Held in Contemp

The title draws from the phrase “held in contempt” – reframed here as a call to question, challenge, and disrupt conventions within contemporary dancemaking. The Lab encourages participants to engage critically with form, process, and perspective, creating works that stir, provoke, and reimagine.

For this edition, the Lab focuses on site-specific practices, inviting artists to respond to space, context, and environment as integral parts of the creative process.

Sub-Urbs explores life at the edges – the people, communities, and experiences that exist outside dominant narratives of the city. Within an ordered urban environment, many stories unfold in quieter, less visible ways, in overlooked spaces, informal networks, and personal worlds that rarely occupy the centre of attention. The theme foregrounds these margins as sites of lived experience, resilience, and creativity.

*SCAPE invites artists to reflect on and explore these peripheral conditions, bringing forward perspectives that are often unseen or unheard and translating them into shared encounters within the festival context. Emphasising experimentation and process, the residency positions the margins not as places of absence, but as spaces of agency – where new forms of expression, connection, and imagination can emerge.

Programme Package

• Choreographer’s Support of $2,900
• Dancer Allowance of up to $1,800 (for engagement of dancers)
• Mentorship by Decadance Co artists
• Guest Artists Engagement
• Feedback sessions through Studio Showings
• A platform to premiere your work during COMMA 2027, *SCAPE’s annual youth arts festival, and as part of Singapore Art Week 2027

Individuals

• Individuals who are at least 18 years old and at most 35 years old at the time of registration
• Applicant must be practicing artists with at least 2 years of relevant arts experience
• Applicant must commit to the entire duration of the programme period
• Only Singaporeans or Permanent Residents of Singapore may apply

• June – November: Incubation Period
• November: Vetting
• December: Rehearsal Intensive
• January 2027: Presentation at COMMA 2027 and Singapore Art Week 2027