Gibney to Present MOVE|NYC|'s Young Professionals Program in August

Gibney, the New York City based dance and social justice organization, will present MOVE|NYC|’s Young Professionals Program August 24-25, 2024.

The Young Professionals Ensemble  is MOVE|NYC|’s acclaimed professional youth company. Our performers hail from MOVE|NYC|’s tuition-free Young Professionals Program. The Young Professionals Program is a year-round Mentorship & College/Conservatory Prep Program for New York City teenagers, ages 13 - 18, who demonstrate exceptional potential for a career in dance. The Young Professional Ensemble creates and performs cutting edge works by emerging choreographers all over NYC at premier venues such as Gibney, BAM, New York City Center, Little Island, BAAD, and more. 

This August, MOVE|NYC| has commissioned an exciting roster of diverse creators to premiere six new works during its summer season, creating platforms for its exceptional Young Professionals and the voice of choreographers to watch in this not to be missed showcase.     

MOVE|NYC| 2024 Choreographers:
Norbert De La Cruz III (Princess Grace Award Winner)
Loni Landon (Princess Grace Award Winner/Co-Founder The Playground)
Alyssa Myers (USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance Graduate) 
Dual Rivet (NYC’s Chelsea Ainsworth & Jessica Smith)
Mike Tyus (Mike Tyus & Co/Jacob Jonas The Company/Cirque du Soleil)
Kamille Upshaw (Broadway’s “Hell’s Kitchen” Associate Choreographer)

ABOUT MOVE|NYC|

Founded in 2015, MOVE|NYC| is a leading-edge New York City based arts and social justice organization whose mission is to cultivate greater diversity and equity within the dance profession and beyond. As a Black-led organization dedicated to diversifying the dance field, we hold the important responsibility of shaping the next generation of dance artists and leaders. We actualize this responsibility by providing artistic training, mentorship, professional development, presenting opportunities, and other quintessential resources for career advancement to primarily BIPOC artists from historically disinvested communities. Through our programs, activities, and youth ensemble, MOVE|NYC| is committed to artistic excellence, mentorship, community engagement, equity, and social change. 

MOVE|NYC| imagines a field in which exceptionally gifted dancers, no matter where they are from, have access to the best training. We imagine more artists who are empowered to bring their own cultural backgrounds to their specialized fields. We imagine more artists creating new ways to move the field forward. We imagine an art form that will connect with more audiences. 

We imagine more people imagining.

ABOUT MOVE|NYC| 2024 Choreographers

NORBERT DE LA CRUZ III
Born in the Philippines and raised in Los Angeles, Norbert De La Cruz III is recognized for his versatility in performance and choreography. He is a collaborative artist with roots in classical and contemporary dance.  After moving to New York in 2006 he received a BFA from the Juilliard School followed by an MFA from Hollins University. He is a NY and LA based freelance artist.  Norbert was a former soloist with Ballet Torino, Aszure Barton & Artists, Metropolitan Opera, and Complexions. He was casted as a performer in Warner Brothers Pictures film adaptation of Tony-winning musical In The Heights. He continued to create original works for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, New York City Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, BalletX, Peridance, Juilliard, Olympic Ballet Theater, Big Muddy Dance Company, Ballet Hispanico, Eisenhower Dance Detroit, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Owen Cox Dance,  Bruce Wood Dance, Hartford Ballet, and much more.  Norbert is a Princess Grace Foundation-USA award recipient in choreography, Alvin Ailey New Directions Choreography Lab, Joffrey Academy of Dance’s Winning Works, a Jerome Robbins New Essential Works recipient, and a recipient of the the NY Choreographic Institute. He was an adjunct faculty member at The Juilliard School and a guest artist at SUNY Purchase, Barnard Columbia University, Boston Conservatory, the University of Richmond, VCU, Princeton University, and the Hartt School.  His honorable mentions include the Asian Arts Alliance Award, McCallum Theatre Choreography Festival Award, YAGP's best choreographer award and was featured in Dance Magazines Top 25 to watch.  www.NorbertDeLaCruziii.com IG:@Norbert.DeLaCruz.iii 

Loni Landon
Loni Landon, a multifaceted artist from New York City, is a choreographer, producer, and dance educator. As a Princess Grace Choreography Fellowship Winner and NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Finalist, her choreography has been presented by numerous dance companies, colleges, and festivals in the U.S. and abroad. Her company has performed at The Joyce Theater, Pulse Art Fair, Jacob's Pillow, Bryant Park, Greenwood Cemetery, Southampton Arts Center, Beach Sessions in Rockaway Beach, and Guggenheim Works and Process Series. Loni choreographed the feature film “Saturday Church,” which premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival and produced “Movement at The Still Point, An Ode to Dance,” published in 2023 by Rizzoli Books - a tribute to dance artists captured by renowned portrait photographer Mark Mann. Loni has co-founded THE PLAYGROUND, an initiative designed to give emerging choreographers a place to experiment while allowing professional dancers to participate affordably, and was recognized by Dance Magazine as a 25 To Watch. She has taught at The Juilliard School, SUNY Purchase, Princeton University, NYU, and Barnard University. Loni earned her BFA from the Juilliard School and MFA from The University of The Arts.

DUAL RIVET
DUAL RIVET is a women-led dance company focused on creating and sharing highly physical contemporary dance to a wide audience. Based in NYC, Dual Rivet creates work for stage and film that exchanges a cinematic and visceral language to influence both platforms. Directors Jessica Smith and Chelsea Ainsworth have been making and presenting work since 2017. They have performed and set work at Festival PRISMA (Panama), Centro Cultural Los Talleres (Mexico), Oklahoma International Dance Festival, Barnard College/Columbia University, Sam Houston State University, West End Theatre, Kittery Maine, Musikfest Pennsylvania, Peridance Capezio Center, CreateArt, Arts On Site and many more. The company teaches a myriad of classes, throughout the United States and internationally, with an emphasis on contemporary partnering and floorwork. Dual Rivet is currently on faculty at The Juilliard School, Gibney, Peridance, SUNY Purchase and Adelphi University. The company hosts an annual choreography festival, MADE BY WOMEN, highlighting women choreographers and creators. For more info: www.dualrivetdance.com @dualrivet

MIKE TYUS
Mike Tyus is an award winning dancer, choreographer, and creative director from Los Angeles, California. He has been performing and creating dance works for the stage and screen for over 15 years. As a performer, Tyus has worked with Cirque du Soleil in “IRIS”,  at the Kodak Theater in LA, and “KOOZA” as “The Trickster” - “a devilish ringleader” and lead character. Tyus joined Pilobolus Dance Theater in 2013, performing works by Sidi Larbi Cherkoui, Penn & Telle, Isreali choreographers, Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollack and Spanish choreographer Javier De Frutos, while also creating company repertory that is still performed today. He recently performed “Trio A with Flags” by Yvonne Rainer at the Broad Museum in LA. He is a founding member of Jacob Jonas The Company and an Associate Producer for Films.Dance, a platform focused on dance film creation through unconventional collaboration.

In 2020, Tyus created Mike Tyus & Co, a dance company that focuses on the creation of Tyus’ work with over 13 films and 3 live works. One specific creation called “Hunger” was developed at Orsolina28, a dance residency in Moncalvo, Italy. Tyus’ choreographic works derive from techniques and styles from his past. Circus theater, acrobatics, ballet, and greco-roman wrestling are abstracted and synthesized to create something unique. He has created works for dance companies, museums, pop-stars, and universities alike. Recently, Tyus has worked for Visceral Dance Chicago, Chicago Repertory Ballet, Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, Manhattan Youth Ballet, Ziru Dance, Utah University, Vassar College, CLI by Teddy Forance, Alonzo Kings Lines Ballet, TL Collective and Hedwig Dances Chicago. In 2020, Tyus directed and choreographed a dance film called ELSEWHERE on Whim W’him Contemporary Dance Company that was showcased on PBS. He’s created dance films for The Broad Museum in LA that were featured on StandardVision billboards throughout the city. Tyus was selected to create a work on the Joffrey Ballet Academy for the Winning Works program presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art. He also choreographed a Facebook commercial directed by FKA Twigs that now lives in the MOMA’s archives because of its cultural significance. Tyus’ has choreographed music videos for Nigerian Pop-Star Adekunle Gold and new comer Anna Margo, and assisted Daniel Ezralow in the creation of an art film for actor and musician Jim Sturgess, bringing art-world sensibilities to pop culture.

As a creative director, Tyus has developed branded campaigns for Vaara, Anthropologie, Veuve Clicquot, Club Monaco, SONY, Apple, and Abercrombie & Fitch, focusing on the relationship between dance and commerce and utilizing his large social media network to share the power of dance worldwide. Community and Creation are at the core of Tyus’ mission and continue to drive his efforts in crafting work that feeds the human spirit and reflects the times in which we live.

Kamille Upshaw
Born & raised in Washington, DC, Kamille Upshaw is a graduate of the Juilliard School and The Baltimore School of the Arts. 

Broadway Credits: Hamilton: An American Musical, Mean Girls Tour, "The Man, The Music, The Show" Hugh Jackman 1st National world tour, and "Flashdance the Musical."

Other Credits: La Jolla Playhouse "Fly", Metropolitan Opera, Radio City NY Spring Spectacular, Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Bad Boys of Dance.

ALYSSA MYERS
Alyssa Myers is an NYC based choreographer and a dancer with Terre Dance Collective. Since graduating from USC Kaufman in 2020, she has created choreographic works for MOVE|NYC|, Joffrey Dance Academy, Utah Metropolitan Ballet, Falco Dance Company, Traverse City Dance Project, and Terre Dance Collective. Her work has been shown in New York theaters such as Gibney 280, Arts on Site, NYLA, Dixon Place, Ailey Citigroup Theater, and Paul Taylor Studios. She has received the emerging and professional Choreography Recognition Award at Regional Dance of America/Pacific(‘16) and The Ballet Alliance Festival(‘24). Alyssa has performed works by William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Azure Barton, George Balanchine and Crystal Pite as a member of the 2nd graduating class at USC Kaufman. In the spring of 2022, she was an artistic collaborator for Jodie Gate’s NYU Residency Fellowship serving to research inclusivity and identity within balletic structures. She also was the artistic recipient of Converge2Emerge’s fellowship program in 2022. She is on faculty with Downtown Dance Factory as a ballet teacher and rehearsal coach. Her previous training includes her time as a pre-professional company member of Ballet Yuma, and summer intensive student at Paul Taylor, Houston Ballet Academy, the RDA’s National Choreography Intensive, and Orsolina28 Pite/Forsythe. Most of all, Alyssa strives to positively influence others’ capacity to embrace collaborative models and collective discovery through experiencing movement workshops, performances, and intentional discussion.