Past
Grantees

The artist will travel to Bethlehem, Palestine for 31 days. Awadallah plans to research Arabic folk dances, the momentum and shape of Arabic calligraphy, and the movement of bodies living under occupation in Bethlehem, Palestine as research for her contemporary Arab dance and aesthetic grounding as a Palestinian American choreographer, while also making lasting connections with Arab dance and theatre organizations and family members in her ancestral village.

The artist will travel to Seville, Spain for 62 days to study interpretations of "cante jondo" or "deep song" through flamenco dance.

The artist will travel to Dusseldorf, Germany for 8 days to attend European Buck Session's 11th year anniversary gathering (E.B.S.), an annual Krump dance event in Germany.

The artist will travel to to the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, UK for 10 days to study the physiological ramifications of memory and its imposed effect on agency, in order to develop experimental movement methods of performance generation. She will be studying with Professor Nicola Clayton FRS in order to analyze the experience of subjective thinking.

The artist will travel to Haiti for 11 days to participate in the Vinn Pran Baget Summer Program in Cap-Haitien, Haiti in order to learn more about Vodou, Afro-Haitian dance and Haiti's revolutionary history. This will serve as research for a full-evening length work she plans to produce on Vodou's significance to Haitian culture.

The artist will  travel to Chennai, Chidambaram, Kanchipuram, Tanjavur, Rameshwaram Island, Tiruvannamalai and Tirumala, India for 25 days. Ramaswamy’s travel will deepen her exploration of the traditions, philosophies, and foundations that make Bharatanatyam such a rich and fully-realized art form. She is interested in how this dynamic art form incorporates mythology, spirituality, and human emotion into a multi-layered, multi-dimensional dance form to expand her growth as a meaningful practitioner and heighten the field of Indian dance in the diaspora.

The artist will travel to Berlin, Germany and Seville, Spain for 17 days to study contemporary flamenco technique, improvisation, and composition with Juan Carlos Lérida, choreography and technique with Leonor Leal, and bata de cola technique La Choni. These encounters will help enhance his choreographic abilities as he continues experimenting with queerness and gender performance within his flamenco aesthetic.

The artist will travel to Minneapolis/ St. Paul, MN, Madison, Wisconsin, and the Lost Forty Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) of the U.S. Department of Natural Resources located in Itasca County, MN for 23 days. Yang plans to conduct creative research into the biodiversity, geopolitical history, and record sensory and memory experiences at the Lost 40, 114 acres of old-pine growth within the Chippewa National Forest. Research of this unique borealis forest area will support her development of a new site-specific performance work.

Kim Brandt, New York City, received $5,000 to visit and research the works of land artists Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer and Walter De Maria. By experiencing in person these unique artistic approaches to human-land relationships, Brandt wants to deepen and broaden her choreographic explorations between the body and nature, generating somatic, experiential and intellectual research to support the creation of a new choreographic body of work related to these themes.

Jessica Chen, New York City, received $4,550 to travel to Taipei, Taiwan to research the intersections of various forms of traditional Chinese folk dances and how those traditional sensibilities inform contemporary and modern dance and movement quality.

Wendell Cooper, New York City, received $3,805 to deepen an understanding of Thai Yoga Massage for integration into movement research and artistic philosophy.

Isabel del Día, New York City, received $5,000 to travel to Seville, Spain, to study the role of communication in the art and culture of Flamenco.

Anurag Sharma, Minnesota, received $5,000 to travel to New Delhi to research and study traditional Kathak dance with Pandit Birju Maharaj and his disciples at the world-renowned Kalashram dance school.

Alanna Morris-Van Tassel, Minnesota, received $3,700 to travel to Trinidad to participate in the New Waves! Institute to study traditional and contemporary Afro-Caribbean dance and culture among an international pool of artists, teachers and students.

Taja Will, Minnesota, received $5,000 to participate in a custom-made residency with Bay Area artist Sara Shelton Mann in San Francisco.

BOULÉ, MICHELLE, New York City, will travel to Gozo, Malta, to attend a BioGeometry Foundation Training course as part of her research on spatial design, patterns, sacred geometry, and radiasthesia. Boulé will integrate this research into a new work that responds choreographically to many element of this science, such as the relationship between shape and energy and the hidden ways in which nature creates and distributes energy through shape, color, sound, and motion.

GALASSO, CATHERINE, New York City, will travel to Paris, France to engage in a choreographic research process with choreographer Andy de Groat, working one-on-one in his studio to development ideas for her upcoming project, Fall of the Rebel Angels. Galasso finds common ground between her work and de Groat’s blend of abstraction and narrative, use of minimalism, stylized movement and tableaux, energetically intricate material, cinematic framing, and an emphasis on gesture and musicality. 

HEMMINGS, MARGUERITE, New York City, will travel to Toubab Dialaw, Senegal to research the intersection of traditional and contemporary African dance forms and contemporary urban dance styles. Hemmings plans to study at Ecole des Sables to develop greater context and vocabulary for her upcoming creative work and artistic collaborations, which she describes as experimental dancehall. 

KELLY, RAJA FEATHER, New York City, will travel to Lyon and Paris, France, to work collaboratively with performer/choreographer Laureling Richard. Using Virginia Woolf's Moments of Being as a creative impetus for conversation, Kelly and Richard will delve into performance as a philosophy, investigating fundamental questions about reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, and language as a foundation for Kelly’s new movement-based work. 

MADAUS, THERESA, KING, TARA, THOMAS, MONICA (MAD KING THOMAS), Minnesota, will attend master improviser Julyen Hamilton's workshop in Brussels, Belgium or Banyoles, Spain. The study with Hamilton will further the collaborative’s process around creating dance in a theatrical context—performance moments cultivated through rigorous intellectual investigations, manifested in an atmosphere of transformation, insight, and understanding without conclusions.