BAC Announces Pam Tanowitz as 2017-18 Cage Cunningham Fellow

Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) is pleased to announce the 2017-18 Cage Cunningham Fellow, Pam Tanowitz. The choreographer is the second recipient of BAC's distinguished award established to support artists who embody John Cage and Merce Cunningham's commitment to artistic innovation.

New York-based choreographer Pam Tanowitz has been making work for 15 years, gaining recognition for her post-modern treatment of classical dance vocabulary. Her abstract movement challenges conventions of composition and the concert-going experience. Like Cage and Cunningham, her creative process involves collaborating with artists across disciplines, including writers, composers, musicians, designers, and visual artists.

BAC Artistic Director Mikhail Baryshnikov said: "We at BAC have followed Pam's work throughout the years, and are greatly impressed with her intelligence, determination, and the skill of her company. Like many artists, she is inspired by the legacy of Merce and John, and she reflects their spirit of collaboration and experimentation. Yet, her work is not an imitation of dance history, but is a distinct intellectual journey."

The Cage Cunningham Fellowship, awarded annually, includes $50,000 distributed over two years in support of the Fellow's work. In addition, BAC provides use of the John Cage & Merce Cunningham Studio for eight weeks, as well as significant administrative support for project development.

"It is an immense honor to be recognized and supported by Baryshnikov Arts Center at this level, and especially in connection with the incredible creative legacies of John Cage and Merce Cunningham," said Tanowitz. "This is a critical moment for me and for my company; we need a place to work, to belong. I imagine my time at BAC will be extremely rich-creating new works and preparing for exciting opportunities ahead."

The first part of Tanowitz's fellowship will be dedicated to developing Four Quartets, an evening-length interdisciplinary staging of T.S. Eliot's famous poem by the same name, created in collaboration with composer Kaija Saariaho. This commission of the Bard SummerScape Festival is set to premiere in July 2018.

Tanowitz follows the inaugural 2016-17 Cage Cunningham Fellow-the celebrated Russian pianist and creative visionary Alexei Lubimov, who applied his $50,000 award to commission five composers at the forefront of music innovation: Anton Batagov, Bryce Dessner, Pavel Karmanov, Julia Wolfe, and Sergei Zagny.

About the Artist

Choreographer Pam Tanowitz received a New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award in 2009 for her dance Be in the Gray With Me, presented by Dance Theater Workshop. She was awarded a Foundation for Contemporary Arts award in 2010, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2011, and the Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University in 2013-14. She has received commissions and residencies from The Joyce Theater, Bard Summerscape Festival, New York Live Arts, The Guggenheim Museum's Works & Process series, Danspace Project, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Chicago Dancing Festival, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Duke Performances, Peak Performances, FSU's Opening Nights Series, and the Institute for Contemporary Art/Boston. Her work was selected by The New York Times Best of Dance series in 2013, 2014 and 2015. In 2016, Tanowitz was a Resident Fellow at NYU's Center for Ballet and the Arts, the Juried "Bessie" Award Winner for her work the story progresses as if in a dream of glittering surfaces, and a recipient of a production grant from National Dance Project. In the 2017-2018 season, Tanowitz will premiere new works at Vail International Dance Festival (August 2017), and for Ballet Austin (February 2018). Her newest collaborative project with pianist Simone Dinnerstein, New Work for Goldberg Variations, was commissioned by and will have its world premiere at Duke Performances in October 2017, followed by a four city national tour. Tanowitz has also created or set work for City Center's Fall for Dance Festival, The Juilliard School, New York Theater Ballet, and Saint Louis Ballet; and has been a guest choreographer at Barnard College, Princeton University, Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, Marymount Manhattan College, and Purchase College. She holds dance degrees from The Ohio State University and Sarah Lawrence College, and currently teaches at Rutgers University.

About the Cage Cunningham Campaign

In December 2015, BAC completed the two-year, $1M Cage Cunningham Campaign to establish the Cage Cunningham Fund for artist fellowships. At that time BAC also named its John Cage and Merce Cunningham Studio, the first physical space honoring the duo's unparalleled contribution to 20th century art and culture.

BAC reached the Cage Cunningham Campaign goal thanks to the inspirational support of over 80 donors. BAC Board Member Suzanne Weil and Mikhail Baryshnikov made initial leadership gifts to the Campaign. New and additional funds were raised thanks to a $100,000 matching gift in 2014 from BAC Board Chairman Diana DiMenna and her husband, Joe DiMenna. In 2015, the Merce Cunningham Trust contributed a tremendous leadership gift of $250,000 in support of the Campaign.

The Cage Cunningham Campaign was launched with the encouragement of the John Cage and Merce Cunningham Trusts. The Campaign Advisory Committee includes: Charles Atlas, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Frank Cordasco, Tony Creamer, Molly Davies, Deborah Eisenberg, John Guare, Colleen Keegan, Garrison Keillor, Laura Kuhn, Liz LeCompte, Harvey Lichtenstein, Benedicte Pesle, Georgiana Pickett, Judith Pisar, Kirk Radke, Liz Gerring Radke, Peter Sellars, Wallace Shawn, Allan Sperling, David Vaughan, Suzanne Weil, Lynn Wichern, and Robert Wilson.