Award Supports The Development Of The Innovacion Fellowship In Dance & Emergent Technology

New York, NY - Ballet Hispánico is proud to announce that it has been named an inaugural participant in Doris Duke Foundation’s Performing Arts Technologies Lab, a first-of-its-kind accelerator for projects seeking to explore innovative uses of digital technology in the performing arts. Ballet Hispánico is one of 20 pioneering artists, technologists, and art organizations accepted into the Lab. The initiative generated widespread enthusiasm, with an open call generating 745 applications from individual artists, universities, presenters, producers and arts organizations in 43 states, as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Through the Lab, Ballet Hispánico will fund the new Innovación Fellowship in Dance & Emergent Technology in partnership with Cornell Tech.

“We are so grateful for the support of the Doris Duke Foundation as our company continues to support the creation of new works by our family of choreographers, ensuring that we are at the forefront of dance and cultural programming,” said Eduardo Vilaro, Artistic Director & CEO of Ballet Hispánico.

"These aren't just technology projects. They are ambitious proposals to radically innovate in the performing arts – how they are made, how we experience them, and who they are for" said Sam Gill, president and CEO of the Doris Duke Foundation.

Doris Duke Foundation Arts Program Director Ashley Ferro-Murray said, “The over 700 applications we received for this program sent us a clear message: performing artists are ready and excited to push the boundaries of what technology can do. They are asking critical questions about open-source approaches, accessibility and representation. Our goal is to help these innovators do what artists do best-bringing new, powerful experiences to audiences.” 

Ballet Hispánico’s Instituto Coreográfico and Cornell Tech’s Backslash have created the Innovación Fellowship in Dance & Emergent Technology to empower choreographers, dancers, technologists, and researchers to explore new ways of activating Latine/Hispanic dance. This fellowship fosters collaboration between the arts and technology, aiming to elevate Latine voices and employ innovative technologies for education and social impact. The fellow will work with Cornell Tech faculty, researchers, and students, utilizing advanced resources to dissolve disciplinary boundaries and enhance knowledge exchange.

ABOUT THE PERFORMING ARTS TECHNOLOGY LAB

The inaugural Doris Duke Foundation Performing Arts Technologies Lab is a first-of-its-kind accelerator for projects seeking to explore innovative uses of digital technology in the performing arts. Projects accepted into the Lab will receive funding for prototyping and feasibility testing, production facilities advice, and knowledge- and network-building opportunities. Selected projects tackle a wide range of opportunities in how the performing arts are produced, distributed and consumed, including: 

- exploring the use of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence in creating, presenting, experiencing, and preserving works across the performing arts, particularly among artists representing underserved populations and cultures; 

- enabling artists and audience members with disabilities to further access, create, and engage with art through the development of new digital tools; 

- preserving inherently ephemeral works in the performing arts through new archiving technologies, fulfilling a need that is especially acute for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) artists; and 

- pursuing field-wide solutions to pressing issues such as capital needs.  

In addition to funding, the provision of technical advising and programming that helps grantees build and benefit from peer-to-peer support networks across the field will be a critical part of the Lab experience. 

ABOUT THE DORIS DUKE FOUNDATION

The mission of the Doris Duke Foundation (DDF) is to build a more creative, equitable and sustainable future by investing in artists and the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research, child well-being and greater mutual understanding among diverse communities. DDF focuses its support to the performing arts on contemporary dance, jazz and theater artists, and the organizations that nurture, present and produce them. Visit www.dorisduke.org to learn more. 

BALLET HISPÁNICO is one of America’s Cultural Treasures and steeped in the histories of Latine cultures as advocators, innovators, and emissaries of our communities and their legacies. As we look to participate in this Fellowship with Cornell Tech, we are deeply committed to ensuring our innovative technology-forward processes preserve and extend the heritage of our founding mission. Furthermore, collaborating in this initiative will help us align and center the voices of Latine, Black and brown artists as living testaments to the power of our communities in New York City and beyond-through a bi directional relationship with new technological tools for arts organizations serving their communities.

Lead by Artistic Director & CEO Eduardo Vilaro-who has shepherded many collaborations across and beyond Ballet Hispánico-our work with Cornell Tech will bring one Latine/x/Hispanic choreographer to a nurturing learning laboratory of dance for artists to create culturally specific work. Just as the Instituto Coreográfico model invites dance audiences to respond, reflect, and enter into a cultural dialogue with the artists about dance and culture in a safe, critical environment, we will create such an opportunity at a work-in-progress showing and/or conversation about the exploratory fellowship during the residency. With this invaluable platform, Ballet Hispánico continues to amplify the voices of young artists and opens access to the dance-making process for all audiences while looking now to diversify the ways BIPOC artists influence technology and are received more widely.

Instituto Coreográfico alumni choreographers include, and will provide a seasoned pool for selection of a CT/BH fellow who is ready and committed to the process: Michelle Manzanales (2022); Omar Román De Jesús (2022); Marielis Garcia (2021); Ramón Oller (2019); Maria Barrios (2019); Bennyroyce Royon (2018); Gustavo Ramírez Sansano (2018); Carlos Pons Guerra (2017); Stephanie Martinez (2016); Fernando Melo (2015); Michelle Manzanales (2015); Miguel Mancillas (2014); Rosie Herrera (2013); Abdul Latif (2012).

CORNELL TECH is a digital-age, technology-forward graduate campus of Cornell University in New York City, and home to \Art (pronounced “Backslash Art”). Founded by Greg Pass in 2016, the \Art initiative offers artists the opportunity to collaborate with Cornell Tech faculty and students through bleeding-edge digital research and technology. This multidisciplinary Fellowship will, therefore, provide an immersive framework for Ballet Hispánico to engage in deep exploration of new choreographic forms, expressions, and features; and is intended to expand opportunities for the artists’ creative work. Ballet Hispánico will spend time within Cornell Tech exploring technology-inflected artistic practices and methodologies they have never pursued previously. Conversely, the choreographic studies will have a direct impact on the research being generated on campus, ensuring that emergent technologies are not just in service of the performing arts, but are also advanced as a direct consequence of engagement with creative practices.

The participating faculty from Cornell Tech are passionate about societal impact, both on campus and in the world beyond; they have a vision for the power of technology and are excited by the opportunity to conduct innovative research and co-create with leading academics, entrepreneurs, industry experts, students, and-most saliently-choreographers and dancers. The following are active technology areas of research, and can result in exceptional work that is not possible through the use of generally available software or software developers: Robotics and Human Computer Interaction; AI, Sensors, and Health; Computational/Digital Fabrication; Wearable Technology; Computer Vision; Ethics and Privacy; and Mixed Reality.