92nd Street Y Launches Virtual Exhibition DANCE TO BELONG Exploring Its Dance History

92nd Street Y has announced that Dance to Belong: A History of Dance at 92NY, an exhibition originally presented from March 12, 2024 through August 1, 2025, is now available as an online experience.

The virtual exhibition recreates the gallery as a self-guided digital tour, allowing viewers to navigate the space through their devices. Designed similarly to Google Maps, the platform enables visitors to “walk” through the exhibition and zoom in to explore photographs, performance programs, archival ephemera, film footage, artwork, and other materials documenting the organization’s dance legacy.

Originally mounted to mark the institution’s 150-year history, the exhibition highlights the role 92NY has played as a creative home for generations of dancers and choreographers. Materials in the exhibition trace stories of immigrant, BIPOC, and Jewish dance artists from 1874, when the organization opened its doors, through the present. In its early decades, 92NY was among the few places where dancers of different racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds could access studios, classes, lectures, and performance opportunities.

The exhibition is accompanied by educational initiatives from the Dance Education Laboratory, including new curricular learning activities inspired by the archive, a live webinar with co-curator Ninotchka Bennahum scheduled for March 11, and an in-person Dance to Belong workshop planned for later this summer.

Drawing on the exhibition’s archival materials, the Dance Education Laboratory has developed four dance-based learning activities designed for educators and students. The program emphasizes embodied learning and encourages participants to explore dance history through movement, archival research, and reflection.

The activities are based on the Dance Artist in Context framework developed by DEL facilitators Ann Biddle and Felice Santorelli, which examines artists within their social, historical, cultural, and aesthetic contexts.

Learning activities include

Introduction
Learning Activity 1: Stepping Into Dance to Belong
Learning Activity 2: The Life and Work of Yuriko
Learning Activity 3: The Life and Work of Pearl Primus
Learning Activity 4: The Life and Work of José Limón

The exhibition features a wide range of artists who have shaped the history of dance at 92NY, including Alvin Ailey, La Argentinita, Talley Beatty, Miriam Blecher, Si-lan Chen, Katherine Dunham, Martha Graham, Geoffrey Holder, Yuriko Kikuchi, Carmen de Lavallade, José Limón, Sophie Maslow, Margalit Oved, Pearl Primus, Anna Sokolow, Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi (Sai Shoki), Maria Tallchief, Helen Tamiris, and Benjamin Zemach.