Gibney Dance Names Ben Pryor Director of Performance & Residency Programs

Gibney Dance has named Ben Pryor Director of Performance and Residency Programs. In this role, Pryor will work with Artistic Director and CEO Gina Gibney to provide direction, guidance and oversight for all Gibney Dance presenting and residency programs including Making Space, DoublePlus, Work Up, POP: Performance Opportunity Project, ShowDown, Sorry I Missed Your Show, boo-koo and Dance in Process. He will work in tandem with newly appointed Producer Margaret Tudor and the entire Gibney Dance production team on all productions and key initiatives including a to-be-announced independent curator platform designed to ensure that diverse voices are always represented at Gibney Dance.

As a function of this new position Pryor will continue to direct American Realness, an internationally recognized dance and performance festival he founded in 2010. The festival will continue to work with founding partner Abrons Arts Center and will expand to include programming at Gibney Dance's Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center at 280 Broadway and Choreographic Center at 890 Broadway, as well as other institutions throughout the city. The 2017 edition of American Realness will be announced soon.

Gibney Dance's 25th Anniversary year-in addition to a full year of celebratory performances, programs, events and new initiatives currently under way-has included the announcement of a $2.5 million Capital Campaign and expansion into 10,000 square feet of additional space at its downtown Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center at 280 Broadway, which opened just two years ago following the signing of a 30-year lease and extensive renovation. Pryor and Gibney will work hand in hand on the development of this next phase at 280 Broadway as well as the full realization of the Gibney Dance facilities at both 890 and 280 Broadway as a national choreographic center.

"I was thrilled when Ben came to me with a bold plan to advance performance at Gibney Dance, says Artistic Director and CEO Gina Gibney. "Ben has his finger on the pulse of what's next in the field of dance and performance, and his curatorial sensibility and dedication to cultural dialogue mesh with our vision for the future. I'm excited to watch Ben's work unfold, and to see his aesthetic and curatorial practice take shape in our organization."

Pryor adds, "I am delighted to be joining a strong and essential organization in the New York City dance landscape and ecstatic that Gina was interested in merging our curatorial visions. I am also thrilled to be working on the upcoming expansion at 280 Broadway-there is remarkable potential to unfold."

ABOUT Ben Pryor

Since 2010, Thomas Benjamin Snapp Pryor (Ben Pryor) has worked as an independent curator and producer under the moniker tbspMGMT, through which he produced and toured contemporary performance works by Miguel Gutierrez, Trajal Harrell, Ishmael Houston-Jones/Dennis Cooper/Chris Cochrane, Yvonne Meier, Wally Cardona/Jennifer Lacey/Jonathan Bepler and Deborah Hay to venues and festivals including Festival d'Automne, Centre Pompidou (Paris), ImPulsTanz (Vienna), Festival TransAmeriques (Montreal), Tanz Im August (Berlin), Kampnagel (Hamburg), Brooklyn Academy Of Music's Next Wave Festival, Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker Art Center, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Portland Institute of Contemporary Art's Time Based Art Festival, among others. To date Pryor has managed over 150 performance engagements of more than 20 productions in partnership with 81 institutions in 54 cities across 16 countries.

Pryor created American Realness, an annual festival of dance and contemporary performance, at the Abrons Arts Center in New York City in January 2010. In 2016, American Realness began an international touring program, presenting a micro-festival in France in partnership with Centre national de la danse (Pantin/Paris), Les Subsistances (Lyon) and Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse). In July 2013, Pryor inaugurated a new program titled Festival TBD: Emergency Glitter, to give space and visibility to a younger generation of choreographers.

Previously Pryor worked as Director of Operations for Center for Performance Research, an Artist Representative at Pentacle, a project manager for Chez Bushwick and in the Planning and Development department at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music. He served as chair of the Agents Council and Trustee for Dance USA from 2008-2010 and was the recipient of the 2010 Gabriela Tudor Fellowship in Cultural Management. Pryor has served as a panelist for CEC ArtsLink, the Jerome Foundation, Creative Capital and the National Endowment for the Arts and has been a guest lecturer for NYU Performance Studies, The New School, Marymount Manhattan College and at the National Dance Center in Bucharest, Romania.

ABOUT GIBNEY DANCE

Formed in 1991 by Gina Gibney, Gibney Dance boasts 25 years of international performance (through Gibney Dance Company), social justice and humanitarian work on a global scale (through Gibney Dance Community Action) and forward-thinking service to the dance community (through the two-venue Gibney Dance Center at 890 and 280 Broadway). As always, in addition to public performance the organization's calendar includes a full slate of Gibney Dance Center's professional development and educational programs for the dance community and over 365 Community Action program workshops supporting survivors of domestic violence and working to prevent relationship and gender-based violence at partner organizations throughout New York City, at the organization's Community Action Hub at 280 Broadway and internationally as part of Gibney Dance's Global Community Action Residency program. http://www.gibneydance.org