Dance/NYC Reveals Recipients Of Disability. Dance. Artistry. Dance And Social Justice Fellowship Program

Dance/NYC has revealed the 29 recipients of the third iteration of the Disability. Dance. Artistry. Dance and Social Justice Fellowship Program (DDA Fellowship), made possible by the generous support of the Ford Foundation. The purpose of the DDA Fellowship is to recognize the critical role that disabled dance workers and arts practitioners play in social justice movements and to ensure that these workers are supported while continuing to place disability front and center as a positive artistic and generative force.

The recipients of the DDA Fellowship Program are:

· Alice Klugherz

· Anh Vo

· Antonio Ramos

· Branden Wallace

· Brandy Heyward

· Buffy

· C. Meranda Flachs-Surmanek

· Donald Lee

· Fatima Logan-Alston

· Issac Iskra

· Jerron Herman

· Justina Kamiel Grayman

· Kiah Amara

· Kiera Bono

· Krishna Washburn

· Leslie Taub

· moira williams

· morgaine ann de leonardis

· Nzingha Hazelton

· Ogemdi Ude

· Rachel DeForrest Repinz

· Sekou Walton

· Shizu Homma

· Sidiki Conde

· Zazel-Chavah O'Garra

· Anonymous (4)

"As a disabled dance artist & co-parenting grandmother, I am too often required to choose between hiring, training, and providing a living wage for access support staff, and paying for reliable, high quality childcare for my two young grandkids while I create," said DDA Fellowship Grantee Leslie Taub. "Receiving the Disability. Dance. Artistry. Dance and Social Justice Fellowship has not only covered months of basic costs such as rehearsal space rental and costuming, but has alleviated some of the pressure of those painful choices between kinds of care."

Grantees were awarded one-time grants of $2,620 in recognition of, and reimbursement for, dance and/or social justice activities undertaken during the Fellowship period, July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023. The 29 grantees include representatives from five (5) counties in the New York City metropolitan area: Hudson (1), Kings (14), New York (10), Queens (3), and Suffolk (1). Grantees are majority ALAANA (55%), include majority women-identifying and gender nonconforming/nonbinary/genderqueer and transgender (83%), majority LGBTQIA+ (62%) and include immigrant dance makers (21%).

"The DDA fellowship is a crucial part of Dance/NYC's programming, as guided by our values of justice, equity, and inclusion," said Dance/NYC Co-Executive Director Sara Roer. "We are humbled to continue to redistribute resources to this community of dance workers."

"Dance/NYC continues to demonstrate their commitment to fully supporting accessibility and meeting the needs of disabled dancers and dance workers across the NYC region," says Senior Program Officer, Creativity and Free Expression at the Ford Foundation Rocio Aranda-Alvarado. "The DDA fellowship supports those whose lives are most marked by inequality. We are proud to partner with them in these efforts."

These 29 grantees were selected by a review panel of dance workers and were among a competitive pool of 40 self-identified disabled dance workers that submitted applications in response to an open call from August to October 2023. Key evaluation criteria included: economic need; a commitment to justice, equity, and inclusion; and a diversity of participant types and perspectives.

Additional information on grant requirements and eligibility can be found on Dance/NYC's website.

About Dance/NYC (Dance.NYC)

Dance/NYC's mission is to promote the knowledge, appreciation, practice, and performance of dance in the metropolitan New York City area. It embeds values of justice, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of the organization. Dance/NYC remains committed to delivering programs that address disparities in the dance field by continuing to fill gaps in the availability of resources where they are most needed. It believes the dance ecology must itself be just, equitable, and inclusive to meaningfully contribute to social progress and envisions a dance ecology wherein power, funding, opportunities, conduct, and impacts are fair for all artists, cultural workers, and audiences.

Visit Dance.NYC/DDA for more information on Dance/NYC's Disability. Dance. Artistry. Initiative.

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