Center For Performance Research Announces 2022 Artists-in-Residence

Center for Performance Research has announced the ten artists selected for its 2022 Artist-in-Residence (AiR) Program. This year-long residency supports a wide range of artists working within various perspectives of contemporary dance and performance, and time-based forms. The program seeks to support the individualized creative process, and create the conditions for artistic research, experimentation, risk, embodiment, and exchange.

The 2022 CPR Artists-in-Residence are Justin Cabrillos, Ayano Elson, Doménica García, ryen heart, Symara Johnson, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Star Mitchell, Pioneers Go East Collective, Ogemdi Ude, and Jessie Young.

After receiving nearly 200 applications through an open call, the 2022 AiRs were selected by an independent panel of artists and community stakeholders, who brought a broad range of perspectives, aesthetics, and approaches to the selection process. As CPR strives to decentralize modes of power in its programming and operations, the panel-reviewed open call application was instituted in 2019 in order to increase visibility, opportunities, and resources for a more diverse range of artists in the field. This year's selection panel was Stephanie Acosta, LD DeArmon, Douglas Everett Turner, and Katie Workum.

"The Artist-in-Residence Program is at the bedrock of CPR's mission, forefronting the resources, time, and space artists need to wrestle with their ideas, and creating a community around this shared value," says Alexandra Rosenberg, CPR's Executive Director. "The 2022 cohort is an exciting and dynamic group, approaching liveness and embodiment from so many different vantage points - from surreal landscapes to sci-fi transmasculine adventures, lasso practice to oceanic magical thinking. We cannot wait to welcome these artists to their new creative home at CPR, and to witness what they inspire in themselves, each other, and us."

CPR AiRs receive heavily subsidized rehearsal space at CPR, a $1,000 stipend, curatorial and production support, professional development, and opportunities to present their work. AiRs form a central part of CPR's public programs, which are largely informed by ideas and propositions by resident artists, who may present work in signature programs such as Sunday Salon, Open Studios, and Performance Philosophy Reading Group, as well as other flexible platforms for presentation and dialogue that respond to artists' needs at various stages of research and artistic creation.

CPR's AiR Program has supported over 100 residencies since it was established in 2012, with alumni including Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Sidra Bell, Moriah Evans, Mariana Valencia, John Jasperse, Leslie Cuyjet, Kyle Marshall, and many others. A full list of current and former CPR AiRs since 2012 can be found at www.cprnyc.org/artist-in-residence. ABOUT THE 2022 CPR ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE

Justin Cabrillos is a choreographer, artist, and writer based in Brooklyn. He was a 2021 Artist-in-Residence at The Momentary, a 2017 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence, a 2016 danceWEB scholar at ImPulsTanz under the mentorship of Tino Seghal, and a recipient of a Greenhouse grant from Chicago Dancemaker's Forum. His work has been commissioned by IN>TIME in Chicago, Danspace Project, and The Chocolate Factory Theater. As a performer, he has worked with Every house has a door, Julian Barnett, Jen Rosenblit, and Jeremy Shaw. www.justincabrillos.com

Ayano Elson is an Okinawan-American artist based in New York. Her choreography has been presented by Art Cake, The Chocolate Factory Theater, Gibney Dance, ISSUE Project Room, Knockdown Center, Movement Research, and Roulette, among others. She has performed in works by Kim Brandt, Jessica Cook, Milka Djordjevich, Simone Forti, Kyli Kleven, Abigail Levine, and Haegue Yang. Elson has developed her work through artist residencies at Abrons Arts Center, Art Cake, Gibney Dance, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council at Governors Island, AUNTS at Mount Tremper Arts, and Movement Research's Van Lier Emerging Artist of Color Fellowship. AyanoElson.com

Doménica García is an Ecuadorian interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Her work is rooted in performance art and seeks to communicate the radical through the ordinary. García's interdisciplinary approach aims to manipulate reality, facilitating a fantastic and surreal experience within the rational world. Her work has been featured in film festivals, galleries, and museums in the US, Mexico, and Ecuador, including the Atlanta Film Festival, San Diego Latino Film Festival, Queens Museum, Museum of the Moving Image, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito, and Granoff Center for the Creative Arts. García earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts. www.domenicagarcia.com

ryen heart is an interdisciplinary artist working with performance, music, video, and sculpture. they create performances oriented around apocalypse, pop culture, and embodied memory. they have shown solo work at Dixon Place, The Living Gallery, H0L0, Riis Beach, and corners of the internet, etc. ryen holds a BA in film and electronic arts from Bard College.

Symara Johnson is a Portland, OR native, currently residing in Brooklyn. Johnson has been a resident artist at Bearnstow and is a Gibney Work Up 6.2 artist. Johnson has presented their work at Bates Dance Festival, Smush Gallery, The Craft, BAAD, CreateArtXGallim, WIM Salon, Mount Vernon Community Theatre, ACMA, The Forum Art Space, Moving Art Exchange, Chez Bushwick, and Beijing Dance Academy Theatre, and others throughout NYC and Germany. She has performed in works by Kevin Wynn, Alexandra Beller, Rena Butler, Jasmine Hearn, Hannah Garner, Nattie Trogdon+Hollis Bartlett, Slowdanger, Marion Spencer, Joanna Kotze, Christoph Winkler, and Netta Yerushalmy, among others. Johnson is a graduate of the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase and Beijing Dance Academy.

Johnnie Cruise Mercer is a queer black thinker, maker, performer, educator and social entrepreneur born in Richmond, VA and based in NYC. He received a 2021 Princess Grace Award in Choreography. He is the founder of TheREDprojectNYC, a multidisciplinary arts ensemble dedicated to the study of movement philosophy and its use toward building communal spaces for black/other process, documentation, and investigation. www.trpnyc.com

Star Mitchell is a Celestial force; Descended from the sun and the moon's love. Star is a Brooklyn-based artist using the elements to connect to their ancestors and dismantle ancestral curses that dare to hold them back, and uses movement as a further expression of our inner being, currently honoring themself (Sankofa) by creating work that serves the community. As a choreographer and performance educator throughout NYC, Star is currently teaching movement as a form of interpersonal communication, reworking narratives pertaining to Black bodies, and discovering new forms of liberation for Black and Brown communities. This notion is deeply important to their future creations, pushing opportunities for freedom, peace, and balance. starshaemitchell.wixsite.com/website

Pioneers Go East Collective is a radical Queer ensemble dedicated to dance-theatre and video art that empowers the LGBTQ experience. Based in NYC since 2015, they are led by BIPOC artists and LGBTQ advocates Daniel Diaz, Philip Treviño, and Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte. They portray same-gender-loving experiences, memory, and marginalization that resonate with contemporary lives, combining stories of vulnerability and courage with popular culture to facilitate communal meaning and advocate for cultural integrity. Their work has been widely presented in NYC at La MaMa, Judson Church, BAAD, Chez Bushwick, St Ann's Warehouse, Exponential Festival, LMCC Process Space at Governors Island, Incubator Arts Project, Triskelion Arts, New Dance Alliance, Chashama, and Goethe Institut. They received a 2021-22 BRIC residency. Current collaborators include Janessa Clark, Azmi Mert Erdem, Bree Breeden, Joey Kipp, and Bryan Baira. www.pioneersgoeast.org

Ogemdi Ude is a Nigerian-American dance artist, educator, and doula based in Brooklyn. Her performances focus on Black femme legacies and futures, grief, and memory. Her work has been presented at Recess Art, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Danspace Project, Gibney Dance, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Streb Lab for Action Mechanics, and BAM's DanceAfrica Festival. She is a 2021 danceWEB Scholar and a 2021 Laundromat Project Artist-in-Residence. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in English from Princeton University. www.ogemdiude.com

Jessie Young is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, performer, and teacher originally from Port Angeles, WA. Young crafts choreography as a poetic provocation, viewing dance as a form that must constantly redefine itself in relation to shifting sensorial, emotional, political, and cultural circumstances. jessie-young.com

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