Traditional arts endure because skilled artists choose to carry knowledge forward and share it with others. The Emerging Traditional Artists Program (ETAP) supports artists who are deepening their practice while carrying cultural knowledge forward for the next generation. Awardees receive a $5,000 award, along with professional development opportunities, peer networking, and mentorship designed to strengthen both their artistic practice and long-term impact.

The program serves eligible artists living in Appalachian Regional Commission and Delta Regional Authority communities, as well as members of state or federally recognized Native American tribes.

Fees or awards
Selected ETAP artists will receive $5,000 awards (with limited restrictions) to support learning opportunities including training, networking, and promotion.

The rich traditions of Central Appalachia are sustained not only by artists and tradition keepers, but by the organizations that create space for those traditions to thrive. In These Mountains Infrastructure Grants support nonprofit organizations preserving handcrafts, foodways, music, and other traditional arts across the region. Through $30,000 awards, the program strengthens the operational foundation these organizations depend on, supporting essential expenses that build long-term sustainability and community impact.

Fees or awards
Non-match grants are awarded in the amount of $30,000.

Since 2000, Artspace has provided emerging visual artists with time and space to explore their work in a supportive and thriving open studio environment in our historic building at the heart of downtown Raleigh. Every year, Artspace selects up to two artists in an emerging stage of their professional careers to participate in this year-long residency.

Benefits include: 24-hour access to rent-free studio space, $200 monthly stipend, a professional solo exhibition, and more.

Location
Raleigh, NC

Fees or awards
No application fee; $200 monthly stipend

Built from the successful model established through the Artspace North Carolina Emerging Artist in Residence program, this year-long residency focuses on graduates from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU). Every year, Artspace selects one emerging artist for this career-stimulating residency.

Benefits include: 24-hour access to a rent-free studio space, $200 monthly stipend, professional solo exhibition, community of artists, paid teaching opportunities, and more.

Location
Raleigh, NC

Fees or awards
No application fee; $200 monthly stipend

Vermont Studio Center is currently accepting applications through September 30. This open call will fill residencies for visual artists and writers from July 2027 to December 2027. We offer two, three, and four week residencies at our Johnson campus in the Northern Green Mountains of Vermont.

We have many fellowships available. All accepted residents receive partial fellowships and 35% receive full fellowships.

Location
Johnson, VT

Fees or awards
$25 application fee

Blue Koi Gallery invites artists worldwide to submit work inspired by dreams, imagination, memory, fantasy, and the worlds that exist beyond ordinary reality. We are looking for work that invites viewers to step outside the familiar and enter the artist’s imagination. All mediums and skill levels welcome. Open to artists worldwide, 18+.

Fees or awards
Entry fee is $20. $150 cash award for first place. Exhibition feature, social media promotion, and certificate offered to finalists.

We invite proposals for chapters for Access as Art, Art as Access: Exploring Multiple Worlds through Disability-led Artistry and Perception in the Performing Arts, an international edited collection being developed with Routledge following a formal invitation to submit a full proposal. We welcome contributions from disabled, Blind, D/deaf, MAD, chronically ill, and disability-expansive artists, scholars, educators, activists, and cultural workers working in and through the performing arts.

Access as Art, Art as Access explores how disability-led creative practices, artistry, and epistemologies are transforming theatre, dance, and the performing arts. The collection understands access as, following Tanya Titchkosky (2011[1]), “an interpretative relation between bodies” (p.3), and asks how meaning is made through sensory and embodied relations, and how multiple worlds of possibility emerge through this meaning making.

Please submit an abstract of 300 to 500 words, a short biography of 100 to 150 words, and contact information to AccessAsArt@gmail.com by September 30th, 2026. Selected contributors will be invited to submit full chapters of approximately 4,000 to 6,000 words.

Here&Now presents a mixed program of choreographic works, from choreographers and movement/performance-based artists at any career level. We offer audiences the chance to experience the work of Canada’s most exciting up-and-coming choreographers in a vibrant and inviting environment.

Here&Now Mainstage features three to four short-length works with a culminating audience talkback after each performance. All choreographers are part of the talkback, and performers are encouraged to join, too. The format of the evening is subject to change based on the presenters' needs.

The next Here&Now Festival will take place April 16 – 18, 2027, at McMaster University's L.R. Wilson Hall. The Mainstage presentation will be on Friday, April 16, at 7pm, including a mandatory afternoon full dress rehearsal.

Location
Hamilton, Ontario

Fees or awards
Here&Now offers a professional presentation fee ranging from $3,000-$4,000 CAD, depending on length of work.

Womansong of Asheville has announced a new songwriting contest, “Songs of Joy, Justice, and Community” to commemorate 40 years of singing together in Asheville.

The winning original song will be performed by Womansong, Asheville’s premiere social justice-oriented, treble-voice, community chorus. “Our goal is to support songwriters in our region, as well as to increase the repertoire of choral music that speaks to our mission of ‘singing together for joy, social justice, and community,’” said Allison Thorp, Artistic Director.

The contest will award the winner a stipend of $1,000 and the opportunity to perform a choral arrangement of the song with Womansong at their May 2027 concerts.

Location
Asheville, NC

Fees or awards
No fee to enter; $1,000 prize

The Triangle Blues Society’s annual Triangle Blues Challenge is a regional competition to select acts that will represent TBS in the Blues Foundation’s 42nd International Blues Challenge (IBC) in Memphis, Tennessee January 19 – 23, 2027. More than 250 acts from around the world converge on Beale Street to perform before the music industry searching for new talent, with the chance to win recognition and prizes that include major festival performances and more. This year’s TBS Blues Challenge is taking place from 1-6 p.m. on Sunday, November 1, 2026, at The Blue Note Grill in Durham, NC.

Categories include solo, duo and bands playing any and all kinds of blues (and nothing BUT the blues, please!). At least half of any performing band (or one, if a band of three), and at least one from a solo or duo act, must be legal residents of North Carolina as of November 1, 2026. At least one member of the act must be a member of the Triangle Blues Society.

Location
Durham, NC

Fees or awards
$15 admission fee