AUDITION NOTICE
NUTCRACKER REMIX
What: Audition for professional dancers
Where: Ottawa Dance Directive (2 Daly Ave, Ottawa, ON)
When: Saturday, July 11 from 11:30 - 1:00 pm
The Opportunity
Calling Ottawa-based dance and movement artists of all genres: Ghost Rooster Collective is holding auditions for three (3) professional dancers to be part of its upcoming new creation, Nutcracker Remix.
Successful candidates will be paid CADA rates between $34-$40 per hour, depending on experience, for approximately 30 hours of work.
This work-in-progress will involve excerpts from the traditional Nutcracker using Tchaikovsky's music, with scenes reimagined to be inclusive of unique bodies and minds while maintaining the elevated essence of the original.
About the Project
We are making a weirder, wilder Nutcracker; one that harnesses contemporary movement and interdisciplinary collaboration. This reimagining opens the classic framework to unique bodies and minds and asks how traditional stories can be transformed to feel alive for current audiences, including those who have been hurt by or left out of them.
This production will center disability aesthetics and incorporate access into its creative fabric. In 2026, we are creating a work-in-progress that reimagines four scenes from The Nutcracker. Themes include family dynamics, dream states, absurdity, and fantasy.
The work will be presented at Richcraft Theatre in the Shenkman Arts Centre on December 18, 2026, with rehearsals taking place in Fall 2026.
Who We Are Looking For
We are looking for artists with a solid technical base who are comfortable collaborating with others, trying out new ideas, improvising, and, depending on casting, some speaking. Ideal candidates will bring their own creative perspective and ways of moving to their roles. Ballet experience is not required.
We highly encourage artists with disabilities, BIPOC artists, and artists who have been traditionally excluded from classically based performance to apply.
Rehearsal scheduling will be shared with dancers selected for this opportunity.
About Ghost Rooster Collective
Ghost Rooster Collective is an Ottawa-based disability arts collective working at the intersection of dance, film, and performance. We are Elizabeth Emond-Stevenson, Rachel Gray and Liz Winkelaar, and founding members also include Amelia Griffin and Jess Huggett. In 2025, we premiered our first film, Dreamscapes, which received multiple international awards, including Best Film at the Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival in Austin, Texas. We have toured our films and performances across Canada and are committed to creating work that challenges stereotypes about disability and expands how disabled experience is represented on stage and screen.
Across all of our projects, we strive for the highest artistic and professional standards while developing innovative and ambitious new work. We see disability as a rich and significant part of human experience, one that offers unique opportunities for aesthetic invention, creative problem-solving, and new ways of understanding the world. Our work is glamorous, funny, heartbreaking, unsettling, and strange.
Through Nutcracker Remix, we are excited to build new collaborations, engage new audiences, and contribute to the development of a vibrant new holiday tradition in Ottawa and beyond.
SUBMIT TO AUDTION
Please email ghostroostercollective@gmail.com with:
A short bio (tell us about yourself and your experience)
A CV, if available
Any access needs we should be aware of in order for you to participate in the audition
Details about the audition will be sent once you register.