Entry Waves

Photo of Ranganathan Rajan at Entry Waves 2025 by Fran Chudnoff

CanAsian Dance and Toronto Dance Theatre invite Asian diasporic artists, from emerging to established, that are working across traditional forms and lineages, contemporary and experimental practices, street dance forms, and beyond to apply for EntryWaves.

This partnership reflects CanAsian Dance and TDT’s shared commitment to supporting exploratory artistic practice, critical conversations, and stronger connections within the Asian diaspora dance community and the wider dance sector.

Up to six artists will receive a week-long, half-day residency at Winchester Street Theatre, and an artist honorarium. Throughout the week, artists will also have access to a supportive shared hub space designed for creative exchange, rest, conversation, and connection. This shared hub space for gathering, informal dialogue, and co-learning, including a mid-week snack and chat with fellow artists. Optional open studios and artistic sharings may also take place, with facilitation from Angie Cheng, and Andrew Tay. Please note that Entry Waves is not a technical residency.

In partnership with Toronto Dance Theatre

Photo of Aryana Malekzadeh and collaborator at Entry Waves 2025 by Fran Chudnoff

Gathering - creating opportunities for informal community building and intersecting

Process - prioritizing artistic development over production outcomes

Entry Waves 2025 Bios

Chadley Tan is a Filipino-Chinese software developer, community organizer, performer, educator, DJ, and artist specializing in House Dance and Filipino Folk Dance. His professional journey began in 2018 under the mentorship of Matthieu “Knoxander” Walker and Raoul Wilke. Since then, he has performed, taught, and competed across Canada and internationally, including in the U.S., Netherlands, Philippines, and Portugal. Chadley is a member of House of Sole, a Toronto-based collective dedicated to house dance culture, and dances with Folkloric Filipino Canada. Through his artistry, he explores his Filipino heritage and identity by bridging folk traditions with the spirit and community of house dance culture.
SIXTH SENSE COLLECTIVE is an inter-arts group made up of Charlotte Carbone (they/she) and Cassandra Myers (they/she/he). Charlotte Carbone is a low-vision, queer, Asian adoptee who transitioned from classical ballet to street dance after a childhood injury. Street dance has allowed Charlotte to experience art and community alongside their low-vision and chronic pain such as the QTBIPOC communities of Toronto Waacking and the Toronto Kiki Ballroom Alliance. Cassandra Myers is a South-Asian-Italian, queer, trans, low-vision, crippled, mad, neurodivergent person whose adult dance training came to a halt due to chronic pain and diverted their practice towards spoken word. Their practice now embraces hybrid disabled dance, integrating somatic techniques learned under modern dance pioneer Yuji Oka to create poetry-dance projects alongside previous training with waacking legend Diana Reyes, the Footnotes Dance Crew, and the BGirl Movement.
Aryana Malekzadeh is an Iranian Canadian performing dance artist, choreographer, and dance educator based in Toronto. She is a graduate of Dance Arts Institute and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours from York University where she was awarded merit scholarships. Throughout her professional career Aryana has worked for renowned choreographers such as Hanna Kiel, Roshanak Jaberi and Syreeta Hector amongst others and has performed as a company member with Little Pear Garden Dance Company. Most recently, Malekzadeh toured across Canada with Shannon Litzenberger Contemporary Dance. Alongside performing, Aryana is a contract faculty member at York University, where she pursues her passion of teaching movement.
In her own practice, Aryana’s work explores themes of identity and cultural inheritance. As an artist of the Iranian diaspora, she is interested in investigating the layered experiences of migration and dual identity, and what it means to exist between cultures.
Ranganathan Rajan (He/Him) is originally from India and is currently based in Tkaronto. He is a performer and choreographer in contemporary dance, working innately with ideas of stress, resilience, and strength in the body through object work, movement, and mixed media. Ranganathan graduated from the Professional Training Program at Dance Arts Institute Canada (2025) and has completed a Diploma in Movement Art and Mixed Media from Attakkalari Center of Movement Arts in Bangalore, India (2021). Ranganathan believes in socially engaged acts involving people as the medium and focuses on participation and collaboration.
Neena Jayarajan is an independent dance theatre artist whose work bridges tradition and contemporary exploration. Trained extensively in Bharatanatyam and Odissi under Dr. Menaka Thakkar and Sujatha Mohapatra, she brings over two decades of performance, teaching, and choreographic experience.
She served as Assistant Artistic Director of the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company for seven years and taught at Nrtyakala for over twenty. Since 2012, she has been an Associate Artist with Nova Dance, contributing to various company initiatives. She has originated roles in productions including Broken Lines, Jatiswaram Remix, and Svāhā! She completed her MA in Dance at York University and made her theatrical debut in Theatre Smith-Gilmour’s Metamorphosis.
Neena serves on the boards of CADA West and The Dance Current magazine. Her current choreographic practice explores intersections of classical South Asian dance vocabularies with contemporary sensibilities.
Warren Kang is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist. Graduating from McMaster University with a degree in Theatre & Film Studies and Economics, his practice encompasses the fields of acting, movement/performance art, photography, and video. His work is inspired by experimental art as well as Asian and queer identities. Having worked with multiple theatre companies across the city, he was a finalist for Nightswimming Theatre’s “5X25” commission project. His short film, “Michael”, has also screened in the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival under their Unsung Voices workshop program. He has also developed “waves (in process)”, a dance film through his residency with Capsul Studio. Throughout his work, he is keen in highlighting and collaborating with marginalized voices to further diversify representation in the arts industry.

Photos of Ranganathan Rajan, Chadley Tan and company, Neena Jayarajan, Aryana Malekzadeh and company, Sixth Sense collective, and Warren Kang at Entry Waves 2025 by Fran Chudnoff, Valino, and Warren Kang

Entry Waves 2024 Artists

Megha Chattergee, Jose Miguel 'Miggy' Estaban, Jen Hum,Rumi Jeraji, Devanshi Mishra, and

Derek Souvannavoung

CanAsian Dance is situated in Tkaronto, a Mohawk word meaning “the place in the water where the trees are standing.” It is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and it continues to be the home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.

This land is under the Dish with One Spoon covenant, an agreement between the Anishinaabeg and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. This land is a dish to be shared and cared for and we all share one spoon; the spoon is to be used to take only what is needed and to leave enough for others, thus ensuring a viable and abundant future. We recognize the enduring resilience of Indigenous peoples and we acknowledge that we are accountable to these relationships and these agreements.

We carry these values of responsibility in sharing and caring in abundance with consideration of not only ourselves but of our communities that we share together.