Nominees Innovation Award Nederlandse Dansdagen 2026
The nominees for the Nederlandse Dansdagen Maastricht Innovation Award have been announced! In January 2026, dance professionals and enthusiasts could nominate choreographers for a chance to win this incentive prize. From the many submissions, a jury consisting of dance and cultural professionals ultimately selected three creators.
The nominees
The nominees for the Innovation Award Nederlandse Dansdagen Maastricht 2026 are: Chandenie Gobardhan, Cheroney Pelupessy, Melyn Chow.
Chandenie Gobardhan: A Hindustani artist who mixes Bharatnatyam, locking, and contemporary dance into an intimate and powerful whole that makes you look with a new perspective.
Cheroney Pelupessy: a dancer and maker who translates her Moluccan, Indonesian, and Dutch roots into her own movement language full of personal stories and cultural identity.
Melyn Chow: a Singaporean choreographer and theatre maker who explores, through mime, dance, and video, how personal themes such as sensuality and shame can transform into strength and resistance.
Innovation Award 2026
This year, the Innovation Award focuses on choreographers who explore the relationship between dance and cultural identity in their work. Some choreographers start from their personal history, heritage, or environment, allowing these to influence their movement language, form, and expressiveness. Others use dance precisely as a means to explore and give form to the layered and fluid nature of cultural identity. In both cases, stories emerge in which personal roots, traditions, or experiences play a role, contributing to a richer and more polyphonic picture of what identity and dance can mean today.
Winner of the Innovation Award 2025, Marc Vlemmix, will showcase his new work: Schemerlicht, during the Nederlandse Dansdagen 2026.
