The CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI), an expansive residency program that provides New York City choreographers and dance companies with creative space, financial support, and engagement opportunities on CUNY campuses and beyond, announces its 2026–27 cohort of awarded artists.



From July 2026 through June 2027, CDI will support its largest cohort of resident artists to date, underwriting 26 residencies for early- and mid-career choreographers at 14 CUNY colleges across all five boroughs, as well as four partner arts organizations. Selected through a competitive open call that attracted 266 applicants, the 2026–27 artists reflect the breadth of New York City’s dance community and mirror the diversity of CUNY’s student population.



Working across a wide range of dance forms—including ballet, street dance, tap, flamenco, contemporary, and culturally specific traditions—resident artists receive rehearsal space, financial support, and time to develop new and existing work. Residencies also create opportunities for students and local communities to engage directly with professional artists through performances, master classes, guest lectures, and open rehearsals. The full roster of awarded artists is listed below, and details on public performances will be announced later this year.

CDI enables CUNY colleges to make their studios and stages available to the city’s dance community, supporting artistic activity that would otherwise be difficult to sustain given the chronic shortage of affordable rehearsal and performance spaces.

“The CUNY Dance Initiative is deeply valuable to the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College because it allows us to provide artists with something increasingly scarce in New York City: space to create, rehearse, experiment, and share their work,” says Marcus Richardson, Executive Director. “Through CDI, we are proud to support creative expression while strengthening the Tow Center’s role as a home for artistic exchange and meaningful connection with Brooklyn’s vibrant dance community.”

Since its launch in 2014, CDI has awarded residencies to 300 choreographers, helping artists develop new work, build and sustain careers, and reach new audiences. Choreographer Jeevika Bhat, who premiered Clothesline, a contemporary Indian dance story, at Leonard Davis Center for the Performing Arts at City College in 2025, comments: “Clothesline simply could not have come together at the level that it did without this residency, and I cannot reiterate how pivotal CDI was in this process. Often, I find that I am rushing to just get it done, but this allowed me to explore the extent of the creative vision instead of settling for a lesser version of the concept.” Jeevika will present Clothesline at the College of Staten Island’s Center for the Arts with the support of a second CDI residency this fall.

Partnerships beyond the CUNY system are central to CDI’s mission of expanding opportunities for artists while increasing public access to dance. This year, CDI has launched a new partnership with The Next Festival of Emerging Artists to provide studio time and development support for one of the composer-choreographer collaborations incubated during Next Festival’s June 2026 programming. The partnership joins CDI’s ongoing collaborations with Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, extending the program’s reach and creating additional pathways for artists to develop and share their work with audiences across New York City.

2026–27 CUNY Dance Initiative Resident Artists and Host Partners

*performance residency

Baruch College: Baruch Performing Arts Center (Manhattan)

A Palo Seco Flamenco Company*

BMCC: Tribeca Performing Arts Center (Manhattan)

barkha patel*

Danielle Diniz/Signature Steps*

Chloe Roberts*

Brooklyn College: Tow Center for the Performing Arts (Brooklyn)

Ephrat Asherie Dance

Keerati Jinakunwiphat

The City College of New York: Leonard Davis Center for the Performing Arts (Manhattan)

Brinda Guha

College of Staten Island Center for the Arts (Staten Island)

Jeevika Bhat*

College of Staten Island in partnership with Snug Harbor Cultural Center (Staten Island)

K.J. Holmes

Hostos Community College: Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture (Bronx)

Laura Peralta*

Orlando Hernández & The Knee-Heart Connection*

Hunter College: Dance Department (Manhattan)

HopeBoykinDance

Kayla Farrish

John Jay College: Gerald W. Lynch Theater (Manhattan)

Exit12 Dance Company*

Sekou McMiller & Friends

LaGuardia Community College: LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (Queens)

Grace Yi-Li Tong

Breakin’NYC | Angel Kaba*

Lehman College: Department of Dance and Theatre (Bronx)

J. Bouey Dance Projects/j. bouey

Medgar Evers College: Department of Mass Communications, Creative and Performing Arts & Speech (Brooklyn)

Dedrick Gray

Makayla Peterson / Monét Movement Productions: The Collective

Queensborough Community College: Dance Program (Queens)

PASSION FRUIT DANCE COMPANY/ Tatiana Desardouin

Thick Like Me

Queens College: Kupferberg Center for the Arts and Department of Drama,

Theatre & Dance (Queens)

Liberty Styles

NextFestival choreographer/composer partnership

York College, in partnership with Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning (Queens)

CarNYval Dancers

Felicia B Ávalos

Bios for 2026-27 CDI artists are available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HBIvtqOHO6oUo9LQj6zVHkMe0WNRtEmn7En8cizFhHk/edit?tab=t.0.

ABOUT THE CUNY DANCE INITIATIVE

The CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI) is a transformative incubator that secures two vital yet scarce resources—rehearsal time and performance space—for New York City choreographers and dance companies. Housed within the City University of New York (CUNY), the nation’s largest public urban university system, CDI is a residency program that supports local artists, enhances the cultural life and education of college students, and builds new dance audiences at CUNY performing arts centers.

The program was developed in response to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s 2010 report, “We Make Do,” which cited how destabilizing the shortage of affordable rehearsal space in New York City is to the dance sector. A successful pilot supporting residencies on four CUNY campuses in 2013, underwritten by the New York Community Trust, led to CDI’s formal launch in 2014. More than a decade later, CDI has become key player in New York City’s performing arts ecosystem, leading a consortium of 14 CUNY colleges and four arts organizations to host 20+ residencies each year.

The program is spearheaded by the Kupferberg Center for the Arts at Queens College. Alyssa Alpine has been the director of the CUNY Dance Initiative since its founding in 2014.

The CUNY Dance Initiative receives major support from The Howard Gilman Foundation, The George S. Kaufman Charitable Foundation, and The Mertz Gilmore Foundation. Additional support is provided by the SHS Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.

More information about the CUNY Dance Initiative is available at www.cuny.edu/danceinitiative or on Facebook or Instagram.