The National Center For Choreography - Akron Receives $25,000 Grant From The National Endowment For The Arts

The National Center for Choreography - Akron announces today that the organization has received a $25,000 Grants for Arts Projects award from the National Endowment for the Arts to support 2021-22 programming.

NCCAkron is among more than 1,100 projects across America selected for this round of funding, totaling nearly $27 million. This funding will support an NCCAkron Creative Research Residency, Technical Residency, and the Inaugural National Summit Convening for the Creative Administration Research program. The NEA support finds NCCAkron in good company with the City of Akron, as the Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival also received NEA funding. This is the 5th time NCCAkron has received prestigious NEA funding since its founding in 2015.

"Dance artists are equal partners in designing NCCAkron's programming," said NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director Christy Bolingbroke. "These national funding opportunities arise from conversations with artists that happen over the course of 15-18 months. Operating from a place of abundance, NCCAkron meets artists where they are at in order to dream and realize resources. Working with national and regional dance artists solidifies Akron as a hub for arts innovation and support. Funding from the NEA is a vote of confidence for these artists and our role in the broader arts ecosystem."

"As the country and the arts sector begin to imagine returning to a post-pandemic world, the National Endowment for the Arts is proud to announce funding that will help arts organizations such as NCCAkron reengage fully with partners and audiences," said NEA Acting Chairman Ann Eilers. "Although the arts have sustained many during the pandemic, the chance to gather with one another and share arts experiences is its own necessity and pleasure."

Programs highlighted in NCCAkron's application and receiving support through this NEA award include:

• Creative Research Residency: Beyond Bharatanatyam with Ashwini Ramaswamy (Minneapolis, MN)

• Technical Residency: Birds of Paradise with Pioneer Winter (Miami, FL)

• A National Summit Convening in Akron for the Creative Administration Research program in June 2022

Ashwini Ramaswamy (Minneapolis, MN) will use the creative research residency to translate Bharatnatyam (a classical Indian dance form) principles on other dance forms and styles. Ramaswamy will explore beyond her most recent work where she collaborated with Gaga (the movement language and pedagogy) and Black diasporic dance artists to reimagine Bharatanatyam and its contemporary manifestations. Now, Ramaswamy is interested in further experimentation with how she might relate her choreographic practices to contemporary dance/repertory companies and The University of Akron dance student training.

In December 2021, Pioneer Winter (Miami, FL) will visit NCCAkron to play with alternative presenting spaces and formats for his work Birds of Paradise. The work continues Winter's exploration of beauty and virtuosity outside the mainstream by creating a series of dance-based queer solo portraits on the themes of agency, survival, and transformation. Featuring interwoven filmed and live dance performance, this new work is developed in collaboration with the performers, the White Elephant Group media company, and sound artist Juraj Kojš. Upcoming in August, Pioneer will engage in a Dancing Conversation event alongside Akron community members as part of NCCAkron's partnership with The University of Akron's ZTV.

"The resources given to me have gone beyond the financial support. Collaborating with NCCAkron on the tech residency has brought new ideas to the surface," explains Winter. "NCCAkron has leveraged their partnership with The University of Akron to explore how I might present a version of this work in the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology gallery spaces."

The Creative Administration Research program challenges and invites U.S. choreographers to re-examine artistic and administrative practices to experiment beyond "best practices." Over the past year NCCAkron has worked with 10 Artist Teams to reimagine new ways forward for the dance field. Each Artist Team consists of an Artist and a Thought Partner. In June 2022, a national cohort of all the Artist Teams to date (estimate 18 teams) will convene in Akron for a National Summit Convening to more broadly exchange knowledge developed across the cohort. Current artists include Abby Zbikowski (Columbus, OH), Banning Boulding (Nashville, TN), Bebe Miller (Columbus, OH), Brian Brooks (New York, NY), Dominic Moore-Dunson (Akron, OH), Iquail Shaheed (Philadelphia, PA), Jaamil Olawale Kosoko (New York, NY), jumatatu m. poe (Philadelphia, PA), Kate Wallich (Seattle, WA), Marjani Forté-Saunders (Pasadena, CA), Pioneer Winter (Miami, FL), Raja Feather Kelly (New York, NY), Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener (New York, NY), Rosie Herrera (Miami, FL), and Ronald K. Brown (New York, NY).

For more information on the projects included in the Arts Endowment grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.

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