Application for participation at CINARS 2026

For those of you who are professional artists in the field of dance and circus as a dancer, choreographer, circus artist or circus director/choreographer. Please observe the short deadline. Application Open: 5th June, kl. 14:00

The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Circus and Dance announces two places at Nordic Pulse during the performing arts fair CINARS.
Montreal, Canada
9–14 November 2026

The Swedish Arts Grants Committee enables participation in Nordic Pulse, a Nordic pitching session held during CINARS. Nordic Pulse is coordinated by PAHN (Performing Arts Hub Norway), and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee covers the selected artists’ costs for participating in the pitch. Participating artists are given approximately 5 minutes to pitch a stage work. Applications are individual. A grant can only be applied for by one artist per pitch.

Criteria

Applicants must:

Be Sweden-based and professionally active artists in circus or dance.
Have a stage work that can be pitched.
Be personally present for at least three days at CINARS, including the pitch day.
Submit the application in English (the text may be used in informational materials).

The Grant

Participants will receive a grant of SEK 40,000 to cover travel, accommodation, living expenses, and the CINARS registration fee.
Participants are responsible for booking their own travel and accommodation, as well as registering for CINARS (Nordic Square).

Selection

The decision on participating artists is made by the working group for dance and circus.

Programme for Grant Recipients

Nordic Pulse, Nordic pitching session (Tuesday 10 or Wednesday 11 November)
Participation at the Nordic fair booths, Nordic Square
Networking mingle

The application deadline is 5th June at 14:00. Decisions will be announced at the end of June.

For those granted funding/participation in the pitch by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, further submission of performance materials will be required as follows: distribution of templates/information for the catalogue and website presenting the Nordic participants in June.

submission of text and images for the catalogue and website by 31 August.
submission of video material for the show reel by 31 August.
submission of moving image material for the pitch by 26 October.
A digital information meeting is planned for October, week 41 or 42.

About CINARS

CINARS is one of the world’s largest performing arts fairs, held every other year in Montreal, Canada. It is an important platform where artists, producers, and presenters network and collaborate.
The Swedish Arts Grants Committee and the Swedish Arts Council, together with the Nordic network Nordics Combined, coordinate Swedish and Nordic presence at CINARS 2026. The purpose is to strengthen Swedish and Nordic presence at selected meeting platforms and thereby promote the internationalisation of Swedish cultural life.

Nordics Combined is an informal network of Nordic organisations promoting Nordic performing arts in the Nordic region and internationally. Nordics Combined consists of the Swedish Arts Council, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Performing Arts Hub Norway, The Agency for Culture and Palaces (Denmark), Circus & Dance Info Finland, and Performing Arts Centre Iceland. The network aims to contribute to a wider dissemination of performing arts within the Nordic region, of Nordic performing arts internationally, and to the development of the performing arts field within each member country and in the Nordic region.

Application and reporting

You must be a professional artist in the field of visual arts or design.

You have an artistic practice in, for example, the visual arts, photography, design, crafts, illustration, textile art or architecture.

To be considered a professional artist, you must earn a living entirely or partly from your artistic activities and regularly present your art to an audience or in an artistic context.

You must be a resident in Sweden or practice most of your art here.

You can be a foreign citizen and apply for our stipends and grants, but you must be a resident in Sweden or primarily practice your art here. If you are a Swedish citizen but live abroad, you must be able to demonstrate that most of your artistic activity takes place in Sweden.

You must not be a student for more than 50 per cent of your time when an award decision is made.

This means being enrolled in any type of studies, from undergraduate studies to doctoral studies and post-graduate education. You can be studying when you submit your application, but when a decision is made you cannot be enrolled for more than 50 per cent for a course or programme.

You may not have any debts to the state or municipality that have been transferred for collection to the Swedish Enforcement Authority (Kronofogdemyndigheten), nor be declared bankrupt.

You may not have tax or fee debts, or any other debts, that have been transferred to the Swedish Enforcement Authority and are being handled as a public collection matter.

You must not have received de minimis aid exceeding a total of 300,000 euros during the last three-year period.

Stipends and grants from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee are subject to the provisions of the European Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/2031 on state funding, also known as de minimis aid.
The application is open all year round, but we make decisions four times a year. See the application deadlines.

You apply by logging in to “My pages”.

In order to submit an application, you need to answer all the questions marked as mandatory in the form and attach work samples and the requested appendices. If you have been invited by or have an agreement with a party abroad, you should include an invitation from the person or organization you will be collaborating with. The invitation should specify what you will be doing and when, as well as what the inviting party is responsible for, such as fees or payment, accommodation, venue, etc. The invitation can, for example, be a letter or an excerpt from an email conversation, as long as it includes the necessary information.

You can be awarded a grant retroactively, provided that your application is submitted before the exchange/trip takes place.

If your application is rejected, you can submit a new application, but only if major circumstances surrounding the exchange changed after the first decision was made.

Applications must be submitted by 14.00 CET on the application deadline.

Work samples are mandatory
Choose current work samples that are representative of your artistry, preferably from the last two years. Keep in mind that it can be a good idea to choose both close-ups of your works and images that show how your works are presented in context.

When you upload your files with the application, you can specify the title, year, technique, size and description for each file.

Number of files: 5-10

Fileformat and size: jpg (2 MB), mp3 (20 MB), mp4 and mov (50 MB)

Can I submit my application on paper?
We recommend using our e-service to submit your application. It makes it easier for you to ensure that your application was registered and it allows you to follow your case via “My pages”.
Selection

The decision on participating artists is made by the working group for dance and circus.
The grant does not need to be reported financially, but the scholarship holder must report on their stay after returning home.
Grants are exempt from tax.
If you are awarded a grant for international exchanges and travel, you must state in all communications about your residency that it was carried out with the support of the Swedish Arts Grants Committee. Please use the wording “with support from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee”.

Use the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s logo in the appropriate contexts.

This is how to use out logo