CUNY Dance Initiative Announces New Residency Partnerships in 2025-26
Company:
CUNY Dance Initiative
The CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI), an expansive program providing New York City choreographers and dance companies with creative residencies on CUNY college campuses, announces new partnerships with Works & Process and The Pocantico Center in 2025-26.
The core of CDI’s mission is providing NYC-based dance artists with residencies on CUNY campuses--currently 14 colleges across the five boroughs. As CDI has taken root, partnerships beyond the CUNY system have become integral to CDI’s collaborative ethos and commitment to expanding opportunities for artists while building audiences for dance.
New partnerships with Works & Process and The Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for the current residency cycle (July 1, 2025-June 30, 2026) will each provide an artist with a week-long residency outside of New York City, in addition to a CDI studio residency that runs through June 2026. Works & Process and the Queens College review panel jointly selected whacking artist Nubian Néné, awarding her a CDI residency at Queens College and a Works & Process residency at Bethany Arts Community (Ossining, NY) in May 2026. In addition to her CDI rehearsal at Brooklyn College, Kayla Farrish has been invited for a residency at The Pocantico Center (Tarrytown, NY) in February 2026 and will present a work-in-process showing at the David Rockefeller Creative Arts Center on February 26, 2026.
“Providing time and space for artists to engage in the creative process is at the core of Pocantico’s mission,” said Elly Weisenberg Kelly, manager of public programs and residencies at The Pocantico Center. “Partnering with CDI to expand access for dancers and choreographers outside of New York City is an important step in offering expanded opportunities in the field.”
These new partnerships build upon CDI’s other successful collaborations with arts organizations. CDI’s Arts & Social Justice Residency, established in 2021 with Brooklyn College and Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), is welcoming its third artist this cycle: Chrybaby Cozie and The Breakfast Club E.A.T., led by Daniel Holloway, the Harlem-born pioneer of the Hip-Hop freestyle genre called Lite-Feet. In Staten Island, CDI has partnered with Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden since 2018, and in Queens, York College has been teaming up with Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning since 2021.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS
The CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI) marked a decade of supporting the NYC dance field in 2024. The program was developed in response to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s 2010 report, “We Make Do,” which cited how destabilizing the shortage of affordable rehearsal space in New York City is to the dance sector. A successful pilot supporting residencies on four CUNY campuses in 2013 led to CDI’s formal launch in 2014. Since then, CDI has become a key player in New York City’s performing arts ecosystem, leading a consortium of 14 CUNY colleges and four arts organizations to host 20+ residencies for NYC choreographers and dance companies each year. In the past 11 years, CDI has granted 275 residencies to emerging and established choreographers, providing invaluable resources to artists, while enhancing CUNY students’ education and cultural experiences.
The CUNY Dance Initiative receives major support from The Mertz Gilmore Foundation and Howard Gilman Foundation. Additional support is provided by the SHS Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s Charles E. Culpeper Arts & Culture program, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance. CDI is spearheaded by The Kupferberg Center for the Arts at Queens College. www.cuny.edu/danceinitiative
Championing performing artists and their creative process from studio to stage, Works & Process features artists from the world’s largest organizations and emerging new talent. With a unique program format that blends artist discussion and performance highlights, Works & Process encourages audiences to spectate, participate, and continue the conversation beyond the stage. Founded in 1984 by Mary Sharp Cronson at Guggenheim New York, Works & Process has evolved into an independent non-profit organization with an extensive network of residency partners and presenting partners, including Guggenheim Bilbao, Guggenheim New York, National Sawdust, and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Jerome Robbins Dance Division. During the summer, Works & Process curates and presents free outdoor dance programs with Manhattan West and City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage. www.worksandprocess.org
The Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Once home to the Rockefeller family, The Pocantico Center’s verdant campus in the scenic hills of the Hudson Valley has been host to some of the most influential leaders, thinkers, and creative minds of the last century. Today, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund continues to bring together people at Pocantico through a robust slate of conferences, artist residencies, tours, performances, exhibitions, and educational programs. www.rbf.org/pocantico
