New Dance Alliance Announces 2024-25 Black Artist’s Space To Create Resident Artists

New Dance Alliance (NDA) is thrilled to announce the selected artists for its 2024-25 Black Artists Space to Create (BASC) residency program.

The 2024-25 artists-in-residence are Maria Bauman, Javon “Ja’Moon” Jones, and Nubian Néné. Each artist will receive a one-week residency with unlimited access to a dance studio and full living space at Arts on Site R&R in Kerhonkson, NY, as well as a $2,000 stipend. The residency is designed as both a retreat and a space to create without the pressure of developing a new project. Additionally, artists have access to complimentary studio space at New Dance Alliance’s loft in Tribeca throughout the season, and are invited to show work at NDA’s annual Performance Mix Festival.

Founded in 2020, BASC was envisioned by former NDA advisory board member Angie Pittman “as a way to value and amplify the tremendous work that Black artists have historically done and are doing to shape our nation’s imagination, language, and humanity.” 

New Dance Alliance is committed to continually assessing its role in amplifying, uplifting, and supporting artists of color across its programmatic platforms. As a predominately white-led organization, NDA hopes to learn and continue to push the boundaries of what it means to create a more equitable dance field. NDA’s hope as an organization is to not only grow this program, but also to create a community of artists to whom it is continually able to offer support. 

Artists are selected by an invited curatorial committee of previous BASC artists and New York-based artists. The committee is modeled after Movement Research’s Artists of Color Council. NDA’s motivation in gathering this committee is to transfer organizational and curatorial power to artists of color, and work toward cultivating a more transparent and accessible organization for all artists. This year’s committee selected artists who demonstrate a rigorous commitment to conversation in dance and performance within the communities they are rooted in, in addition to dedication and longevity in practice, performance, and community building.

The 2024-25 BASC curatorial committee: j. bouey, Kyle Marshall, Babou Sanneh, and Jelani Taylor.

2024-25 BASC Residency Artists

Maria Bauman (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer from Jacksonville, FL, now based in Brooklyn, NY. She has been recognized with two Bessie Awards, one for her work with Black improvisers’ collective The Skeleton Architecture (2017), and another for her choreography as part of The Motherboard Suite, directed by Saul Williams and Bill T. Jones (2021). She is proud to be a recent fellow with the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center. She was awarded two Maggie Allesee National Choreographic Center awards/residencies in 2022 and early 2023 to develop her work. Currently, Bauman is artist-in-residence at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, is a Mertz-Gilmore/NYFA dance award winner and is the Queer Exchange Network artist on behalf of BAAD! Bauman’s prior work with Urban Bush Women (UBW) and The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB) is a proud part of her legacy and influences. Previously, she was a dancer with UBW and was its Director of Education and Community Engagement before becoming Associate Artistic Director. With PISAB, she has held many roles and is now a core trainer in Understanding & Undoing Racism.

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Bauman makes bold and honest artworks for her company MBDance, based on physical and emotional power, insistence on equity, and experiments with intimacy. The primary question guiding Bauman’s art-making and her life is “How can we BE Together, Better?” Organizing to undo racism informs her art-making and the two are folded together within her practice. In 2014, she co-founded a grassroots organization, Artists Co-creating Real Equity, which won the 2018 BAX Arts and Artists in Progress Award for working to undo racism in our daily lives. Centering the non-linear stories, bodies, and musings of queer people of color, she draws on her studies of English literature, capoeira, improvisation, dancing in nightclubs, and concert dance studies to emphasize ancestors, imagination, and Spirit while embodying interdependence and equity. One of the premises she creates from is that we are each a collection of ancestors, an archive of spirits and experiences. She is developing a new outdoor artwork and accompanying zine called These are the bodies that have not borne.

Performance artist Javon “Ja’Moon” Jones discovered his love for movement in his hometown of Detroit, MI. Following his graduation from Cass Technical High School, during which he was the inaugural recipient of the Max Mara Young Visionary Award and a gold medalist in the YoungArts dance competition, he pursued formal training at The Juilliard School. Jones temporarily set aside his formal studies to contribute to the thoughtfulness of A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham and was a former full-time cast member of Sleep No More in NYC. He is developing his own sacred illustrations as an independent performance artist. Jones’s work has been showcased in various locations, including Dakar, Senegal; Santa Fe, NM; New York, NY; Durango, CO; Colorado Springs, CO; San Jose, CA; Carmel, CA; Glendale, CA; and Los Angeles, CA, through a diverse range of performances and residencies. He is excited to be the inaugural resident choreographer of Ballare Carmel.

Nubian Néné is a Montreal native and a New York-based dancer/choreographer who weaves street and club dances to create her uniquely captivating style. Her resilience and hard work stem from her Haitian roots, enabling her to expand into becoming a producer, curator, visual artist, teacher, and a reliable asset to any endeavor and team. Her mentors, some of the innovators of the street and club dance cultures, support, encourage, and inspire her to identify cultural references, to be involved and engaged in the community, and through pedagogy help carry the weight of African diasporic legacy. Néné has performed in Bboyizm Dance Company’s In My Body and Passion Fruit Dance Company’s Trapped (2021) and Dimensions (in progress). Signature Verses Liberation (2022), an ode to architecture, dance, and drawing, is her first visual art installation, and proof of harmony. She is currently working on premiering her solo in 2025, inspired by mental health and its effect on creativity. Néné is the creator, curator, and artistic director of Waack Bazaar, The Essence Experience, Glasses & Laces, and A Lady in The House Dance Company.

Arts on Site R&R

Arts on Site R&R is a Residency & Retreat Center offering uninhibited space in nature for artists, wellness practitioners, and outdoor enthusiasts. The property is located in Kerhonkson, NY, in the Shawangunk Mountains, two hours north of New York City, and features 20 acres of forest adjacent to Minnewaska State Park. Guests can enjoy access to the outdoors with hiking trails close by that lead to waterfalls and high mountain lakes. The center features two large studio spaces, a communal kitchen, bath house, and a series of yurts, cabins, and canvas tents, with accommodations to host up to 25 guests. https://www.artsonsite.org

New Dance Alliance

Incorporated in 1989, New Dance Alliance (NDA) is a performing arts nonprofit. Its mission, from the earliest days, has been to support emerging experimental movement-based artists. NDA has made an explicit commitment to equity and inclusion by creating programs that center the work of artists from historically marginalized communities of color, LGBTQ artists, and artists with disabilities. NDA provides space, residencies, and performance and networking opportunities that help artists cultivate relationships, develop their artistry, and open doors to share their work in the US and internationally. NDA’s programs support the work of more than 100 experimental artists and 2,500 audience members each year.

NDA’s programs include Performance Mix Festival, Black Artist Space to Create, LiftOff, Work Sessions,  Satellite, and Karen Bernard Projects.

For more information, visit https://newdancealliance.org.

NDA’s BASC program receives support from the New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Bernstein Family Fund, Harkness Foundation for Dance, and generous donations from many individuals.

Photo credit: Nubian Néné.