Spotlight Series & Asian Heritage Month

Photo of Allegra Hu at Magic Mixing Montreal 2025

Spotlight Series creates space for informal storytelling, gratitude, and community recognition beyond awards, reviews, or institutional acclaim. It is an invitation to uplift artists through personal reflection and collective witnessing. Spotlight Series aims to celebrate the people and practices that resonate with us and remind us why dance matters.

Selected recordings and stories will be transformed into playful monthly video reels shared through the CAD Instagram feed, creating an evolving archive of appreciation across the Asian diaspora dance community.

Photo of Angie Cheng, Keegan Shim and Soeine Bac during Magic Mixing Toronto 2026 by Katrina Medalle

Reflection - sharing personal responses and lived experience

Gratitude - expressing appreciation for artists and their contributions

Visibility - amplifying voices and practices that deserve recognition

Spotlight Series is an ongoing community initiative that invites us to be together in a shared practice of noticing, celebrating, and considering one another. Through this series, CanAsian Dance asks community members to share short audio reflections about a performance, artist, or dance experience connected to the Asian diaspora that felt meaningful, memorable, surprising, or impactful to them this year.

Who stayed with you long after the performance ended? Whose work shifted your perspective, moved you emotionally, or inspired your own practice? Who deserves more flowers, more visibility, more recognition? Whose contributions to this season of dance may have quietly shaped the community in ways that deserve to be acknowledged and shared?

Nominate an Artist Here

Spotlight Series Featured Artists

Enakshi Sinha

Sze-Yang Ade-Lam

Erika Mitsuhashi

Aza Lia

Miyeko Ferguson

Lata Pada

Christina de la Cruz

Ming Bo Lam

Asian Heritage Month 2024

Vrunda Upadhyay

Danah Rosales

Katrina Medalle

Blessyl Buan

Ragamalika Mohanraj

Bee Pallomina

Charles Hong

Eilish Shin Culhane 미정 (Meejung)

KINAJ ( Kin Nguien & AJ Velasco)

Candace Kumar

Victoria Cheong aka New Chance

Paul Chin

Megumi Kokuba

Ayano Okubo

Germaine Liu

Jessica Mak

Anushree Harjul

Henry Mak

Diana Reyes aka Fly Lady Di

Stuti Mukherjee

Greg Wong aka Wrong Note Rusty

Harikishan S Nair

Mohammadreza Akrami

Mathew Morales

Olive Grey

Yuichiro Inoue

Elvina Raharja

Michelle 'Ky' Hanitjio

Judy Luo

Ian Simon

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.