents who found refuge here from Vietnam. One of her purposes is to help us remember to play, connect with our intuition, and for our bodies to genuinely express to heal and to connect to our humanity.
Tracey’s global presence in the dance world is marked by her multiple hats as a competitor, judge, teacher, and performer. Most recently, she won the title of Ladies of Hip Hop 20th Anniversary – Waacking Champion and Rhythm Warehouse – Freestyle Champion in New York City. In the same year, she became the Vancouver Street Dance Festival – Wh/aacking Champion for her second time in Vancouver, BC.
In 2022, Tracey was honored as a Legend in the Pacific Northwest Kiki Ballroom scene, recognizing her contributions to Ballroom over the years. Her dedication was also celebrated by the Seattle House Dance Project in 2017 and Seattle Dance Crush in 2021, highlighting her impact on the Waacking community and the broader Seattle dance scene. Most recently, in 2024, she was celebrated at Full Circle, a movement showcase at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, for her positive impact on the community.
As an MC, Tracey has infused events with her signature warmth and enthusiasm, from Massive Monkees Day (Seattle, WA) to Vancouver Street Dance Festival (Vancouver, BC). Her gift for creating an inviting and joyful atmosphere extends to her work as DJ Mac Tray, where her eclectic sets have energized dance scenes around the Pacific Northwest, including events like Chinatown/International District Block Party, Columbia City Beatwalk, Azn Glo at Neumos, Deep In The Underground (Vancouver, BC), and Rebound Kiki Ball (Portland, OR). Her deepest joy about spinnin’ is sharing a vibration that can bring people together to dance, heal, and enjoy freely.
In 2023, she co-founded and currently collaborates with her people at The Beacon: Massive Monkees Studio to host End of Term Battles, furthering their collective commitment to honoring cultures, communities, and spaces of self-expression. Tracey currently teaches Waacking/Whacking/ Punking and Honey n Sensualitea at The Beacon, a place she considers her home.
She would not be here today without the support of her loved ones and elders that have paved the way.
The next Curating Artist in Residence will be Announced in fall 2025