The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU announced the creation of the Virginia B. Toulmin Fellowship for Women Choreographers, a unique new fellowship designed to support the work of and expand the opportunities available to women in the world of ballet, where leadership and choreography are dominated by men.

The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU announced the creation of the Virginia B. Toulmin Fellowship for Women Choreographers, a unique new fellowship designed to support the work of and expand the opportunities available to women in the world of ballet, where leadership and choreography are dominated by men.

The announcement was made last night by Jennifer Homans, director of the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU at the Center’s first Open House event, held at its offices at 20 Cooper Square.

“The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation is pleased to create, in partnership with The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, this Fellowship for Women Choreographers,” said Alexander C. Sanger, Trustee at the Foundation. “We are proud to give female choreographers the opportunity to collaborate with the other fellows at the Center so that the works they create can be of the highest possible caliber and can attain the audiences they deserve.”

The Virginia B. Toulmin Fellowship for Women Choreographers will provide fellows with a stipend of $35,000 for one semester. Fellows are also furnished with an office, studio space, access to housing, and the opportunity to be part of a community of artists and scholars with whom they can share and debate ideas. The $150,000 gift will enable this fellowship to be offered to three unique fellows over a three-year period. To be considered for the fellowship, potential candidates are required to submit a proposal for the project they will work on while at the Center.

The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation has created a Program for Commissioning Women in the Performing Arts, through which it funds commissions of new works by women in symphonic music, opera, ballet and theater. The Foundation was created by Virginia B. Toulmin, who was passionately devoted to the performing arts and the advancement of women.

The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, launched in September by former ballet dancer and prominent historian Jennifer Homans with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, was conceived as an international institute for scholars and artists of ballet and its related arts and sciences. It hosts a variety of artists and scholars in residence from a wide range of disciplines, but united in an interest to work on ballet. Current fellows include director and
choreographer John Carrafa; scholar and fellow at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford Susan Jones; Music historian Julia Randel; NYU Associate Professor of European and Mediterranean Studies Tamsin Shaw; founder and Artistic Director of “Celebrate the Beat” (CTB) Tracy Straus; singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega; and composer Scott Wheeler.

The Center’s programming includes workshops, lectures and collaborations with arts organizations interested in expanding ballet, including co-presenting two events as part of the New York Public Library’s LIVE from the NYPL series, hosted by Paul Holdengräber; the next event in this series is on May 12 and features Suzanne Farrell. Visit the Center for Ballet and the Arts' web site for more information about its work and programming.

 

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