Artists in Residence | Harkness Dance Center | Gilda and Henry Block School of the Arts

For more than 80 years, the Harkness Dance Center has fostered and supported dance innovation …

The 92NY Harkness Dance Center Artists in Residence program provides artists with rehearsal space, a stipend, opportunities to both lead and participate in workshops within our School of Dance and Dance Education Laboratory’s vibrant communities and an opportunity to have their own work showcased during APAP.

The residency was designed to support the creation and performance of new works, giving these artists a place to create, explore and share their vision with the Harkness audience. As we enter a new era, we have also expanded the residency to follow the changing needs of our resident artists and companies. There are now opportunities to develop company/artist specific educational platforms, connect across disciplines with other artists affiliated with 92NY and to forge larger support networks through relationships with companies connected to the Harkness Dance Center.

The Harkness Dance Center Artists in Residence (AIR) program receives funding from the Harkness Foundation for Dance and Howard Gilman Foundation, Inc.

Meet our 2022/23 Artists in Residence

MeenMoves

Sameena Mitta
Artistic Director

MeenMoves creates socially relevant, quirky, highly technical dance-theater works …

MeenMoves

Sameena Mitta
Artistic Director

MeenMoves creates socially relevant, quirky, highly technical dance-theater works for stage and film. Under the artistic direction of Sameena Mitta, MeenMoves explores issues of race, religion and other questions of identity, focusing on the unique perspectives of those who check “none-of-the-above.” MeenMoves aims to reflect a diversity of worldviews on stage, offer audiences free or pay-what-you-can options, and present work in community-centered venues and other non-traditional settings to welcome audiences who may not otherwise turn to or have access to dance. Mitta has a diverse cultural background, holds an MA in Dance Creation from UQAM and is a Canadian immigrant to the US. Her work is stylistically informed by Cecchetti ballet, Limón, and physical theater. She advocates for diversity in dance and has sat on multiple dance juries in Canada and the USA. In process and product, MeenMoves aims to amplify the voices of underrepresented creatives of color, particularly those of Muslim women. MeenMoves has presented choreography at NJPAC, 92NY, Little Island, Judson Memorial Church, BAM Fisher, and at many other venues in the New York City area and around the world. In 2017 MeenMoves presented the evening-length alternative f(A)cts to sold-out houses at The Martha Graham Studio Theater. Current projects include Fe in collaboration with composer Stephanie Griffin (premiering in 2023); Struwwelpeter, a ten-year dance-film project based on the 1845 children’s book (premiering 2026); and the audience-engagement driven W(h)ine Pairings set to Nico Muhly’s Confessions (premiering in 2023). MeenMoves thanks Harkness Dance Center, Dance/NYC, Jersey City Arts and Trust Fund, DanceNJ, JCAC, and the Ontario Arts Council for their support.

Website: meenmoves.com
Instagram: //www.instagram.com/meenmoves
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MeenMoves
Fractured Atlas: fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/meenmoves

Music From The Sole

Leonardo Sandoval
Artistic Director, Choreographer, Dancer, Composer
Gregory Richardson
Artistic Director, Musician, Composer

Music From The Sole

Leonardo Sandoval
Artistic Director, Choreographer, Dancer, Composer
Gregory Richardson
Artistic Director, Musician, Composer

Music From The Sole is a tap dance and live music company that celebrates tap’s Afro-diasporic roots, particularly its connections to Afro-Brazilian dance and music, and its lineage to forms like house dance and passinho (Brazilian funk). Led by Brazilian dancer/ choreographer Leonardo Sandoval and by bassist/composer Gregory Richardson, their work embraces tap’s unique nature as a blend of sound and movement, incorporating wide-ranging influences like samba, passinho, Afro-Cuban, jazz, and house.

Since their first performances in 2015 at Baltimore’s Creative Alliance, Music From The Sole has grown to a group of 15 dancers and musicians, touring and engaging with communities across the US and abroad. They have received support from the New England Foundation for the Arts (2021 National Dance Project grantees), New York State Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Jerome Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, New Music USA, and Dance/ NYC, and were recently commissioned new works by Works & Process at the Guggenheim.

As part of its mission to bring tap dance, America’s original vernacular dance form, to new audiences, they appear as both a dance company and a percussive-led band at dance and music venues. Recent credits include appearances at Lincoln Center, Jacob’s Pillow, The Yard, Kaatsbaan, Portland Ovations, Caramoor Jazz Festival, Bryant Park, 92NY, and Tap in Rio; they are 2022 resident artists at Chelsea Factory.

Highlighting a commitment to community-centered artistic practice, the company partners frequently with organizations like the National Dance Institute and Lincoln Center Education, engaging through dance and music with communities across NYC and beyond.

For current list of company members and short bios: www.musicfromthesole.com/company-members

Instagram:
@musicfromthesole
@leonardoans
@gregory_richardson_

Facebook:
@musicfromthesole
@leosandovaltap

2022/23 AIR

MeenMoves
Music From The Sole

2021/22 AIR

92NY’s INSIDER article about the performers

Passion Fruit Dance Company
Baye & Asa

2020/21 AIR

92NY’s INSIDER article about this very unique AIR year

Dorrance Dance (educational)
Shamel Pitts | TRIBE

2019/20 AIR

Ivy Baldwin
Kimberly Bartosik
Kazunori Kumagai
Kyle Marshall

2018/19 AIR

Ephrat Asherie
Alethea Pace
Chuck Wilt
Hee Ra You

2017/2018 AIR

Joanna Kotze
Larissa Velez-Jackson
Kensaku Shinohara
Pam Tanowitz

2016/2017 AIR

Adam Barruch
Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDProjectNYC
Netta Yerushalmy
Yin Yue

2015/2016 AIR

Christopher Williams
John Jasperse
Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born
Tina Croll

History

Since 1935, 92NY has been at the forefront of dance innovation—welcoming modern dance legends like Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, Jerome Robbins and Merce Cunningham to perform, teach and create here.

As part of our commitment to dance and with the support of the Harkness Foundation, 92NY has nurtured talent with artist and dance company residencies and space grants, offering rehearsal space, funding, teaching opportunities and performance venues for major dance talent, including resident companies José Limón Dance Company and the Don Redlich Dance Company in the 1970s.

Harkness is proud of its involvement with major choreographers who have changed the way we see dance and understand the experiences of others, including Pearl Lang who premiered her seminal work The Possessed here in 1976 and Eleo Pomare whose politically-charged work first appeared in the 60s. Both artists continued to perform, teach and create at the Harkness Dance Center with long-standing space grants through the 1990s.

From 2007-2015, Harkness Dance Center resident company Doug Varone and Dancers brought its kinetic energy, technical mastery and innovative approach to dance to 92NY. Varone conceived of and curated the Stripped/Dressed format for the Harkness Dance Festival inviting artists to “strip down” to discuss the creative process before performing works.

For more information, email or call us at 212.415.5552.

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Artists in Residence (AIR)