Petronio Residency Center Champions Black and Queer Voices with 2023 Residency Awards

Petronio Residency Center has announced its 2023 residency awardees to foster dance voices of the next generation through research and development at the company's 175-acre center, perched in Greene County's Catskill Mountains. After supporting the creativity of over 100 artists, the company is awarding dancer and choreographer nia love with the 2023 Petronio Award (February 16-22), visual and dance artist Malcolm-x Betts with the 2023 Retreat & Restore Residency (May 6-12), and choreographer Gillian Walsh with a Partnership Residency in collaboration with Danspace Project (June 17-23).

With a body of work that takes aim at expanding and destabilizing conversations of racial theory through intersectionality, transnationalism, feminism, and the Black Lives Matter movement, nia love is the recipient of the 2023 Petronio Award after a competitive nomination process by a diverse national panel. The Petronio Award, established in 2017, celebrates the creative process, providing recipients and their collaborators time and resources for discussion, critical thinking, and creation without the expectation of formal deliverables. Artists receive complete use of the facilities, including the state of the art studio and grounds, a lead artist and travel stipend, and chef-prepared meals.

The Retreat & Restore residency was established in 2021 in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with a commitment to bolster the voices and work of New York City based BIPOC and LGBTQ artists. Selected from over 100 applicants, Malcolm-x Betts strong community engagement practice to make art accessible to everybody closely aligns with the vision of Stephen Petronio and his work through Stephen Petronio Company and Petronio Residency Center. During this spring residency, Betts and collaborators will be provided unfettered time to continue the exploration of themes of liberation, Black imagination and direct engagement with challenges placed on the physical body.

PRC's annual Partnership Residency provides support for artists with projects in development but who lack resources for needed physical space and time to create the work. This year, in partnership with Danspace Project, Gillian Walsh will utilize the 7-day residency to create fluid, well-resourced pathways toward production and presentation for a future endeavor presented by Danspace Project in Fall 2023. Her work offers audiences an invitation to experience dance, time, and being together in new ways through the use of duration, stillness, emptiness, and repetition.

Located in the Catskill Mountains, Petronio Residency Center artists enjoy the quiet and transformative presence of nature, a 2,500 square foot state-of-the-art studio space, full room and board, an artist stipend, and daily access to an on-site chef to foster a period of research outside of the traditional structure and timeline of artmaking. From bolstering early-stage project research, to exploring cross-disciplinary collaboration, and providing resources to BIPOC and LGBTQ artists, PRC is committed to the development of authentic and meaningful work.

"Stephen Petronio Company is thrilled to support these particular artists in our uniquely intimate way. I hope our home in nature works its powerful magic while they are at Petronio Residency Center," says Stephen Petronio, Founder and Artistic Director of Stephen Petronio Company and Petronio Residency Center.

Petronio's commitment to cultivating the next generation of dancers and thinkers is represented through the work at Petronio Residency Center, and across educational initiatives all over the world, but also at the rudimentary level in the public schools of Greene County. Currently, under the direction of Marcus McGregor (Director of Education and Community Engagement for PRC), the organization serves over 1,800 school-age students across four local districts to bring dance into physical education classes during week-long residency programs. At all levels, the student is encouraged to find a healthy, open, and fearless mobility within their own body.