Dance Lab NY And The Joyce Theater Foundation Provide Female Choreographers Of Color An Opportunity To Incubate New Works

Dance Lab New York (DLNY) will partner with the Joyce Theater Foundation to provide a one-of-a-kind choreographic lab for four female choreographers of color to explore the classical, neoclassical, and/or contemporary ballet idioms. As part of this first-time collaboration, each choreographer will receive thirty hours of incubation in rehearsal space provided by the Joyce Artist Residency Center. DLNY will provide a weekly stipend, eight paid professional dancers, a rehearsal director, insurance, and administrative support. The Lab will take place October 14 through November 8, 2019 with a showing on Sunday, November 10, 2019 at Guggenheim's Works & Process.

"I am thrilled to announce this exciting new partnership between Dance Lab New York and the Joyce Theater Foundation, which will serve to champion women of color and give them the support they need to explore classical ballet", said DLNY Founding Artistic Director, Josh Prince. "We are honored to have help from the Joyce to lift these artists up so that their narratives may be equally included in the future of this idiom."

"As the conversation is shifting within the field of ballet to the lack of female choreographers, and more specifically the lack of opportunities for female dance makers of color, The Joyce has entered into a unique collaboration with DLNY to help address gender and racial inequity through shared resources", said Joyce Executive Director, Linda Shelton. "This collaboration prioritizes research and development with no expectation of a final "product" as an essential step forward. True to The Joyce's and DLNY's shared values, this pilot partnership embraces the concepts of risk, experimentation, and trial and error."

To select the four participants, DLNY and the Joyce assembled an esteemed panel of five women. They included Lourdes Lopez, Artistic Director of Miami City Ballet; Virginia Johnson, Artistic Director of Dance Theater of Harlem; Janet Wong, Associate Artistic Director of New York Live Arts; Theresa Ruth Howard, Founder/Curator of the Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet; and Renae Williams Niles, Associate Dean of Administration for USC Kaufman School of Dance.

The four choreographers selected to participate are Preeti Vasudevan of New York City, Micaela Taylor of Los Angeles, Amy Hall Garner of New York City, and Margarita Armas of Seattle.

"It is exciting to be a part of a strategically thoughtful initiative with the goal to positively impact change in our field and specifically in Ballet", said 2019 Panelist Renae Williams Niles. "It is vital to the future of Ballet to support the creative growth and provide distinct opportunities for artists of color and particularly dance makers who identify as women as their voices are greatly underrepresented and sadly many don't receive the encouragement and advocacy they need and deserve."

Dance Lab New York is the only independent organization exclusively dedicated to promoting and advancing the art form of choreography by gifting vital resources to a diverse range of dance makers. DLNY provides choreographers with a curated company of professional dancers, expansive studio space, and structured rehearsal time in order to incubate ideas in a fully professionalized environment. In addition to creation grants, DLNY's initiatives in training and mentorship ensure continuous progression within the art form. This revolutionary new model for making dance fosters creativity, ingenuity, risk taking, discovery, and collaboration, which impacts the future of dance in New York and on stages across the world. Over the past six years, DLNY has had the pleasure of providing a company of paid dancers and studio space to more than 35 choreographers, including three-time Tony Award- winner Andy Blankenbuehler (Hamilton), Camille A. Brown (Once on This Island), Hope Boykin (Alvin Ailey), Lorin Latarro (Waitress), Lauren Lovette (New York City Ballet), Al Blackstone ("So You Think You Can Dance"), Ray Mercer (The Lion King), Brooke Wendle ("America's Got Talent"), Rosie Herrera (Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre), and more.

For more information on Dance Lab New York, please visit www.dancelabny.org.