The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' Jerome Robbins Dance Division today announced that dance and democracy will be the focus of its 2021 Dance Research Fellowship, and that applications are currently being accepted.
"To have a pandemic and a monumental presidential election in the same year revealed so much about how the continuing experiment that is our democracy works and is at the same time challenged," said William H. Wright II, Vice Chair, Committee for the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. "What we have is precious and fragile, and always has been. That is evidenced in how it has flourished, and at other times failed us as a nation - whom it protects and empowers or silences and leaves vulnerable. Dance has historically risen to the occasion. I'm eager to see how this year's applicants will use the unmatched collections in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division to explore how dance artists have used movement and the body as a medium to interrogate the foundational principles of democracy and the democratic process."
The Dance Division invites scholars and practitioners interested in investigating the theme of dance and democracy to apply through
The New York Public Library's Fellowship Portal no later than May 14, 2021.
For the 2021 cohort, the Division seeks projects that explore dance's site as a civic, social and political space and welcome research on the potential within dance for collective action. Additionally, the Dance Division encourages applicants to explore the dance artists in its archives who have harnessed kinetic imagination and empathetic power to create inclusive environments where dialogue and democracy thrives.
Fellows must take up residency between July 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021, and will showcase the outcome of their research in a presentation or performance at a day-long symposium on January, 28, 2022. Given the uncertainty of the duration of the Covid-19 crisis, the Division is making provision for a virtual version of the fellowship and symposium should onsite study and practice prove impossible. Applicants are encouraged to identify digital resources in addition to the Division's overall holdings that can assist with their research.
For full details on the application process and the Dance Research Fellowship, please visit
www.nypl.org/dance-fellowship.
Created in 2014 to support scholars and practitioners engaged in graduate-level, post-doctoral, and independent research using the Dance Division's unmatched holdings, the 2021 round of the Dance Research Fellowship is made possible through the generosity of the Anne H. Bass Foundation, The Evelyn Sharp Foundation, the Geraldine Stutz Trust, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Committee for the Jerome Robbins Dance Division.
Past fellows include Malaika Adero, Kiri Avelar, Reid Bartelme, Ninotchka Bennahum, Claire Bishop, Phil Chan, Yoshiko Chuma, Emily Coates, Adrian Danchig-Waring, Silas Farley, Jack Ferver, Robert Greskovic, Triwi Harjito, Joseph Houseal, Jeremy Jacob, Harriet Jung, Sergey Konayev, Julie Lemberger, Alastair Macaulay, Emmanuele Phuon, Ferne Louanne Regis, Hiie Saumaa, Apollinaire Scherr, Gus Solomons Jr., Yusha-Marie Sorzano, Pam Tanowitz,Victoria Tennant, Justin Tornow, Preeti Vasudevan, Tara Aisha Willis, Netta Yerushalmy, and Elizabeth Zimmer.
Founded in 1944, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division is the world's largest dance archive with an international and extensive collection that spans seven centuries. We provide a community space for dance professionals, researchers and the general public, offering programs and exhibitions, a dance studio for special projects, educational activities, residencies, fellowships, documentation of performances and oral histories and, of course, dance reference services, all free of charge.
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