Tere O’Connor, Edwin Sanchez, and Benjamin Millepied from The Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) Will Be Teamed in a Pilot Project With Young Artists from Graduate Programs
New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (TSOA) and the Baryshnikov Dance Foundation have announced a summer project to establish the Baryshnikov Arts Center Fellowships program. This project will serve as a model to create opportunities for recent graduates of the Tisch School’s seven conservatory graduate programs-dance, design for stage and film, dramatic writing, film, musical theatre writing, interactive telecommunications, and acting-by teaming them up with professionals recruited by Mikhail Baryshnikov.
The Baryshnikov Arts Center Fellowships model program comprises five graduate students who have been selected as BAC Fellows to work with established professionals to create their work for presentation. These teams will have the opportunity to rehearse and eventually showcase their work for additional creative input at the new Baryshnikov Arts Center, located at 37 Arts (50 West 37th Street) in New York City.
The 2005 BAC Fellowship recipients are: Tony-award winning bookwriter/lyricist Rachel Sheinkin and composer Nils Olaf Dolven (from TSOA’s Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program) who will develop a musical, Serenade, with BAC artist and choreographer Benjamin Millepied as mentor; playwright Anton Dudley (from TSOA’s Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing) who will develop a new play, Flight of Kings, with playwright Edwin Sanchez as mentor; and choreographer Beliz Demircioglu (from TSOA’s Department of Dance and the Interactive Telecommunications Program) and multimedia artist Jamie Allen (from TSOA’s Interactive Telecommunications Program) who will create a new dance work using live-motion tracking and processed video, with choreographer Tere O’Connor as mentor.
“Developing exit strategies for undergraduate and graduate alumni as they transition into the professional world has long been a priority for the Tisch School,” said Mary Schmidt, dean of the Tisch School of the Arts and associate provost of the arts at NYU. “This inaugural program with the BAC allows the school to provide a laboratory for recent graduates for the incubation of new work. In consultation with artistic mentors, selected by the BAC and in a setting filled with the spirit of discovery, not to mention light-filled studios, they will have an opportunity to experiment and take risks. Our students are honored to have been chosen for this opportunity.”
The Baryshnikov Arts Center Fellowship pilot program is made possible by private funding.
The Tisch School of the Arts, comprising the Performing Arts Institute, the Jack H. Skirball Center for New Media and Film and the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television, is one of the nation’s preeminent centers for professional training, scholarship, and research in the performing and cinematic arts. It offers both graduate and undergraduate degrees and draws students from around the world. Nearly 3,000 students pursue degrees in acting, dance, design, drama, musical theatre, performance studies, film and television, cinema studies, dramatic writing, photography and interactive telecommunications.
Baryshnikov Dance Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded by Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1979 dedicated to fostering the development of new work in the arts. Under Baryshnikov’s active artistic leadership, an international center for interdisciplinary experimentation and collaboration will come to life in the fall of 2005. Located in the new performing arts complex, West 37th Street Arts, the Baryshnikov Arts Center will provide a unique opportunity for the professional development of emerging and mid-career artists across disciplines, as well as accomplished international artists whose work is lesser known in the United States. Central to the activities of BAC will be laboratory programs offering space, residencies, and mentoring for artistic innovation and learning.