At Dance Place, a keystone of our curatorial vision is providing support to dancemakers at all stages of their careers and every stage of the creative process from inception to fully produced performance. One way we do this is by serving as home for a number of artists and companies that are creating work in DC. By providing multiple entry points of support for local artists through our Resident Companies and Artists In Residence, Dance Place contributes to a thriving dance ecosystem in the region, country and world.
Dance Place’s Artist In Residence (AIR) Program provides multi-year support to emerging and mid-career movement artists. Specifically designed for DMV-area creators, the AIR Program is part of a larger curatorial vision for Dance Place that supports artists at all stages of their careers and at every stage of the creative process. With an individually tailored approach for each artist in the Program, Dance Place aims to increase support for early- to mid-career artists in direct response to the DC dance community we serve and are situated within.
By actively elevating the visibility of our AIRs work to a wide array of audiences, supporters, and presenters, the program provides strategic, artistic, and business development support including rehearsal space, feedback, professional opportunities, and presentations.
We’re so proud to announce our 2022-2024 AIRs, Robert Woofter/haus of bambi and Ronya-Lee Anderson. The 2022-2024 AIR program is Dance Place’s third biannual program committed to supporting two Washington, DC-area based artists or companies over the course of two years through presentation opportunities, direct financial support, rehearsal space grants, consultation, and more.
Our inaugural Artists in Residence, SOLE Defined and Heart Stück Bernie, exemplify our continued advocacy for local trailblazers who are at a pivotal stage of their artistic trajectories. With an individually tailored approach for each artist in the Program, Dance Place aims to increase support for early-to-mid-career artists in direct response to the DC dance community we serve and are situated within.
Keep reading for more information about our AIRs and Q&A for the Program.
2022-2024 Artists In Residence
Robert Woofter/haus of bambi
ROBERT “BAMBI” WOOFTER is a control freak, sporadic drag hobbyist, and the 2022 recipient of the S&R Evermay Washington Award in dance. His work has been commissioned for Vogue.com, the John F. Kennedy Center, and The City of Alexandria and has been presented in New York City at the wild project, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dixon Place, and Triskelion Arts.
Bambi embraces fantasy as a means of truth-telling and his work seeks to strut the line between the gaudy and subdued, the crude and refined, and the classical and contemporary. Bambi holds an MFA from the University of Michigan and teaches at American University, George Washington University and Dance Place, where he is a 2022-2024 artist-in-residence.
Born on the dance floor of Berlin’s Berghain, haus of bambi holds at its core a respect for faggotry, sawftness, nightlife, high art, and sticky dance floors. We are committed to working with queer, trans, non-binary, and femme and butch performers across the spectrum, and to creating spaces for the complexity of queer identities.
Ronya-Lee Anderson
Ronya-Lee LaVaune Anderson, known professionally as Ronya-Lee of Ronya-Lee and the Light Factory, is a Caribbean-American folk-soul singer-songwriter from Washington, DC. Born from Jamaican immigrants, she spent most of her formative years in the suburbs of the nation’s capital cultivating a career as a dancer/choreographer and performance artist, while garnering a Master’s of Divinity from Duke University and an MFA in Dance from Maryland University.
The 2021 recipient of the Pola Nirenska Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance, Ronya-Lee’s multimedia work has been commissioned by Dance Place, Duke University, the Maryland State Arts Council, Aunt Karen’s Farm and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The ukulele-playing fem-crooners’ musical stylings are of a unique species fusing folk, soul, and rock with underlying strokes of psychedelia dazzlingly displayed on her forthcoming debut EP “THE LIGHT SESSIONS pt.1″ and highlighted by her first single “Light”.
Ronya-Lee is a former member of the Chuck Davis African American Dance Ensemble and of Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange. She has published articles in the Journal of Dance Education, Sojourners Magazine, and the UCC Journal of Worship, Music and Ministry. Ronya-Lee is currently pursuing a doctorate in Theater and Performance Studies and is on dance faculty at American University.
2020-2022 Artists In Residence
Tariq Darrell O’Meally
Tariq Darrell O’Meally. Photo Joao Pina
Tariq Darrell O’Meally is an artist searching for the power within introspection and vulnerability in the African American body. He has pursued the reimagining of kinesthetic narratives as a means to resist and disrupt canonized stories that have perpetuated the dehumanization of marginalized groups, specifically black people. He seeks to synthesize those stories that will resonate in a way that is socially relevant, empathetic, and impactful.
Currently, his work focuses on being a contemporary dance artist striving to transition into a post-contemporary context. That is to say that if contemporary work interacts with the fierce urgency of now; then post-contemporary exploration integrates what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen, intersecting these concepts with the vulnerability and necessity of being human.
O’Meally is a facilitator at the CityDance School & Conservatory, Dance Institute of Washington, and Hollins University, in addition to presenting as a guest lecturer at the National Gallery of Art, The Hirshhorn Museum, and the French Embassy. O’Meally is the Founder/Director of the Dimensions Contemporary Dance Festival, which is a platform to promote, amplify, and spread the various eclectic voices of DMV contemporary dance artists of color.
He has been chosen as a 2019 Art Omi Resident Artist, as well as a 2018-2019 Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow. He also was a 2018-19 Joe’s Movement Emporium NextLOOK Artist and Dance Place’s 2017-18 New Releases Commissioned Artist. He currently holds a BFA in Dance & Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Find out more about Tariq at tariqdarell.com.
Britta Joy Peterson
Britta Joy Peterson. Photo by Zachary Z Handler
Britta Joy Peterson is a choreographer, collaborator and educator. Raised in the midwest, creatively pressure-cooked by the southwest, liberated by the pacific northwest, and cracked open by the wild west, BJP is now an east-coast creative based in Washington, DC. Recent contemporary choreographic works have been seen at venues such as Sibu International Dance Festival—Sarawak, Malaysia, University Settlement—New York City, NY, SMUSH Gallery—Jersey City, NJ, Dance Place—Washington, DC, Triskelion Arts—Brooklyn, NY, Imagination Stage—Bethesda, MD, Sonics Immersive Media Lab—London, UK, and the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts—Washington, DC.
BJP also specializes in dance for the theatrical stage, developing fresh material for classic plays and musicals, and devising choreographies and movement languages for new theatre works. Her theatrical credits span over thirty productions, choreographing on equity, university, community, and high school actors.
Currently, BJP is a 2019 DC Commission Arts and Humanities Fellow, is choreographing several new works, regularly teaches across the nation, and is the Director of Dance at American University in DC. She holds her BA in Dance and Communications, magna cum laude, from Gustavus Adolphus College and her MFA in Dance, summa cum laude, from Arizona State University.
Find out more about Britta at brittajoypeterson.com or on social media at @brittajoypeterson.
2018-2020 Artists In Residence (Inaugural Cohort)
SOLE Defined
SOLE Defined is a percussive dance company founded in 2011 by Quynn Johnson and Ryan Johnson in Landover, MD. Known for their “high energy and innovative programing,” the company’s mission is to entertain, educate, and enhance lives through performances, workshops, Arts in Education residencies, and their youth tap company. Called “the coolest number of the night with its high-stepping and toe tapping blend of style” by The Washington Post, SOLE Defined creates power-packed, emotional performances with storytelling, music and movement.
SOLE Defined’s live “percussicals,” a twist on the traditional musical, fuse percussive dance, multimedia, acting, and singing to address social injustice. SOLE Defined has performed on stages nationally and internationally, including The Children’s World Festival in Italy, The Kennedy Center, Jacob’s Pillow, The Shakespeare Theater, The Smithsonian, International Cajon Festival in Lima, Peru, and DancEncore International Dance Festival. Over the last five years, SOLE Defined has premiered five new shows and is currently touring the United States with their most recent work Zaz: The Big Easy.
For more information visit soledefined.com or follow them on social media @soledefinedlive.
Heart Stück Bernie
Heart Stück Bernie (HSB) makes site-specific performance art with exposed seams and a highbrow / lowbrow zeitgeist cocktail. HSB is a recipient of Dance Metro DC’s 2015 Choreographer’s Commission and the Kennedy Center’s 2016 Local Dance Commissioning Project. Recent commissions include Purchase Dance Company, US Botanic Garden, and National Gallery of Art.
HSB Artistic Director Sarah Beth Oppenheim hails from the golden California fields of cowgirls and Cannery Row. Known for her wild yet intricate choreography, she earned her BFA at SUNY Purchase and MFA at University of Maryland. Career highlights include dancing in forsaken storage closets and performing for Baryshnikov with kale in her incisors, along with gigs at Kunsthaus Tacheles, Omi International Arts Center, Ponderosa Movement and Discovery, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Duke on 42nd Street, Dance Ranch Marfa, the Chelsea Hotel, and secret performances in Lincoln Center’s Koch Theater when she was done cleaning up at night’s end. She currently works as a community organizer, comic book editor, and documentary consultant for 120 Project – a social justice arts activism platform that uses dance, comics, and dialogue as a premise for community building. With 20 years of teaching experience, she serves in Washington, DC as a Teaching Artist at Dance Place and Professorial Lecturer at American University.
Find out more at sarahbethoppenheim.com and on Instagram @heartstuckbernie.
About the AIR Program
Dance Place’s new Artists in Residence program responds to a need in the Washington, DC regional dance community for increased support for early- to mid-career artists. We have observed this need directly and heard it expressed by countless artists working across different genres. Dance Place will select two Artists in Residence each year and each Artist in Residence will receive access to rehearsal space and administrative support. Each residency will be tailored to the artist’s specific goals, creating a bespoke and holistic approach to this crucial artist support.
The Artist in Residence Program is part of a curatorial affirmation and refinement of our role as a critical and comprehensive artist resource by supporting dancemakers at all stages of their careers and at every phase of the creative process. If you are interested in learning more, read about our curatorial vision here.
Q&A for AIR Program
Why does this program exist?
Dance Place’s new Artists In Residence program responds to a need in the Washington, DC regional dance community for increased support for early- to mid-career artists. We have observed this need directly and heard it expressed by countless artists working across different genres. As the primary presenting venue for dance in the region, we want to do more to support the development of individual artists and companies by creating this new opportunity for professional and artistic growth.
What do you mean by “early- to mid-career” artists?
Dance Place acknowledges that these terms are challenging because every artist follows a different path and that these labels mean different things in different circumstances. For this opportunity, we define early- to mid-career artists as having a developed artistic point of view without having received significant prior institutional support to advance this point of view. This will look different for every artist and is assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Where in the season will the Artists In Residence show up?
Dance Place’s Artists in Residence will have engagement opportunities throughout their respective seasons. Please check out our season announcement in August to learn more about our programming.
I have thoughts, questions or feedback about this program / the application process. How can I share them with Dance Place?
We invite you to share any thoughts, questions or feedback about this program or the application process with Dance Place’s curatorial team. Please email programming@danceplace.org or call us at 202.269.1600.
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