The Dance Centre has just awarded Vancouver arts veteran Jennifer Mascall the Isadora Award for Excellence in Dance, while Deanna Peters has received the biennial Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award.

The Isadora recognizes MascallDance's Mascall for her contribution to BC’s dance scene over her 30-plus-year career as a choreographer, mentor, teacher, and advocate for the art form. Her recent works include the critically lauded The Three Cornered Hat and the solo series The Outliner. Her "Duck Dances" at Dusk Dances, a work for 35 performers, just premiered at Crab Park as part of Dancing on the Edge 2015. 

She receives an Isadora Award sculptureby the glass artist Mary Filer, fully subsidized rehearsal space at Scotiabank Dance Centre to the value of $1000, and $500. 

Previous Isadora recipients have included Susan Elliott, Anne Cooper, Peter Bingham, Crystal Pite, Joe Laughlin, Wen Wei Wang, and Lee Su-Feh.

Peters, of Mutable Subject, performs, teaches and produces dance for the stage, as well as doing web and video design. Her NEW RAW recently showed at the Dancing on the Edge festival. She's also thrown such out-of-the-box events as performing dance  in a bar in collaboration with a drummer and hosting two dance parties that were inspired by prairie socials.

With the $5,000 award, Peters plans to premiere Cut Away, her first full-length work, in 2016.

Previous Iris Garland Award recipients include Amber Funk Barton, Chengxin Wei, Sara Coffin, Shannon Moreno, and Vanessa Goodman.