To grow the Good Women Dance Society’s annual What’s Cooking? arts showcase event.

The Cause

As one of the leading contemporary dance companies in Edmonton and the Northern Alberta Community Market, Good Women Dance Society have been at the forefront of building a strong arts community that will benefit Edmontonians and Albertans. Each spring for the past six years the Good Women Dance Society have curated and hosted a highly successful arts showcase event titled What’s Cooking? Coming together under the Good Women Dance umbrella, Edmonton’s top emerging performing artists are given the unique opportunity to showcase works in development at no cost for the arts community and a culture hungry Edmonton audience. The most innovative feature of this event is that artists enter into dialogue with the audience, allowing artists to more effectively engage their audience as well as educating audiences about the creative process.

This year’s annual What’s Cooking? event was the most successful yet; in one day the Good Women Dance Society were able to showcase an amazing nine new works in progress. The most common sentiment after this jam packed event was that What’s Cooking? needs to grow, in order to support the ever growing number of artists and companies that benefit from it.

To grow this already highly successful model, the Good Women Dance Society is seeking support to expand their annual What’s Cooking? arts showcase event from one day to one week. This will allow for nearly a tripling of the companies and artists that will benefit from exposure at this event, which is the only one of its kind in the Edmonton and Northern Alberta arts calendar. A pay-it-forward vision runs perfectly in line with the spirit of What’s Cooking? as Good Women Dance do not showcase their own work, but use their standing in the arts community to benefit others.

Who Will it Benefit?

A selection of artists and companies who have benefited from previous What's Cooking? events are listed below. They represent examples of artists and companies that will benefit from the expansion, in addition to their audiences!

Anastasia Maywood- independent dance artist
Toy Guns Dance Theatre - local emerging dance company
Dario Charles - independent dance artist
CRIPSiE- integrated dance group performers with disabilities
Pyretic Productions - independent theatre company
Kayla Henry - independent dance artist
Richard Lee - independent dance artist
Bridget Jessome - independent dance artist
Magpie Theatre - children's theatre company
Mindhive Collective - collective based theatre company
Kevin Green - independent sound designer and projection artist
Alison Neuman - independent dance artist
Harmanie Taylor - independent dance artist
Christopher S Michaud - local playwright
Deanne Kathleen Underwood - independent dance artist
Victoria Scanlon - independent dance artist out of calgary
Kevin Jesuíno - independent multi-disciplinary artist
Ian Gordon & Kasia Niewinska independent dance artists
Christine Lesiak - local clown and theatre artist
Lindsay Ealse - independent dance artist
Raena Waddell - independent dance artist