Dance/USA

Dance/USA Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Dance/USA, Nonprofit Organization, Washington D.C., DC.

Connecting dance professionals nationwide
📣 Advocacy ‱ Research ‱ Learning & Leadership
For a thriving + equitable future in dance
đŸ€ Become a member ↓
https://member.danceusa.org/membership-information

Meet the Round 3 DFA Artist Fellows! Today, we’re excited to spotlight Carol Bebelle aka AKUA (she/her). Carol Bebelle i...
08/29/2026

Meet the Round 3 DFA Artist Fellows! Today, we’re excited to spotlight Carol Bebelle aka AKUA (she/her).

Carol Bebelle is a native New Orleanian. She holds​ a Master’s Degree from Tulane University in Education Administration and has a 20 year career in the public sector as an administrator and planner of human service programs.

In 1998, Carol Bebelle and Douglas Redd founded Ashé Cultural Arts Center (Ashé CAC), an organization dedicated to community and human development using culture and art. Ashé CAC became a central player in the rebuilding of New Orleans, particularly the Central City community and the cultural landscape for artists and culture bearers. She ended her term as Executive Director of Ashé Cultural Arts Center at the end of 2019. She continues a 40 year extended career of producing theater, dance, poetry, and community cultural events in New Orleans. After leaving Ashé, she established AKUA Productions NOLA as her platform for her work going forward.

Carol has a recently released publication called “Counting Our Blessings” which tells the stories of resilience and recovery for 41 New Orleanians. Carol is a popular panelist, commentator and advisor on the foundational and transformative power of culture. She has participated in international, national, and local processes aimed at emerging the resilient and healing powers of culture and art for cultural, social, and equitable change in the world.ïżœïżœ

DFA is made possible with generous support from the Doris Duke Foundation.

As Dance/USA’s new Executive Director, I have inherited a set of organizational paradigms. Some are structural, some are...
08/28/2026

As Dance/USA’s new Executive Director, I have inherited a set of organizational paradigms. Some are structural, some are programmatic, some are financial, and some are relational.⁠
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The field has been asking, reasonably, what—and who—Dance/USA is for.⁠
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Every step forward requires a weight-shift, and in several martial arts traditions, a “forward stance” is about readying the body for action. ⁠
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This report is a reflection of our forward stance as an organization.⁠
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We hope that as we move towards you, you move towards us, too. 💜
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📑 Read the full report →https://www.danceusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Forward-Stance-Report-by-DanceUSA-Aug-2026.pdf
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[Media Description: A seven-slide Dance/USA graphic introducing the organization’s “Forward Stance” report. The slides feature excerpts from Executive Director Michele Kumi Baer's letter reflecting on organizational change, Dance/USA’s relationship with the dance community, and the organization’s path forward. The graphics use a soft cream background with purple and blue typography, hand-drawn abstract line illustrations, Dance/USA branding, and images of pages from the report.]

Meet the Round 3 DFA Artist Fellows! Today, we’re excited to spotlight Leila Awadallah (she/her). Leila Awadallah is a d...
08/24/2026

Meet the Round 3 DFA Artist Fellows! Today, we’re excited to spotlight Leila Awadallah (she/her).

Leila Awadallah is a dancer, choreographer, and community collaborator residing in Minneapolis and sometimes Beirut, Lebanon. Her artistry holds Palestine at the center — rooting her dancing body amongst the movements resisting settler colonial occupation and engaging in visions/actions of liberation that invoke/demand RETURN of land and peoples. She is looking for a world where Palestinian Aliveness spills like rivers of glistening olive oil across the earth.

Awadallah is the Artistic Director of Body Watani Dance in collaboration with her sister Noelle Awadallah; ‘watani ÙˆŰ·Ù†ÙŠâ€™, meaning ‘my homeland’ in Arabic. Body Watani is a Palestinian diasporic movement research methodology that engages folk dances, culture and politics of the SWANA region, while contemplating Arab American realities and flowing in mixed Mediterranean ways and waves.

Awadallah is a DanceUSA (2025), McKnight (2022), Jerome Hill (2021), and Daring Dances (2019) fellow. Body Watani’s original works: TERRANEA (2023) and After the Last Red Sky (2024) received creation and touring grants from National Performance Network (2021) and National Dance Project (2024). Her solo works have been presented in festivals in Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, San Francisco, and Dearborn. Awadallah’s artistry is meaningfully impacted by Ananya Dance Theatre (2014-2019) and ongoing collaborations with Theater of the Women of the Camp (Beirut), Cia de Arte Folclórica Palestina El Funoun - AM (Ramallah) and Curriculum In Motion (Jacob's Pillow). She holds a BFA in Dance and minor in Arabic Language and Literature from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

Meet all the Round 3 DFA Fellows → https://bit.ly/4rbFRaY

DFA is made possible with generous support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Image descriptions are located in the caption of each slide.

đŸ—Łïž "This network is thick with people willing to say yes and willing to make it happen."Last month, our Associate Direct...
08/23/2026

đŸ—Łïž "This network is thick with people willing to say yes and willing to make it happen."

Last month, our Associate Director of Leadership and Learning, Krystal Collins, traveled upstate to spend time with the NYS DanceForce network at their July convening.

👉 Swipe through to read what stuck with them.

Krystal and the entire team at Dance/USA are grateful to NYS DanceForce for their openness, generosity, resource-sharing and community! 🙏💜

📾 courtesy of Krystal



[Media Description: A carousel of 6 blue graphics with white text and white Dance/USA logos and arrows. On slides 1,3,4, and 5 are transparent photos filling the background of the graphic.]

📣 Join us next week for a guided practice session where you’ll be invited to sense more deeply into your own relationshi...
08/19/2026

📣 Join us next week for a guided practice session where you’ll be invited to sense more deeply into your own relationship with meaning, alignment and doubt in your artistic career. 👇

Embodied tools for socially engaged creative practice: an introduction to Inner-Relationship Focusing with Murielle Elizéon and Tommy Noonan
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📆 Monday, August 24 | 1:00 – 2:30 PM EDT⁠
đŸ’» Online Event⁠
đŸ’Č FREE and Open to the Public⁠
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The stressors and challenges of a career in dance are often dismissed. Through discussion and exercises, the workshop will offer tools and perspectives to develop a more caring and compassionate relationship with the whole of one’s experience, building more capacity for resilience and renewed energy.

Registration is FREE!
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Learn more and save your spot → https://member.danceusa.org/events/centering-the-artist-series-presents-embodied-tools-for-socially-engaged-creative-practice-an-introduction-to-inner-relationship-focusing
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(Thank you to The Wallace Foundation for their partnership in presenting this series in 2026. 🙏)⁠
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[Media Description: A carousel of 4 beige graphics with Dance/USA logos and stylized design, including blue text and blue circles that contain essential information regarding the upcoming "Embodied tools for socially engaged creative practice: an introduction to Inner-Relationship Focusing" event and the headshots of both Murielle and Tommy on the first slide.]

Meet the Round 3 DFA Artist Fellows! Today, we’re excited to spotlight Rashida Bumbray (she/her). Rashida Bumbray is an ...
08/17/2026

Meet the Round 3 DFA Artist Fellows! Today, we’re excited to spotlight Rashida Bumbray (she/her).

Rashida Bumbray is an award-winning choreographer, curator, and filmmaker deeply rooted in Black vernacular and folk traditions, including ring shouts, hoofing, and Blues improvisation. Bumbray merges curatorial and ethnographic methodologies with avant-garde practices, crafting intimate performances and films reimagining sacred and secular rituals. Her work explores the architectures of improvisation, surrender, and possession, offering poignant responses to contemporary experiences of displacement, erasure, and collective forgetting. A graduate of Oberlin College, Bumbray also has an MA in Africana Studies from New York University. Her writing on contemporary art, cultural studies, and comparative literature is published in journals and exhibition catalogs.

Bumbray’s practice has earned numerous accolades, including the 2024 Anonymous Was A Woman Award, a 2024 Ruby’s Artist Award, a 2024 Tate Infinities R&D Award, and a 2019 United States Artist Fellowship. She was Civic Practice Artist in Residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2017 to 2021. Her performances and films have been presented by institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Black Star Film Festival; Dia: Chelsea (with Leslie Hewitt); Harlem Stage; Dancing While Black; SummerStage; Tate Modern (with Simone Leigh); the New Museum (with Simone Leigh), and Project Row Houses. Her work, Run Mary Run, was named among The New York Times’ best performances of 2012 and is featured in Common’s short film, Black America Again (2016), directed by Bradford Young. She was nominated for a Bessie Award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer and continues to push the boundaries of dance, film, and ritual performance.

DFA is made possible with generous support from the Doris Duke Foundation.

Meet the Round 3 DFA Artist Fellows! Today, we’re excited to spotlight Murielle ElizĂ©on (she/her). Murielle ElizĂ©on is a...
08/14/2026

Meet the Round 3 DFA Artist Fellows! Today, we’re excited to spotlight Murielle ElizĂ©on (she/her).

Murielle Elizéon is a French-American choreographer, performer, embodied dramaturg, facilitator, and teaching artist.

Elizéon studied Italian Literature and Dance Aesthetics while completing her contemporary dance training in Nice and Paris, France, where she began her professional dance career in 1995. She also completed a DanceAbility Teacher certification with Alito Alessi at Impulztanz in Vienna, Austria in 2010, studied Argentine tango in Argentina and Germany for 15 years, completed her yoga teacher training in the US in 2015, and has practiced Qi Gong and meditation for 20 years. Elizéon is a certified practitioner in a somatic modality called Focusing and is currently training in Generative Somatics and NVC (non-violent communication).

In 2014, Murielle co-founded Culture Mill, a Performing Arts Laboratory in Saxapahaw, NC, with Tommy Noonan. Culture Mill fosters a creative and inclusive ecosystem through artist residencies, community-centered initiatives, and groundbreaking immersive artworks. Culture Mill has won regional awards and has been commissioned and presented by numerous national and statewide arts institutions.

For the last 30 years, ElizĂ©on has collaborated and performed with various choreographers and directors as well as shared her own work across Europe and the US. She has enjoyed leading multigenerational, cross-sector projects and performances involving various abilities since 2010, and she has spearheaded the Parkinson’s Performance Project since its founding in 2017.

Meet all the Round 3 DFA Fellows → https://bit.ly/4rbFRaY

DFA is made possible with generous support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

📣 Join us for an online, artist-led conversation with Murielle ElizĂ©on and Tommy Noonan on meaning, alignment and doubt ...
08/11/2026

📣 Join us for an online, artist-led conversation with Murielle ElizĂ©on and Tommy Noonan on meaning, alignment and doubt in artistic careers.⁠

📆 Monday, August 24 | 1:00 – 2:30 PM EDT⁠
đŸ’» Online Event⁠
đŸ’Č FREE and Open to the Public⁠

Murielle Elizéon and Tommy Noonan will lead "Embodied tools for socially engaged creative practice: an introduction to Inner-Relationship Focusing," as part of our Centering the Artist series, offering professional dance artists tools of embodied listening, somatic exercises, conversations and writing prompts⁠.

Learn more and save your spot → https://member.danceusa.org/events/centering-the-artist-series-presents-embodied-tools-for-socially-engaged-creative-practice-an-introduction-to-inner-relationship-focusing

(Thank you to The Wallace Foundation for their partnership in presenting this series in 2026. 🙏)⁠

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[Media Description: A carousel of 3 beige graphics with Dance/USA logos and stylized design, including blue text and blue circles that contain essential information regarding the upcoming "Embodied tools for socially engaged creative practice: an introduction to Inner-Relationship Focusing" event.]

Meet the Round 3 DFA Artist Fellows! Today, we’re excited to spotlight Ani/Anito Gavino (she/they). Ani/Anito Gonzales G...
08/11/2026

Meet the Round 3 DFA Artist Fellows! Today, we’re excited to spotlight Ani/Anito Gavino (she/they).

Ani/Anito Gonzales Gavino is a Filipinx multidisciplinary artist, movement scholar, and cultural worker from Panay Island, Iloilo City, Philippines. Raised in a culture of Bayanihan (collectivism), spiritual myths, and strong Ilonggo matriarchs, she aims to archive marginalized histories through autoethnographic research-to-choreographic practice. Her motherhood extends into her art practice, as she collaborates with her daughter, Malaya Ulan—co-director of AniMalayaWorks Collective—in co-creating intergenerational, community-engaged performances and workshops with Filipinos and immigrant artists in the diaspora. Anito’s choreographic work strives to highlight identity consciousness as a pathway to dismantling colonial mentality by foregrounding often-muted Afro-Indigenous dances, music, histories, and values. She blends folkloric elements with contemporary experimentation to create works centered on immigration, feminism, intergenerational trauma, and collective healing.

Anito works in the intersection of dance, film, theater, poetry, music, education, research, cross-cultural collaborations, and social practice. Anito, a lecturer at the University of Miami, is also a recipient of the 2021 Leeway Transformation Award, the MAPfund, the Independent Public Media Fund, the Velocity Fund, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the National Performance Network, the NEFA National Theater Projects’ Creation and Touring Grant, etc. As a dancer, she has performed with Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Latin Ballet of Virginia, Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers, and Ananya Dance Theatre. Community partnerships have also included the Painted Bride, MECA Houston, BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Live Arts Miami, Filipino American National Historical Society, Bayou Barkada, and more. Their work extends off stage. Her MFA research paper, "Ati, the indigenous people of Panay," is available for online download. Through Scribe Video Center’s WPEB, she and Malaya host “Nay Watchu Cookin,” a radio show blending society, history, and food. She continues to organize poetry open mics, movement workshops, Filipino potlucks, and pop-up teach-ins on Filipino history and dance.

Meet all the Round 3 DFA Fellows → https://bit.ly/4rbFRaY

DFA is made possible with generous support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

After a 2+ year effort from Dance/USA and colleagues to create tools that support more equitable contracting in dance to...
08/07/2026

After a 2+ year effort from Dance/USA and colleagues to create tools that support more equitable contracting in dance touring, we created the Equitable Contracting Resources with Standford Law School.⁠
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👉 The resources reflect themes from community conversations and publications, alongside a review of multiple template agreements currently in use by presenters and companies.⁠
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Centered specifically around dance touring and presenting, these materials are intended to be resources and idea-starters in an effort toward field-wide change.⁠
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Learn more and download the resources → https://www.danceusa.org/equitable-contracting-resource
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[Media Description: A carousel of 6 blue graphics with white text, Dance/USA logos, arrows, and line breaks. The first and last slides contain a graphic of 2 pages from the Equitable Contracting Resources, and the rest of the slides contain information about what makes up the resource document, including a cover memo, engagement agreement resource, provisions resource, and cheat sheet resource.]

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