The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
About Dance Advance
Dance Advance seeks to contribute to the cultivation of an artistically dynamic environment for dance. This visionary initiative was founded by The Pew Charitable Trusts in 1993 in order to provide financial support to Philadelphia’s remarkable range of dance forms. The artists, organizations, and educational training programs who are dedicated to dance as a creative practice have forged a vital regional dance culture. Dance Advance is a participant in this ecology and makes every effort to foster a positive and professional working climate for dance in the five-county region it serves in southeastern Pennsylvania.
The core activity of Dance Advance is the annual award of project-based grants to dance artists, companies, and presenters based in the five-county region of metropolitan Philadelphia. Awards are based on the merit and compelling nature of the submitted project proposals. The review process is highly competitive and successful projects will extend the creative capacity of the applicants’ work. Projects may or may not embrace alternative or new methodologies but will, nevertheless, have singular and demonstrated importance when viewed within the body of work represented by the applicant individual or organization.
As with the other discipline-based initiatives supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the primary goal of Dance Advance is to enhance the cultural life of the greater Philadelphia community. With these goals in mind Dance Advance addresses the following priorities:
To fund dance projects that reveal the complexity, diversity, and creativity of dance as an art form;
To provide professional development opportunities for dance practitioners that will increase their artistic capacity;
To increase discourse among audiences, artists and arts institutions both within and outside the region in the art and practice of dance.