Artist Intersections | Engagements | Opportunities

Tiger Balm

From dance, to dance, by dance, for dance: for the skeptics, the ambivalent, and the believers

A salve for those who are jaded by talkbacks
An irritant if you insist on a singular lens
An ongoingness, a continuous labor, an unarrival
A viewing practice of holding complexity, difference, context, impact
The pleasure of the sting, the slow burn, and, if you're lucky: an opening.

Four short dance works in process. One running experiment in discussion, together. Because relational, because dance, because dance wants to be in conversations of dance, because dance is what wants.

Tiger Balm is a thrice-a-year program that creates space for dance and movement artists to share work-in-process curated and organized by Pramila Vasudevan, Kenna Cottman and Val Oliveiro.

It emerged from a deep community need in the Twin Cities dance scene—a desire for open-palmed, low-stakes, low tech, sharing that embraces a wide spectrum of dance and dance community. Tiger Balm continues the legacy of 9x22, a beloved monthly gathering that fostered this culture for many years.

On a Wednesday evening, you'll see short sharings from artists working in many different styles and practices—hip-hop artists, ballet dancers, performance artists, movement-based practitioners, etc. We intentionally bring disparate practices into a shared evening.

We divest from the seamless and polished. We reveal when things are messy, when there's tension or friction. Many revelations stem from the inherent tension and divinity within these unpolished moments. Traditional production often hides or circumvents this messiness—we value the unwieldiness of difference in the room.

Everyone gathers for 20-30 minutes of facilitated exchange and engagement. This sets the artists in a relational field, fostering small steps toward understanding, relationship-building, and acknowledging our richness.

Most participants have existing connections to Red Eye—through attending shows, past participation, or applications. Tiger Balm is a sanctuary for developmental work and collective witnessing—not a showcase, but a relational container where artists test ideas, invite audiences into their process, and build relationships with other artists and community.

Works-in-Progress

Works-in-Progress is a cohort-based container for creative process, peer exchange, and public sharing of a live performance work. Each year, Red Eye assembles a cohort of artists who wish to engage in exchange around themselves and their creative process. These artists form a temporary community of practice, around a shared commitment to questioning artistic form and challenging dominant culture.

WIP participants receive modest technical and production support, rehearsal space as available, and participate in showings, where work is engaged with the cohort. The program involves critical reflection on making, as well as how we walk with making. Each artist in the WIP cohort presents 10-15 minutes of work as part of a shared evening in the first weekend of Red Eye’s celebrated annual Festival, now called the Red Eye Festival.

The RFP is NOW CLOSED. You still can visit the RFP for Information.

RFP: Curated Rentals

Red Eye’s rental program allows the space to function as a resource to the Twin Cities performance community, to expand our community beyond our programming capacities, and to foster sustainability for the organization.

The RFP is currently closed. The next round will open in summer 2026 for performances taking place through summer 2028. For performances taking place before summer 2026, Red Eye may accept rental proposals on a rolling basis, depending on availability. Please contact staff@redeyetheater.org for more information.

Omnivers

OMNIVERS is a flexible container in which Red Eye supports the process of BIPOC artists or collectives working in live performance, taking a shape determined by those artists or collectives.

The RFP is currently closed.

Submissions

Red Eye is not accepting ad hoc submissions at this time.

The Isolated Acts portion of the annual New Works 4 Weeks Festival is curated by Red Eye’s Artistic Directors. We do not take proposals for this program, but if you are an artist working in contemporary performance in the Twin Cities and you’d like to be on our radar, please send us an invitation to a performance at staff@redeyetheater.org. We can’t promise we’ll be able to attend every event, but we are glad to stay in the loop with new work.