Chicago Dancemakers Forum Announces the 2022 Lab Artists
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -November 8, 2021, 8:00am CDT
Chicago Dancemakers Forum announces the 2022 Lab Artists:
Star Dixon
Diamond Hardiman
Fabulous Freddie Prodigy
Kia S. Smith
Marcela E Torres
Kinnari Vora
These Chicago-based dancemakers will each receive a grant of $20,000 along with a year of tailored support during an extended period of creative research and development of new dance work. “These artists represent what is happening in dance, and what dance could be,” shares Christy Bolingbroke, Founding Executive/Artistic Director for the National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron (NCCAkron).
The 2022 Lab Artists were selected for the distinctness of their dancemaking and artistic vision, their body of work, and the timing of the program in their artistic trajectory. Supporting this year’s selection process by serving as review panelists were Roya Amirsoleymani, Christy Bolingbroke, La Mar Brown, Dahlia Nayar, John Rich, and Sara Zalek.
Chicago Dancemakers Forum catalyzes the growth and artistic fulfillment of Chicago’s dancemakers by providing time and resources for in-depth exploration and creation in choreographed, improvised, and communal forms. Since its inception in 2003, Chicago Dancemakers Forum has granted over $1.25 million to artists and is the most significant, sustained source of support for individual dancemakers working in Chicago that has an open call process.
The 2022 Lab Artists will be celebrated during Revv It Up: Chicago Dancemakers Forum 2021 Awards Celebration + Benefit on Thursday, December 9 (Hybrid event: 21c Museum Hotel and Online). Tickets for the event are available now.
For more information, please contact Shawn Lent, Programs and Communications Director at shawn@chicagodancemakers.org.
She/Her [ stahrdik-suhn ]
Photo credit: Matt Glavin
Star Dixon is an assistant director, choreographer, and original principal dancer of world-renowned tap company, M.A.D.D. Rhythms. She has taught and performed at the most distinguished tap festivals in the country including The L.A. Tap Fest, DC Tap Fest, & RIFF Dallas. She’s performed internationally in Poland, Japan, and Brazil, as well as national performance venues include Jacob’s Pillow, Kennedy Center, and the Lincoln Center. Star’s Lab year will be spent collaborating with musicians to compose and arrange original music for and of tap dance.
She/Her | [ dahy-muhnd hahrd-i-muhn ]
Photo credit: Wills Glasspiegel
Diamond Hardiman is a groundbreaking dancer and dance educator from the West Side of Chicago. Known for her mastery of Chicago Footwork, she has been featured on stages nationally and in the New York Times and Chicago Reader. She has performed at Links Hall and the MCA. She got her start with historic Chicago dance companies and crews, including House-O-Matics, 187, House Arrest II and on Wala Cam. Throughout the Lab year, Hardiman plans to research and develop a theatrical dance performance, focusing on connections between mental health and Footwork.
He/Him | [ fab-yuh-luhs fred-ee prod-i-jee ]
Photo credit: EL La Katrina
Fabulous Freddie Prodigy is a Voguer/Bboy in the community. Throughout his career, Freddie has learned to grow and adapt with who he is as a dancemaker, experimenting with femininity and masculinity in the artist’s own lexicon of movement. Freddie’s dance journey is a self-exploration and healing practice in claiming himself whole through embodying his masculine and feminine energies as a Black Gay artist. During the Lab year, he will be building a living document performance.
She/Her | [ kee-ah smith ]
Photo credit: Michelle Reid/MReid Photography
Kia S. Smith is a Chicago native, a Choreography Fellow at Jacob’s Pillow, and a 2021 3 Arts Make A Wave Awardee. Kia creates work for repertory dance companies, ballet companies, opera, music ensembles, universities, museums, and she is the founder of South Chicago Dance Theatre. She is pivoting from being a choreographer of solely concert dance to a performance-maker of her own form of dance theatre – activating movement, opera, video, text, and scenic design to create large-scale experiences that stimulate the senses for performer and observer.
They/She | [ mahr-sel-uh toor-ez ]
Photo credit: zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o’neal
Marcela E Torres mobilizes sound, sweat, and emotional projection to build sensorial performances. These experiences provide a portal into the sensoria of marginalized bodies and are designed to be ingested by viewers as physiological memories. Torres received a BA/BFA from the University of Utah, and an MFA in Performance from School of the Art Institute Chicago. Torres’ Lab project investigates the evolution of Latin-American social dance in parallel with cigar production sites. This work endeavors to tell an intricate story of colonization, genocide, U.S. intervention, and continual displacement.
She/Her | [ kin-nar-ee voh-ruh ]
Photo credit: Srikant Chandan
Kinnari Vora shares stories of universal human conditions and emotions through movement, meditation, and theatrical practices. Her movements are rooted in Bharatanatyam (disciple of Sarmishtha Sarkar, India), various Indian folk dances and kalaripayattu martial arts. Her work is guided by ancestral energy, wisdom of nature and collaborative communion. Kinnari is co-founder and artistic co-chair of Ishti Collective and a dancer collaborator with Surabhi Ensemble. During the lab year, Kinnari is researching and initiating a dialogue on the impermanence, mortality and end-of-life care.
