Set Designer Mimi Lien and Tap Dancer/Choreographer Michelle Dorrance Among 2015 MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant Recipients

Set designer Mimi Lien and tap dancer/choreographer Michelle Dorrance are among the 24 recipients of the 2015 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Commonly called "The Genius Grant" they will each receive a $625,000 no-strings-attached grant over the next five years.

Lien's theatre designs include New York productions of NATASHA, PIERRE, AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 and AN OCTOROON.

Dorrance, a faculty member at the Broadway Dance Center, is the founder Dorrance Dance/New York, a troupe that "aims to honor tap dance's uniquely beautiful history in a new and dynamically compelling context."

Fellows do not apply for, nor are informed of their being considered for the grant until they receive a phone call informing them of their being selected, shortly before a public announcement.

Also named as 2015 fellows are HAMILTON author/star Lin-Manuel Miranda and puppeteer Basil Twist. Click here for BroadwayWorld's coverage of their awards.

Click here for the complete list of 2015 fellows.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private philanthropies based in the United States. The Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society.

Videos and bios from the MacArthur Foundation website:

Mimi Lien is a set designer for theater, opera, and dance whose bold, immersive designs shape and extend a dramatic text's narrative and emotional dynamics. Lien combines training in set design and architecture with an innate dramaturgical insight, and she is adept at configuring a performance space to establish particular relationships-both among the characters on stage and between the audience and the actors-that dramatize the play's movement through space and time.

Michelle Dorrance is a tap dancer and choreographer breathing new life into a uniquely American art form in works that combine the musicality of tap with the choreographic intricacies of contemporary dance. Dorrance uses her deep understanding of the technique and history of tap dancing to deconstruct and reimagine its artistic possibilities.