Welcome to GrantLab 2026:

Spring - Fall 2026

May 18th - Sept. 14th, 2026 

Introduction By Sid Ryan Eilers

For twenty-six years, I have lived inside the real conditions of making dance and performance work: working for other choreographers, creating my own choreography, founding ad hocs and not-for-profits, touring, administering, fundraising, teaching, organizing, and dreaming. I know the systems we move within are imperfect, often harmful, and shaped by forces that do not always value artists or bodies. We name that. And then we refuse to let it be the center of our attention.

I have always believed the fringe is where the real future gets made. Independent artists, small companies, scrappy collectives. This is where innovation, cultural rupture, and world-changing ideas begin. Every human is an artist, and artists are entrepreneurs. This is political. This is spiritual. This is a way of living in the world that demands clarity, devotion, and craft.

Resourcing Artistic Capacity exists because I want artists to skip the years I spent fumbling alone. I want you to build the life and the work you are dreaming of. I want a world filled with visionary people making visionary things.

This practice teaches you how to write grants, yes. But more than that, it teaches you how to articulate your voice, claim your worth, build independence, and step into artistic leadership with agency and fire.

Resourcing Artistic Capacity does not exist to rehearse what is broken.
It exists to resource your capacity.

Your capacity to daydream.

Your capacity to be in awe with yourself.

Your capacity to recognize your artistic intelligence while naming oppression honestly and redistributing power responsibly.

Your capacity to participate in future-forward cultural leadership through creativity and practice.

We are interested in what allows an artist to sustain a creative life materially, creatively, relationally, and spiritually. We focus on building clarity, skill, confidence, and agency so you can move through existing structures without being defined by them, and help shape new ones through practice, leadership, and imagination.

Resourcing Artistic Capacity is about learning how to hold your work, your time, your energy, and your collaborations with intention. Grant writing is one tool. Administration is another. Mindset, boundaries, pacing, and discernment matter just as much.

We do not center scarcity. We center possibility.
We do not fixate on what is failing. We practice what can be built.
We do not wait for permission. We develop the capacity to lead.

This offering is for artists who want to make meaningful work, build sustainable lives, and participate in the transformation of the field not through burnout or compliance, but through clarity, devotion, and practice.

Program Details
Every Monday for 17 weeks, beginning May 18, 2026
All sessions take place online via Zoom

Mondays
7:30 to 9:00 pm EST

Wednesdays (optional Q&A)
8:00 to 9:00 pm EST

All sessions are recorded and shared within 24 hours

Cost
$850 + HST

Resourcing Artistic Capacity is not only about writing grants. It is about resourcing yourself as an artist so you can sustain a creative life with clarity, agency, and imagination. Each session builds capacity rather than chasing perfection. We move from articulation to action, from vision to structure, from effort to discernment.

Week / LAB 1 - Monday May 18th
Orientation: Resourcing Yourself as an Artist
You are a brilliant artist with something to say. This session situates grants and other resources inside a larger ecosystem of advocacy, livelihood, and leadership. What these resources are, who gives them, how they function, and how they can support independence within the community rather than define it.

Week / LAB 2 - Monday May 25th
Artistic Identity: Statement, Mission, Vision, Values
Clarifying your why. Naming your truth. Articulating the values and questions that drive your work so every application, collaboration, and decision is anchored in coherence.

Week / LAB 3 - Monday June 1st
The Project: Vision as Capacity
What is the bold, unhinged, delicious vision you secretly hold. Not just what you want to make, but why now, why you, and what this project asks you to become as an artist.

Week / LAB 4 - Monday June 15th
Work Plans and Collaborators: Time, Trust, and Flow
Translating vision into time, space, and relationships. How projects live inside calendars, bodies, and communities. Flow, boundaries, and choosing collaborators with intention.

Week / LAB 5 - Monday June 22nd

Budgeting as Power
Money as a tool for agency rather than fear. How to budget clearly, ethically, and expansively. How to ask for what your work actually requires. Never under-asking, ever 💸

Week / LAB 6 - Monday June 29th
Impact: Why This Work Matters
Art as transformation. How to articulate impact for indie, weird, political, spiritual, and experimental work without flattening it or performing relevance.

Week / LAB 7 - Monday July 6th
Support Materials: Letting the Work Speak
Videos, images, writing samples, letters. How to choose and shape materials that feel alive, textured, and legible, and that allow readers to encounter the work rather than decode it. We will also look at pitching projects to presenters. 

Week / LAB 8 - Monday July 13th
Revisions of these details within the context of applications: Care for the Reader
Editing for clarity, rhythm, and breath. How to refine without overworking. When to stop. How to trust what is already present.

Week / LAB 9 - Monday July 20th
Submission: Completion and Release
Portals, timelines, final checks. Practicing steadiness, breath, and surrender. Submission as an act of completion, not self-worth.

Week / LAB 10 - Monday July 27th
After the Application: Transition and Continuity
Letting go. Resetting energy. Tracking learnings. Understanding that the application cycle is one chapter in a longer artistic life.

Week / LAB 11 - Monday August 3rd
Collaboration Tools, Agreements, and Mediation
Making art is intense. Tools for communication, boundaries, conflict navigation, and shared agreements so collaborations can be sustainable and human.

Week / LAB 12 - Monday August 10th
Financial Stewardship: Managing Budgets and Preparing for Taxes
Practical systems that reduce stress and increase confidence. How to track money, prepare for taxes, and understand cash flow without overwhelm.

Week / LAB 13 - Monday August 17th
Building and Sustaining an Audience
Audience as relationship, not product. How to communicate your work, invite people in, and build long-term connection without burning yourself out.

Week / LAB 14 - Monday August 24th
Fundraising Beyond Grants
Grants are one resource, not the only one. Exploring fundraising as a constellation of relationships, storytelling, trust, and imagination.

Week / LAB 15 - Monday August 31st
Structures That Can Hold You: Not-for-Profits and Beyond
When projects grow, structures matter. Understanding when incorporation makes sense, what it enables, and what responsibilities it brings.

Week / LAB 16 - Monday Sept. 7th
Professional Development as Ongoing Practice
Careers expand and contract. Learning how to choose growth opportunities, rest cycles, and redirections with discernment.

Week / LAB 17 - Monday Sept. 14th 

How to Hold It All
Making work, earning income, tending your body, sustaining relationships, and staying in the field. Capacity over hustle. Practice over perfection 🌿Celebration of completion!