The Center For Ballet And The Arts At NYU Launches Artistic Partnership Initiative

The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU (CBA), the first-ever international institute for scholars and artists of ballet and its related arts and sciences, today announces the launch of its Artistic Partnership Initiative (API). API is a joint initiative between The Center and major professional dance companies around the world to advance the art of choreography. The API Fellowship will give artists selected by the companies the full resources of The Center and NYU for a three to four-week residency to develop new work. Nominees are artists with notable choreographic potential.

API Fellows will receive access to CBA's dance studio, an office, a stipend, and when applicable, a furnished apartment in NYU faculty housing. Additionally, API Fellows will benefit from the full academic resources of NYU as well as facilitated introductions to relevant individuals from within the NYU and CBA communities.

"CBA is thrilled to have this opportunity to support new work from some of the world's leading dance companies," said CBA Founder and Director Jennifer Homans. "So often, talented dancers with strong choreographic potential lack the resources necessary to develop original work. Through this initiative, CBA hopes to give fellows the time to think and experiment. This benefits not only the artists, but also the companies and their audiences."

2018 API Fellows:

Gemma Bond, American Ballet Theatre
Gemma Bond was born in Bedfordshire, England and began her ballet training with Sylvia Bebbs. She trained at the Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet rising to the rank of first artist. Since joining American Ballet Theatre (ABT) in 2008 as a member of the corps de ballet, Bond has danced works ranging from Ashton to Balanchine, Morris to Tharp, and created featured roles in works by Alexei Ratmansky and Liam Scarlett, among others. Bond got her first taste of choreography at 13 when she competed in the Royal Ballet's Sir Kenneth MacMillan Choreographic Competition. From 2010 to the present, she has created three new ballets for ABT's Innovation Initiative as well as works for Atlanta Ballet, New York Theater Ballet, Intermezzo Ballet Company, the Hartt School, The Joyce Theater, Ballet Sun Valley, and the Washington Ballet. Her choreography has been performed at the prestigious Erik Bruhn Competition, the Youth America Grand Prix Gala, the 92nd Street Y, The Joyce, and Jacob's Pillow, and she has worked on commercial projects with 1stAveMachine. In 2014, she was awarded the fellowship grant from the New York Choreographic Institute (an affiliate of New York City Ballet), and she has also received grants from the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. Bond was a 2017-2018 New York City Center Choreography Fellow, the recipient of a 2017 Princess Grace Choreography Fellowship, and the 2017 Clive Barnes Dance Award Winner.

Julie Cunningham, Rambert
Julie Cunningham, founder of Julie Cunningham & Company, has worked professionally as a dance artist for fifteen years performing both nationally and internationally. After training at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance in London, Cunningham worked with Ballett der Stadt Theater Koblenz, Germany, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and Michael Clark Company. Cunningham has worked on projects with Boris Charmatz for Musée de la Danse and is a guest teacher at Trinity Laban and Zurich University of the Arts. In 2014, she was awarded "Outstanding Modern Performance" at the Critics Circle National Dance Awards for New Work with Michael Clark Company and was nominated for the emerging artist award for choreography in 2016. Cunningham was the inaugural Leverhulme Choreography Fellow at Rambert and was part of the dance artist/curator mentorship program through Siobhan Davies Dance. In 2018, she became a New Wave Associate of Sadlers Wells, and Associate Artist with Dance East. Julie Cunningham & Company was launched in 2017 and became associate company of Rambert in 2018. Cunningham's work has been performed at the Barbican, The Place, Dance Base Edinburgh, Tramway Glasgow, Siobhan Davies Studios, Wilderness Festival, National Theatre River Stage, V&A Museum, Southbank Centre, and Shoreditch Town Hall as part of Dance Umbrella Festival.

Shannon Glover, Joburg Ballet
Shannon Glover was born in Durban, South Africa, and began dance training in Johannesburg at the age of four. She later attended the National School of the Arts and was winner of the South African Adeline Genée Silver Trophy Competition and represented South Africa at the international Genée Competition in Birmingham, England. In 2004, Glover was accepted for the South African Ballet Theatre's (later Joburg Ballet) Graduate Programme and subsequently taken into the company. Her repertoire includes leading roles in The Sleeping Beauty, La Traviata, Cinderella, Coppélia, Carmen, Le Corsaire, The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, La Bayadère, The Nutcracker Re-Imagined, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, and Giselle as well as many shorter and one-act ballets by South African and visiting choreographers, showcasing her versatile artistry in both classical and contemporary Styles. Glover has choreographed a number of works for Joburg Ballet, most recently Big City, Big Dreams in which she collaborated with two choreographers from other Johannesburg-based dance companies on this full-evening work. In 2013, she danced in the International Ballet Gala in Honour of Alicia Alonso in Johannesburg and has also danced in two international galas to raise funds for feeding programmes in Ethiopia. As a guest artist she has performed with the Tivoli Ballet Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2017, she represented South Africa at a gala to mark the BRICS summit in the Chinese city of Xiamen, dancing a pas de deux from Romeo and Juliet with fellow South African Revil Yon. Glover was recently featured as one of CNN's African Voices.

Wubkje Kuindersma, Dutch National Ballet
Wubkje Kuindersma is a Dutch female choreographer. She is educated at the Rotterdam Dance Academy and danced with Danish Dance Theatre, Gulbenkian Ballet, Random Dance, Djazzex, Nürnberg Ballet, and in several freelance projects. She performed works by Naharin, Rushton, Mc Gregor, Kylian, Forsythe, Kurz, Chouinard, Velman, Strømgren, and van Berkel, and others. Her acknowledgements include a scholarship from Dansersfonds and a nomination for The Philip Morris Award for outstanding performance in the ITS Festival in Amsterdam. In Fall 2009, Kuindersma decided to focus on her love for choreography. Aquasomnia, her first piece of choreography, won an award for originality of movement vocabulary and outstanding movement quality in the choreographic competition U30 in Cologne in 2010. In 2016, she received the BNG Bank Dance Award for choreographic talent. She choreographed for Noverre Society for dancers of Stuttgart Ballet, Korzo Theater & Netherlands Dance Theater's program, the National Youth Ballet in Hamburg of John Neumeier and Kevin Haigen, Dantzaz, Danish Dance Theatre, Beijing Dance Academy, Dutch National Ballet Junior Company, Dutch National Ballet, and others. Her duet Two and Only for Dutch National Ballet has been internationally well received. Marijn Rademaker got nominated for the Prix de Benois for his role in this ballet and performed Two and Only together with Timothy van Poucke on the Benois Gala at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Kuindersma's Tales of A Nordic Mind for Danish Dance Theatre delivered dancer Csongor Szabo a nomination as Best Dancer for the prestigious Danish Reumert Award.

The Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University is an international institute for scholars and artists of ballet and its related arts and sciences. It exists to inspire new ideas and new ballets, expanding the way we think about the art form's history, practice, and performance in the 21st century. The Center is made possible by funding and ongoing support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and additional support from New York University and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

For more information about the Artistic Partnership Initiative, please contact Andrea Salvatore at andrea.salvatore@nyu.edu. For more information about The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, visit balletcenter.nyu.edu.