FADO E-BULLETIN
February 2026

1. FADO CALL FOR CURATORIAL PROJECTS 2026–2027
   LAST CALL MARCH 1, 2026
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE FADO

NOTE: If you have already submitted to the call, you will be notified at the end of March 2026.

FADO is seeking curated performance art projects to be presented in Toronto during our 2026–2027 season. We want to fund and support innovative and experimental curatorial projects of varying sizes—from small-scale projects focused on a single artist/theme to larger project concepts/series presenting the work of multiple artists. You can propose a project that requires more research and development (including finding the artists you want to work with) before being presented at a later time. Alternatively, you can propose a project that is ready to go.

Curatorial projects focused on performance art/artists/processes/form including but not limited to:

• Projects designed for gallery/presentational works
• Projects in site-specific contexts or public space
• Multi-disciplinary or performance-adjacent projects
• Research projects with a public-facing or audience engagement element
• Projects that look at performance for podcast, camera or on-line platforms
• Projects that work within specific audience or community
• Series within a series or one-off event etc.

Projects will be chosen based on their inventiveness and experimental character AND for their attention to the practicalities of execution/feasibility within FADO’s presentation capacities and resources.

This is a call for Toronto-based and Canadian curators. Projects are to be realized and presented in Toronto. FADO cannot support projects from international curators who wish to present international artists in Toronto. However, a Canadian curator may propose a project that includes an artist/project from outside of Canada. Project proposals that are designed for dissemination online / virtual platforms will be considered from international and Canadian curators.

Proposals will be accepted until March 1, 2026.

MORE INFORMATION on how to submit, what we are looking for, and more.

2. FADO CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST JOIN OUR BOARD!
   DATE ROLLING CALL
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE FADO

Call for Expressions of Interest: Join FADO’s Board of Directors!

Your favourite small-but-mighty artist-run centre for performance art is looking for enthusiastic people to join our Board of Directors.

The performance art community in Toronto is pretty small. Sometimes it feels like we all know each other. FADO doesn’t usually seek expressions of interest to join our organization as a public call but this time we are hoping to toss the net farther than we have in the past. Instead of expanding our Board from the inside out, we want to grow from the outside in. If you are interested in working with FADO and joining our active and passionate Board of Directors, we want YOU to let US know!

You do not need to be a performance artist yourself to join our Board, but being passionate about performance art is key. Our priority is to find people to join the Board who live in Toronto; however, if you are based in Canada and would like to explore joining the Board as a member-at-large, please feel free to contact us.

We are also looking for people who can contribute their skills and experience to the Board in the following categories:

• Accounting, fundraising, finance
• Event coordination
• Marketing, communications
• Strategic Planning
• and more!

Expressions of interest will be accepted on a rolling basis. Please send us an email, detailing your relevant artistic and/or professional experience and why you would like to join FADO Performance Art Centre’s Board of Directors to info@performanceart.ca

3. EVENT PUSH INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ARTS FESTIVAL
   DATE JANUARY 22–FEBRUARY 8, 2026
   LOCATION VANCOUVER, CANADA
   SOURCE PUSH

PuSh International Performing Arts Festival

January 22–February 8, 2026
Vancouver, Canada

For more than two decades, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival has been BC’s signature, mid-winter cultural event delivering audacious, innovative, contemporary works of live arts by acclaimed local, national, and international artists. Curated, multidisciplinary, international in scope—the festival animates culture and accelerates social change with performance and multimedia projects that embrace creative risk and share a sense of cultural urgency.

The 2026 PuSh Festival is an invitation to the culturally fearless—to those ready to step into fresh futurities and the expansive possibilities of live performance. In a time when dominant ways of knowing and being are collapsing into the polycrisis they have created, the artists gathered here embody ancestral and emergent ways of living, understanding, relating, and dreaming.

ARTISTS
Archa – Centre of Documentary Theatre (Czech Republic)
Cole Lewis/Patrick Blenkarn/Sam Ferguson (Canada)
L’École Parallèle Imaginaire (France)
Jerahuni Movement Factory (Zimbabwe)
Akpik Theatre / Theaturtle (Canada/Greenland)
Creepy Boys/So.Glad Arts (Canada)
Plastic Orchid Factory/James Gnam (Salish Territories)
Lukas Avendaño (Mexico)
Renae Shadler/Roland Walter (Germany/Australia)
Tanya Tagaq (Canada)
Tiziano Cruz (Argentina)

MORE INFORMATION

4. EVENT RHUBARB! 47
   DATE FEBRUARY 4–7, 2026
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE BUDDIES IN BAD TIMES THEATRE

Rhubarb! 47

February 4–7, 2026
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander Street, Toronto

Each year Rhubarb! invites international touring work with major impact across the globe in terms of queer representation, to present in dialogue with the festival’s new Canadian works. This year, critically acclaimed touring work TESTO from UK artist Wet Mess joins the lineup. Four nights, over eighteen artists, and each night, for only $20 per night, you get to witness a variety of performances. If you get a ticket to a showing on Friday or Saturday — you also get access to Rhubarb! After dark!

ARTISTS
Aiden Robert Bruce + Rachel Rusonik + Sara Starling
Aliyah Aziz
Bronwyn Keough
Cass Cervi + James Jordan (Bad Machine)
Dasha Plett + Gislina Patterson (We Quit Theatre)
Eris Thomas with Other Hearts
Jessie Walker + Oliver Pitschner + Sophie Parisi
jonnie lombard + Jenna Geen
Katie Clarke + D. Halpern
Lucy Coren + Nevaeh May
Ludmylla Reis
Macarena Coronado
Morgan-Paige Melbourne + En Tze Loh (GRRRL SPELLS)
River Oliveira + Max Cameron Fearon

There are LIMITED door tickets, we highly encourage you to purchase ahead of time.

MORE INFORMATION

5. EVENT OUGHTISM MULTIMODAL SEMINAR SERIES
   DATE FEBRUARY 5–7, 2026
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE THE BLACKWOOD

Oughtism: Multimodal Seminar Series
Hosted by Christine Shaw and Steven Eastwood

February 5–7, 2026
The Blackwood, University of Toronto Mississauga

Oughtism is a seminar series which expands the Blackwood Gallery’s 2025–2026 exploration of neurodivergent doing, feeling and being, and sets out to conjure linguistic and embodied possibilities for being that resist neurotypical logic. Awarded the prestigious 2025 UTM-JHI Annual Seminar, Oughtism will explore Autistic politics and perception, expands choreographies, and chart ways towards embodying neurodiverse modalities that refuse normative logics.

The seminar series will begin with a screening of The Neurocultures Collective’s critically acclaimed, feature-length film: The Stimming Pool, followed by a discussion between visiting members of the Collective. In the days that follow, a series of keynote talks by disability and cinema studies scholar, Janet Harbord; media studies scholar, M. Remi Yergeau; and performance, and disability, studies scholar, Leon J Hilton, will be complemented by experiential learning, movement, and co-creation workshops with editor and poet, Chris Martin; neuroqueer choreographer, Aby Watson; and The Neurocultures.

MORE INFORMATION

6. CALL FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST TRANSFORM THE TRAIL
   DEADLINE DATE FEBRUARY 6, 2026
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE THE BENTWAY

The Bentway Conservancy
Call for Expressions of Interest: Transform the Trail

Application deadline: February 6, 2026 at 11:59pm EST
Public presentation: mid-December, 2026 through February 2027

The Bentway Conservancy is pleased to announce a Call for Expressions of Interest for the return of its Transform the Trail program, which seeks an artistic collaborator to respond to both The Bentway site and our relationships to the winter season. This program supports a new, temporary commission that animates The Bentways iconic figure-eight ice-skating trail and its surrounding footprint beneath the Gardiner Expressway. The goals of the commission are to encourage artistic experimentation in the public realm, celebrate the unique creative potential of a Toronto winter, enhance the ice-skating experience at The Bentway, and foster meaningful connections during the coldest months of the year. The Bentway invites artists, designers, and collectives to submit an expression of interest for a temporary public art project to be exhibited at The Bentway skate trail from December 2026 to February 2027.

MORE INFORMATION

7. CALL FOR ARTISTS LIVE ART IRELAND – AISTEAROIR
   DEADLINE DATE FEBRUARY 6, 2026
   LOCATION TIPPERARY, IRELAND
   SOURCE LIVE ART IRELAND

Artists’ Call Out: Art Ireland – Aistearoir

Aistearoir is the Irish word for journey. This is a curator–artist mentorship. Six curators have been chosen to participate in a developmental residency from April 8–12, 2026. The six curators are: Deej Fabyc, Diana Bamimeke, Viviana Checchia, Valeria Ceregini, Karla Sanchez, and Marysia Wieckiewicz. During the residency, the curators will decide which artist they would like to work with and mentor throughout the year in whatever means of communication and timeframe they choose. An artist residency will take place in August in Live Art Ireland from August 30–September 24 September which the chosen artists (mentees) will attend. These artists will then showcase the work they have developed in the VOID Gallery in Derry from December 9–15.

If you would like to apply to work with one of the curators, please visit our website to learn more about applying, and about our other residencies.

MORE INFORMATION

8. PERFORMANCE OPEN CALL SILT: FRESHWATER
   DEADLINE DATE FEBRUARY 9, 2026
   LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
   SOURCE CHRISTOPHER PETERSEN

Performance Open Call: SILT: FRESHWATER
Applications due February 9, 2026

SILT: FRESHWATER is an evening of performance. Through a public open call, four artists are each provided with 15 minutes to present an action, event, performance. Silt was originally started for dance, movement, and performance artists; however, it is open to everyone regardless of artistic or personal identifications. The aim of SILT: FRESHWATER is to provide participants with an accessible low stakes stage for experimentation and expression.

SILT: FRESHWATER
Winchester Street Theatre
April 1 & 2, 2026

MORE INFORMATION

9. GET TO KNOW RESIDUE & RADIO: RESIDUE
   NEXT DATE FEBRUARY 10, 2026
   LOCATION VARIOUS, THE NETHERLANDS
   SOURCE PAE

In March last year, we started the Performance Art Work Group RESIDUE, where we share and discuss our approaches to documentation. The group currently consists of about six core members and other members/guests with who we meet once a month in person (physical) or online.

Our last in person gathering took place on the 9th of December in WORM with Frans van Lent sharing how publishing a work online can be the moment it materialises, rather than a record of something that happened elsewhere. Texts, manuals, imagined actions, and instructions become performative sites. After, we discussed the text One Performance is Many Performances – Performing Performance Embodied Knowledge written by ieke Trinks in 2017. The discussion focused on questions of neutrality, authorship, embodiment, memory, and how performance continues after it is done. Participants reflected on how storytelling, text, and documentation can activate performances differently, creating layered experiences rather than fixed records.

Our first meeting of this year took place online on the 9th of January. Hosted by Nina Boas and Kirsten Heshusius we were involved in an interesting exercise discussing images taken after the performance maintaining the anonymity of the artist in the image. The images promoted curiosity, more questions raised by close observation of each, not only about the content of the performance, but also about locations, artistic presence and public/audience presence.

Our next gathering will be on February 10 from 11am–2:30pm in person (physical). Location TBD. Possibilities are Amsterdam, The Hague, or Rotterdam.

In addition, we produced a monthly radio show for Radio WORM under the title RESIDUE – Audible Remains of Performance in 2025. We continue this year with new shows, dates to be confirmed soon. LISTEN HERE.

PAE stands for Performance Art Event and is an artist-led initiative for performance art in the Netherlands since 2008. PAE has no fixed structure or pattern, but changes depending on the artistic developments and the work of the artists involved. The organization is currently led by the artists Nina Boas and ieke Trinks and supported by the artists Kirsten Heshusius and Kamila Wolczszak. Previously we have partnered with several cultural organization, among them are TENT (R’dam), Wolfart Projectspaces (R’dam), Goethe Institute, Alliance Française, De Brakke Grond (A’dam), TETEM (Enschede), Zuidplein Shopping Center (R’dam), Willem de Kooning Academy, Zone2Sourse (A’dam), WORM (R’dam), and Out of Site (Chicago, USA).

MORE INFORMATION on RESIDUE

10. EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY LADA SEEKS A DEPUTY DIRECTOR
    DEADLINE DATE FEBRUARY 16, 2026
    LOCATION LONDON, ENGLAND
    SOURCE LADA

Help shape the future of LADA!
LADA seeks a Deputy Director

The Live Art Development Agency (LADA) is seeking an experienced individual with strong business and fundraising expertise to join us in transforming LADA’s future as Deputy Director. You will join our small but dedicated team as we build on LADA’s influential history and make plans for the next ten years. Focusing on business development, the Deputy Director will ensure financial and operational resilience, diversify income, and develop a purpose-driven business plan that supports our mission.

This is a key Senior role responsible for informing and delivering LADA’s strategic direction and sustainability over the coming years. The Deputy Director will work closely with LADA’s Director, leading on operational resilience across finance, fundraising, premises and business development through a pivotal moment of change. The role is a 2-year fixed term appointment with opportunity for extension subject to confirmed funding. LADA is open to proposals for a 4-day (pro-rata) or 5-day (full-time) contract as part of this recruitment process.

Deadline for applications: Monday 16 February 2026 at 6pm (GMT)
First Interview (in London): Monday 23 February 2026
Second Interview: TBC
Proposed start date: April/May 2026

MORE INFORMATION

11. CALL FOR PROPOSALS PERFORMANCE RESEARCH JOURNAL
    DEADLINE DATE FEBRUARY 16, 2026
    LOCATION THE WORLD
    SOURCE PERFORMANCE RESEARCH JOURNAL

Performance Research Journal
Volume 31, Issue 7 – On Capturing Practice
Deadline: February 16, 2026

The act of capture – whether by word, camera, drawing, code or archive – both preserves and transforms, inviting reiteration and return to what it seeks to hold. As we try – and fail – to capture events, processes, gestures, feelings and performances in other formats, there is always a slippage, a shimmer, between what occurs and what remains.

As a methodological tool and a creative act, capturing ephemeral performances during the making and after their realization helps to shape creative choices, while archiving seeks to preserve them for future generations while framing how they are interpreted and studied. Such acts are recognized to be always partial, porous and incomplete, yet definitions of capture might also indicate control and force. To capture practice, then, is a contradictory act. On the one hand, it suggests the violence of control; on the other it is an act of care and preservation. It holds and releases; it fixes and flows.

Artists and researchers use multiple means to document their work, including social media as a method to both reveal and market their work – perhaps becoming curators of their own discourse. Meanwhile universities have been developing digital repositories to archive practice research – supporting the preservation of materials, searchability and inviting re/use. Such processes of capture and sharing have the potential to enhance the reach of performance and access even as they give rise to questions of labour and authenticity, ownership and control.

This issue of Performance Research invites provocations and reflections on and creative explorations of the multiple meanings of capture in performance research – capture as preservation, as containment, as commodity, as attention, as collaboration, as care.

To read the FULL TEXT for the call for submissions, please visit the Performance Research Journal website.

Proposals: Submission by: 16 February 2026.
Outcomes: March 2026
First drafts: June 2026
Final drafts: February 2027

MORE INFORMATION, GUIDELINES, HOW TO SUBMIT

12. EVENT THE DARK AT PS21 PRESENTS NOTHING #62 BY AUTUMN KNIGHT
    DATE FEBRUARY 18 & 19, 2026
    LOCATION NEW YORK, USA
    SOURCE AUTUMN KNIGHT

The Dark at PS21: Center for Contemporary Performance present
NOTHING #62: a bluff by Autumn Knight

February 18 & 19
Pocketbook Hudson, 549 Washington Street, New York

Nothing #62: a bluff is the third part of Autumn Knights’s investigation into the Italian concept of “dolce far niente” – the sweetness of nothingness. Knight is alone, responding spontaneously to a space, its features, and its audience. a bluff is a deliberation on our economies of time, attention, and survival, and the creative role within those realms. It works within the inexhaustible possibilities each audience member brings. At once compelling, confronting, perhaps funny, and awkward, this is a masterwork of new performance. Drawing from her training in theater and the psychology of group dynamics, Knight makes performances that reshape our perceptions of race, gender, and authority.

The Dark is a new annual festival from PS21: Center for Contemporary Performance that celebrates and elevates the depths of winter. Taking place February 16–22, 2026, the festival will unfold at PS21 and across Columbia County—in theatres, restaurants, libraries, saunas, and outdoor public spaces. Featuring more than 60 international artists and over 80 performances, The Dark offers a packed week of world-class contemporary performance, installation, music, dance, and theatre—all exploring winter as a time of community and solitude, fire and ice, darkness and light. A major new attraction for the region, the festival positions Columbia County as a year-round cultural destination—not just a summer one.

MORE INFORMATION

13. EVENT SONGS FOR THE HOUSE OF RETURNING BY MELATI SURYODARMO
    DATE MARCH 6–22, 2026
    LOCATION MALMÖ, SWEDEN
    SOURCE LILITH PERFORMANCE STUDIO

Melati Suryodarmo
Songs for the House of Returning

March 6–22, 2026
Lilith Performance Studio, Bragegatan 15, Malmö, Sweden

The year at Lilith Performance Studio opens with one of Asia’s leading performance artists, Melati Suryodarmo, renowned for her powerful and physically demanding long-duration performances, where the body is central. In the new work, Songs for the House of Returning, Melati Suryodarmo explores the growing distance between the human body and the natural systems that once structured collective life. Drawing on research into ancient temple sites across Indonesia, she approaches these structures not as historical monuments but as active spatial and sensory frameworks that propose alternative ways of inhabiting land, memory, and community. The work considers the body as a “human temple”—a site where sensation, memory, and attention converge, and where perception becomes a form of listening. Through durational actions and the continuous construction and deconstruction of objects, the performance creates a shifting environment that evolves over time.

Live sound and music, performed by Singaporean musician and artist Yuen Chee Wai, constitute a central architectural element of the work, shaping its spatial and emotional dimensions. Songs for the House of Returning unfolds over a total of 33 hours, presented in eleven cycles of three hours each, and brings together five dancers from Indonesia and Sweden. The work invites audiences to reflect on how embodied memory and sensory attention might reopen pathways of connection between body, land, and shared time.

Melati Suryodarmo (b. 1969 Surakarta Indonesia, works and lives in Surakarta) has presented her work at institutions including: Kiasma in Helsinki, MMCA in Seoul, the National Art Center in Tokyo, Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, and QAGOMA in Brisbane. She founded Studio Plesungan in Solo and served as Artistic Director of the Jakarta Biennale in 2017. Since 2022, she has led the cultural programme Indonesia Bertutur and is currently participating in the Thailand Biennale in Phuket.

MORE INFORMATION

14. CALL FOR APPLICATIONS EXPLORATIONS / TO LIVE
    DEADLINE DATE MARCH 9, 2026
    LOCATION TORONTO, CANADA
    SOURCE TO LIVE

Supporting Toronto’s Artists: TO Live opens applications for 2026 explorations grants

TO Live is now accepting applications for the 2026 edition of explorations, its signature artist-led research initiative that supports greater Toronto and Hammilton area-based artists to push the boundaries of their practice and imagine what comes next.

Now in its sixth year, explorations invites artists from all disciplines to apply. Seven artists will be selected to each receive $7,000 to research, experiment, and develop new ideas without the pressure of having to deliver a finished work. Since launching in April 2020, explorations has invested more than $300,000 in 50 Toronto artists, providing vital time, space, and resources for creative discovery. The initiative was created in recognition that research is an essential part of artistic practice yet often falls outside traditional project-based funding models. Through explorations, artists are encouraged to follow their curiosity, test new approaches, and encourage the seeds of future work—whether that leads to a new performance, an interdisciplinary collaboration, or an entirely unexpected direction.

TO Live is one of Canada’s largest multi-arts organizations, operating three iconic venues: Meridian Hall, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, and Meridian Arts Centre. In addition, TO Live presents a full range of performing arts, theatrical, and concert events at these venues in both downtown and uptown Toronto. With these two hubs of creativity and content creation, TO Live has a unique place and perspective to activate creative spaces by inspiring local and international artists, connecting audiences, stimulating new ideas, and elevating artistic potential, becoming a catalyst for creative expression that is reflective of Toronto’s diversity.

MORE INFORMATION

15. PERFORMANCE ART INTENSIVE CONSTELLATIONS OF CRITICAL BODIES II
    DEADLINE DATE MARCH 30, 2026
    LOCATION VENICE, ITALY
    SOURCE VESTANDPAGE

CONSTELLATIONS OF CRITICAL BODIES II
June 24–July 3, 2026
Venice, Italy

10-days Intensive Joint Summer Class on the Practice of Performance Art
With VestAndPage, Andrigo & Aliprandi, Sara Simeoni and Joseph Morgan Schofield

Applications are now being accepted on a rolling basis until March 30, 2026.
INFORMATION SESSION: Live on Instagram on February 3, 2026, at 7:00pm (CEST)

For this workshop, we seek up to 15 international performance artists, radical actors, movers, sound artists, and poets interested in performance practices centred on the body. This includes individuals of all experience levels and abilities who wish to deepen and challenge their performance practices further and collaborate with other international artists. Under the co-mentorship of our experienced facilitators, you develop your performance language or research. You will work through collaboration and co-creation processes and design your own itinerary of daily focus sessions on personal narratives and storytelling, intuitive movement, composition, sound, and site-responsive, more-than-human, and ritual forms of performance-making. We aim to give you the time, space, and tools to refine your practice, draw inspiration from collaborations, and forge new connections.

MORE INFORMATION & HOW TO APPLY

16. FRANKLIN FURNACE FUND FOR PERFORMANCE ART 2026
    DEADLINE DATE APRIL 1, 2026
    LOCATION NEW YORK, USA
    SOURCE FRANKLIN FUND

Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art 2026 funding cycle is open now until April 1, 2026.

INFORMATION SESSION: February 4, 2026 from 7pm–8pm ET

The Franklin Furnace FUND for Performance Art is supported by Jerome Foundation, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and biennially by the SHS Foundation in honor of Ruth Hardinger. FUND grants range between $2,000 and $10,000 based on the peer review panel allocation of funding received by Franklin Furnace. Artists from all areas of the world are encouraged to apply; however, artists selected by the panel are expected to present their work in New York City. Full-time students are ineligible.

Franklin Furnace has no curator; each year a new panel of artists reviews all proposals. We believe this peer panel system allows all kinds of artists from all over the world an equal shot at presenting their work. Every year the panel changes, as do the definitions of “early career artist” and “performance art.” So, if at first you don’t succeed, please try again.

Franklin Furnace FUND for Performance Art supported artists are early career generative non-student performance artists who actively generate new original work.

MORE INFORMATION & HOW TO APPLY