What are you creating, performing, touring, exhibiting, writing, or dreaming about in 2028?
Let’s start now.
GrantLab is an online professional development program for artists who want to fund their work and sustain a creative career without separating administration from artistic practice.
Deadline to apply is: October 6th at 11:59PM
Developed and facilitated by Sid Ryan Eilers, Artistic Director of EILERS Dance Theatre, GrantLab draws on twenty-seven years of professional arts practice and more than a decade navigating public arts funding. Since 2014, Eilers has secured municipal, provincial, and federal funding to create, produce, research, and tour artistic work, while mentoring artists who have gone on to secure significant funding of their own.
PART 1: FALL 2026
Building the Application: Vision, Structure & Submission
November 10–December 16 | 6 weeks | Online
Move from artistic vision to application: artistic statements, bios, project development, work plans, collaborators, budgets, impact, support materials, revision, and submission.
PART 2: WINTER 2027
Building the Career: Sustainability, Relationships & Growth
January 5–February 9 | 6 weeks | Online
Move beyond the grant into the infrastructure of an artistic life: audiences, collaboration, agreements, mediation, financial stewardship, taxes, fundraising, organizational structures, professional development, and sustainable practice.
Tuesdays: Lecture/Lab
7:30 to 9:00 pm EST
Wednesdays: co-working with Q&A
8:00 to 9:00 pm EST
Enrollment is by successful application. Weekly 90-minute Lecture/Lab + 60-minute live Q&A on Zoom. Lecture/Labs are recorded with six-month access. Q&As are not recorded.
COST
Part 1: $100
Parts 1 + 2: $175
Deadline to apply is: October 6th at 11:59PM
For emerging and established artists across visual arts, music, dance, theatre, performance, and media arts. Completing Part 1 before Part 2 is recommended but not required.
For more detailed information on GrantLab 2026/27 Resourcing Artistic Capacity please visit our website HERE.
For questions please email connect@eilersdancetheatre.com with the subject heading: GrantLab 2026/27 Resourcing Artistic Capacity
About Sid
Sid Ryan Eilers (they/them) is an award winning dance artist, choreographer, mentor, and educator with a 25-year career spanning Canada, Europe, and New York. Their work is driven by a curiosity about choreography’s role in social change, exploring themes of identity, land-based practice, and community connection through movement.
Eilers studied at York University’s dance program, graduating in 2004, and toured extensively with Motus O Dance Theatre from 2002 to 2006. They co-founded Lightning Strike Art Productions, performing and teaching in Brooklyn and Dresden. In 2014, they established Aeris Körper Contemporary Dance, creating over 18 immersive site-specific works and founding PROSPECTS and HERE&NOW, an annual dance festival in Hamilton, Ontario. In 2024, they transitioned out of Aeris Körper to focus on their independent artistic practice.
As the founder of EILERS Dance Theatre, Eilers creates performances that center Trans and Queer identity, spirituality, and land-based practices. Their solo dance theatre work, Kiss The Stormy Sky, will tour Ontario and British Columbia in 2025. They are also the creator of TRANScendARTS, a dance and arts program supporting gender-nonconforming children.
Eilers has trained at ImPulsTanz and COLOURS International Dance Festival, held residencies at Banff Centre and Crow’s Theatre. A dedicated educator, they teach at Canada’s National Ballet School and mentor emerging artists. Their teaching approach is rooted in technical excellence, creativity, and inclusivity, empowering dancers to explore movement as a form of expression, activism, and transformation.
Disclaimer
GrantLab cannot guarantee that you will receive a grant. Public arts funding is competitive, and decisions are made by independent juries and funding bodies based on many factors beyond the quality of an individual application, including available funds, program priorities, eligibility, and the applications within each competition.
What GrantLab can do is help you develop the strongest, clearest, and most authentic application you can at this moment in your practice. You will build the skills to articulate your artistic vision, understand funding structures, create realistic budgets and work plans, select meaningful support materials, and approach applications strategically.
Rejection is part of an artistic career. So is trying again. GrantLab is designed to build capacity beyond any single result, so that whether the answer is yes or no, you leave with stronger language, clearer vision, practical tools, and an application that can become the foundation for what comes next. GrantLab has not been created or endorsed by any granting organization.