New York, NY - Dance/NYC is pleased to announce the 69 recipients of the first iteration of its Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund for Dance Making Organizations, and the second round of its Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund for Dance Making Organizations, made possible by the generous support of The New York Community Trust.

“We are proud to have facilitated support for so many dance making organizations in the first round of the relief fund, which was created to help to alleviate immediate pressures due to COVID-19, prioritizing those most immediately impacted by white supremacy and systemic oppression,” said Alejandra Duque Cifuentes, executive director of Dance/NYC. “But there is still work to be done. We received an astounding number of applicants for the initial iteration, and a new round of funding will provide much needed support to our dance making community as we continue in our road towards recovery.”

The new round of applications opens on Friday, June 12, 2020 and will close on Friday, July 3, 2020 at 5:00 p.m. ET. Dance making organizations with annual expense budgets between $10,000 and $250,000 are invited to apply. Selected dance organizations in round two will receive one-time general support grants between $2,500 and $5,000, with a total of $100,000 in awards. Applications received during the first round of the Fund for organizations that did not receive funding will be automatically eligible for consideration with no further action. Visit Dance.NYC for the full call for proposals and application details.

The recipients of the first round of the Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund for Dance Making Organizations, which will each receive one-time awards of $2,500-$5,000, are:

Abby Z and the New Utility
Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company
Bombazo Dance Co, Inc.
Born Dancing
Buglisi Dance Theatre
Caleb Teicher & Company (fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas)
Carmen Caceres DanceAction (fiscally sponsored by New York Live Arts, Inc.)
Catherine Galasso Projects (fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas)
Christopher Caines Dance / Can't Sleep, Inc. 
Cora Dance
Dance Entropy, Inc.
Dances For A Variable Population
Dancing In the Streets
Danielle Russo Performance Project (fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas)
Danza Espana
Gametophyte Inc.
Divine Rhythm Productions (fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas)
Donna Uchizono Co
Ecuadorian American Cultural Center
Elisa Monte Dance
Emily Johnson / Catalyst (fiscally sponsored by AMERINDA)
Eryc Taylor Dance, Inc.
Exit12 Dance Company
Fist and Heel Performance Group
Flamenco Latino
Flamenco NYC Inc. (fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas)
Forces of Nature Dance Theatre
General Mischief Dance Theatre
H+ | Theatre of the Mind (fiscally sponsored by New York Live Arts, Inc.)
Hivewild
Hotel Savant
Hudson Ballet Theatre, Inc.
Ice Theatre of New York
Inta Inc.
Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet, Inc.
Jeremy McQueen’s Black Iris Project (fiscally sponsored by New York Live Arts, Inc.)
jill sigman/thinkdance
Jiva Performing Arts
Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance
Kate Weare Company (fiscally sponsored by The Field)
Keigwin + Company
Kennedy Dancers, Inc.
Kinding Sindaw
Kinesis Project dance theatre
Kyle Marshall Choreography (fiscally sponsored by The Foundation for Independent Artists)
LEIMAY
Matthew Westerby Dance Company
Monica Bill Barnes & Company, Inc.
Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company
Navatman, Inc.
nora chipaumire (fiscally sponsored by The Foundation for Independent Artists)
PALISSIMO Company
Parijata Dance Company (fiscally sponsored by Pioneers Go East Collective, Inc.)
Redhawk Native American Arts Council
Rod Rodgers Dance Company
Sidra Bell Dance New York (SBDNY, Inc.)
Siren - Protectors of the Rainforest, Inc.
Something Positive, Inc.
The Collectives for Music and Dance, Inc.
The Japanese Folk Dance Institute of New York, Inc.
The New York Korean Performing Arts Center
Thresh Inc.
Tiffany Mills Company
TOPAZ ARTS, Inc.
Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute
WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company
Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre
YYDC, Inc.
ZviDance/ZGD Inc.

The 69 grantees include representatives from eight (8) counties in the metropolitan New York City area: Bergen (1), The Bronx (5), Hudson (2), Kings (15), Nassau (1), New York (39), Queens (5), and Westchester (1). Grantees are majority African, Latina/o/x, Asian, Arab, and Native American (ALAANA)-led (48 of 69 or 70%), and include fifty (50 or 72%) companies with women-identifying or gender nonconforming/non-binary/genderqueer leadership, three (3 or 4%) with disabled leadership, and thirty-two (32 or 46%) with immigrant leadership. There are thirteen (13 or 19%) fiscally sponsored dance projects among the grantees.

These grantees were selected by a review panel and were among a pool of over 130 metropolitan New York City area dance groups who submitted applications in response to an open call. Key evaluation criteria included: Organizations who articulate a clear need for financial reimbursement in order to withstand mandated closures; and Organizations artistically led or otherwise creating work by ALAANA and/or women and/or disabled and/or immigrant artists. Additional information on grant requirements and eligibility can be found on our website at Dance.NYC. Dance/NYC worked to ensure that every aspect of program development, communications, application intake and review, and panel review aligned with Dance/NYC’s values of justice, equity, and inclusion and that the organization remained accountable to its intended beneficiaries.

Made possible by the generous support of the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Arnhold Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the NYC COVID-19 Response & Impact Fund in The New York Community Trust, the New York Community Trust, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the GKV Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, and individual donations from the community, the purpose of the funding initiative is to mitigate the growing impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus, particularly financial losses incurred due to the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus and the social restriction measures implemented to contain it. The Fund prioritizes supporting communities most impacted by COVID-19 including African, Latina/o/x, Asian, Arab, and Native American (ALAANA), disabled, immigrant, and women-identifying artists, as well as those at high risk including elderly and immunosuppressed artists, as identified by Dance/NYC’s ongoing Coronavirus Impact Survey. As of May 17th, individual dance makers reported a cumulative loss of at least $4.2 million and organizations, projects, and groups indicated losses that exceed $22 million. These losses will deepen as the timeline of the crisis extends. Indeed, segmentation analysis by identity category and location show that the crisis is disproportionately impacting people who identify as genderqueer/nonbinary, older dance workers and immigrant dance workers. Specifically, Gen X dance workers estimate income loss $2,814 higher than Millennial workers, and immigrant dance workers report having lost 21% of their total income as compared to 17% for those born in the US.

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About Dance/NYC 
Dance/NYC’s mission is to promote the knowledge, appreciation, practice, and performance of dance in the metropolitan New York City area. It embeds values of justice, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of the organization. It works in alliance with Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance.

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Visit Dance.NYC for details on Dance/NYC’s Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund.

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