Photo by Kathy Lam, from Tunnel Vision, by and performed by Elizabeth Ferns

2021 IGNITE Festival of Emerging Artists - General Call for Artists

Every year in June, Sage Theatre presents the IGNITE! Festival of Emerging Artists - a multi-disciplinary, 4-day festival of emerging art and artists. It’s big, it’s bold, it’s beautiful! With about 100 artists programmed each year, IGNITE! is a fantastic development, networking, and presentation opportunity for Calgary’s artists. The 2021 festival runs June 16 - 19, 2021.

Deadline to apply is midnight, April 9, 2021.

IGNITE! is a festival dedicated to supporting, mentoring and presenting early career artists of all disciplines. IGNITE! allows artists to embrace risks in a supportive environment while providing resources, a bridge to the professional arts community, and meaningful opportunities for collaboration and community building with their peers.

Here are some important definitions we use for the festival.

Here's where you can find the project proposal applications.

This Year’s Format

As we are still anticipating COVID-19 to be impacting public gathering and arts presentations this summer, we are planning an adaptive festival format that allows us to weather a changing pandemic landscape.

The IGNITE! Festival is looking for individual emerging theatre, dance, improv/comedy, and performance artists who can be matched with the projects that are submitted to the festival.

Specifically, the festival will be presented digitally, and each project will be shown in a 10 minute segment scheduled across the four days of the festival.

We are also open to presenting a physically distanced project, but we recognize that a changing pandemic landscape may affect our ability to support and present this work.

General Artist Call

We are looking for all kinds of artists to be involved in these projects!

Artists who submit as part of our general call will be placed into various projects by our curation team. There will be an opportunity to provide feedback of that placement if there are any conflicts or concerns.

IBPOC artists, artists who identify as living with a disability, LGBQTIA2S+, and artists who identify as being part of a minority heartily encouraged to apply to all streams of the festival.

We are looking for:

Actors

Comedians

Dancers

Directors

Designers (set, costume, lighting, sound, and more!)

Dramaturges

Improvisers

Stage Managers

Here's the link to apply! https://airtable.com/shrurXCGzUNLnOUtg