The Alan M. Kriegsman Creative Residency

The Alan M. Kriegsman Creative Residency honors Alan M. “Mike” Kriegsman, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism in 1976, the first Pulitzer for writings on dance. While he belonged to the entire world of dance, Mike was a special friend to Dance Place and the artists presented here.

This program was established by Sali Ann Kriegsman and Dance Place in remembrance of “Mike” Kriegsman’s passionate support of artists and their commitment to research and discovery. The five day residency offers focused time for the early development of new work by established choreographers.

April 2023 AMK Residency Artist: Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre

During this Residency, Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre workshopped a new participatory performance titled Gathering. Part staged work, part improvisational score, the piece utilizes technology, storytelling, sound design and play to examine what brings people together in celebration, conflict, protest and sport. Inspired by her experience as a Palestinian of the diaspora – an identity simultaneously defined by cultural and political acts of convening, and the fragmentation of a scattered refugee community – Choreographer/Director Samar Haddad King asks why and how we gather, and when we choose to act alone or as a group. Featuring an original multilingual script developed in collaboration with the international cast, the work uses technology to unite performers and participants by offering interactive prompts that impact the experience (lighting, music, movement) and empower participants through creative choice-making. This project follows workshops at Center for Ballet and the Arts (NYC, 2020) and Freedom Theatre (Palestine, 2021).

Dance Place hosted an informal Meet and Greet with Executive Director Zoe Rabinowitz and Artistic Director Samar Haddad King on Saturday, April 15 in the Polinger Foundation Lobby.

About Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre

Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre (YSDT) creates invigorating performance and education programs that expand access to – and promote understanding through – the arts. Founded in 2005 by Samar Haddad King in NYC, YSDT has a repertoire of 30+ original works performed across NYC at venues such as Downtown Dance Festival, Gibney, Harlem Stage, Joyce SoHo, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Queens Museum and more; regionally; and abroad in 11 countries across four continents, including festivals such as Nuit Blanche (Belgium), Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival (Palestine), SIDance (South Korea), Spring Festival (Tunisia), Theater der Welt and Theaterformen (Germany). Since 2011, the company has worked transnationally between NYC and Palestine, and is committed to uniting diverse artists and audiences in the creative process. For more information, visit: www.ysdt.org.

February 2023 AMK Residency Artist: Léonardo Sandoval

During their residency, choreographer/ dancer Léonardo Sandoval and composer/ instrumentalist Gregory Richardson collaborated to initiate the creation of seed material for a new evening-length piece of choreographed and improvised tap and Afro-Brazilian dance, house, body percussion, and live music for 7 dancers and 4-piece band. This work, a new commission developed for their company, Music From The Sole, will celebrate the pivotal role that tap has played in Black dance and music, with lineage to jazz, samba, and especially to club and street dances like house, passinho (Brazilian street funk), and hip hop; it is anticipated to premiere in Fall 2024 in New York City.

Dance Place hosted an informal Meet and Greet with the artist on Saturday, February 18 in the Polinger Foundation Lobby.

About Music From the Sole

Music From The Sole is a tap dance and live music company that celebrates tap’s Afro-diasporic roots, particularly its connections to Afro-Brazilian dance and music, and its lineage to forms like house dance and passinho (Brazilian funk). Led by Brazilian dancer/ choreographer Léonardo Sandoval and by bassist/ composer Gregory Richardson, their work embraces tap’s unique nature as a blend of sound and movement, incorporating wide-ranging influences like samba, passinho, Afro-Cuban, jazz, and house. As part of its mission to bring tap dance, America’s original vernacular dance form, to new audiences, they appear as both a dance company and a band at dance and music venues. Recent credits include appearances at Lincoln Center, Jacob’s Pillow, the Guggenheim Museum, The Yard, Kaatsbaan, Portland Ovations, Caramoor Jazz Festival, Bryant Park, the 92Y, and Tap in Rio.

Previous Residencies

brooke smiley, April 2022

Maleek Washington, March 2022

Patrick K. Makuakane, February 2020

Joanna Kotze, April 2020

Gesel Mason, May 2019

David Parker, January 2019

Ephrat Asherie, August 2018

Raja Feather Kelly, May 2018

Deborah Riley (Honorary), May 2018

Rennie Harris: February 2017

Dianne McIntyre, May 2017

David Brick, March 2016

Rosie Herrera, March 2016

Koma Otake, May 2015

Founding Donors

Ted Bain & Libby Smigel, Elise Bernhardt, Gigi Bradford ,Barbara R. Britton, Bonnie Anne Brooks, Katherine Brown, Neil & Kathleen Chrisman, Jon Palmer Claridge, John Clark & Ana Steele Clark, Patricia (Tiki) Davies, Molly Davies, Alice & Jill Denney, Barbara Dufty, Rima Faber, Louise Feinsot, Eliot Feld, Norman Fields, Jeanne & Joseph Godbout, David Gordon & Valda Setterfield Gordon, Sally Harris, Lisa & Murray Horwitz, George Jackson, Harold & Berenice Jacobs, Nancy Kalodner, Heather Kaye, Spider Kedelsky, Carolyn Keleman, Elizabeth Lerman, Dorothy Dort Levy, Dawn Lille, Merianne & Jeff Liteman, Robert Kirk Marx, Cynthia Mayeda, Marie Nugent-Head, Eiko & Koma Otake, Norton Owen, Nancy & Steven Poulos, Dana Reitz, Nancy Ribakove, David Lee Rosen, Rena Shagan, Edward Sherman, Andrea Snyder, Ellen Sollod & Kenneth Torp, Douglas Sonntag, Nancy Umanoff, Laurie Uprichard, Ellen & John Villa, Alex & Nancy Ward, Suzanne Weil, Barbara Weisberger, Doug & Catherine Wheeler.

For more information or to make a donation to the Alan M. Kriegsman Creative Residency, contact our development office at Dance Place at 202.269.1601.