Launched in 2023, NEXT: Accent Dance NYC's Emerging Choreographer Commissioning Program commissions a new piece by a professional, early-career choreographer, covering all creative expenses including choreographer and dancer compensation, rehearsal space, and the work's premiere. Additionally, the commissioned choreographer receives invaluable professional mentorship and audience feedback through open rehearsals and in-process showings, and gains access to Accent Dance NYC’s extensive network and opportunities to showcase the work to a wide range of audiences in educational, community, and concert settings.
Premiered: September 2024, Open Jar Studios, NYC
Commissioned by: Accent Dance NYC as part of our professional development commissioning program
Choreographer: Danielle Diniz
Dancers: Justin Bowen, Kaylan Bradford, Damontae Hack, Shizu Higa, Emily Masia, Katarina Smith, Elisa Toro Franky, and Evy Vaughan
Music: Gypsy Caravan, Grupo Mayombe, Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies and Christian Schmitt, Fanfare Ciocarlia, Cassidy Byars
Danielle’s piece, A Place for Us, explores her Latina heritage and the immigrant experience through the lens of family history: her grandparents coming to America from Mexico and Portugal respectively, under trying circumstances. Her piece not only focuses on the struggles and triumphs of new Americans, but incorporates disparate elements of a wide variety of cultures, music, and dance forms in a true stylistic “melting pot” that mirrors, more broadly, the hopes and dreams of our collective American experience.
Ms. Diniz recently completed her time as Artist in Residence at Tribeca BMCC via CUNY Dance Initiative for the 2023 season, fully choreographing and directing her own evening of repertory, and became Co Artistic Director of Jazz Choreography Enterprises at the start of 2024. She choreographed for the Ailey BFA program and New York Dance Project this past fall, made new works for St. Paul's ballet program and Counterpointe this winter and will make a piece for Ballet Hartford in the spring.
She has been commissioned by Jacob's Pillow, Performance Santa Fe, Avant Chamber Ballet, Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Stars of American Ballet, Ballet Hartford, Woman in Motion, Ballet Excel Ohio, Central Utah Ballet, Earl Mosley's Diversity of Dance and the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning.
She was a featured choreographer for DanceBreak (musical theater's leading platform for upcoming Broadway choreographers), made her Off-Broadway choreographic debut at the AMT Theatre with 'An Unbalanced Mind,' presented work at the McCallum Theatre/Palm Desert Choreography Festival and the New York Theatre Barn Choreography Lab held at Baryshnikov Arts Center and was awarded a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts/City Artist Corps to present a full evening of her choreography.
She is a winner of the New York Dance Project Choreography Competition, a junior board member of Jazz Choreography Enterprises and a choreographic mentor for We Are Queens. She also choreographed 'My Way' at Theatre by the Sea, the AEA production of the Vaudevillian musical 'On the Air,' currently choreographs and assistant directs intermittent musical theater showcases at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy and has served as Associate Choreographer for Lorin Latarro.
She is on faculty at Kanyok Arts Initiative and Manhattan Youth Ballet and also enjoys teaching for Steps on Broadway, Mark Morris and Peridance.
Ms. Diniz has a B.A. in English (concentration in Shakespearean Studies, minor in Dance) from Cornell University.
Will A Ervin Jr. was the program’s first recipient in 2023-2024, during which he created Narcissus, an original multidisciplinary work of modern, contemporary, and street dance inspired by Greek mythology, the delicate nuances between self-love and ego, and the springtime flower by the same name representing rebirth, inner reflection, and hope. The process also resulted in an original dance film by renowned photographer Mark Mann.
Premiered: September 2023, Ailey Studios, NYC
Commissioned by: Accent Dance NYC as part of our professional development commissioning program
Choreographer: Will A Ervin Jr.
Rehearsal Assistant: Zaki A’Jani Marshall
Dancers: Justin Bowen, Kaylan Bradford, Madison Dyke, Damontae Hack, Amina Konaté and Uilalani Marx
Music: Summer Walker & J. Cole, Australian String Quartet & Bryce Dresser
Filmmaker: Mark Mann
Choreographer: Will A Ervin Jr.
Rehearsal Assistant: Zaki A’Jani Marshall
Dancers: Justin Bowen, Kaylan Bradford, Madison Dyke, Damontae Hack, Amina Konaté and Uilalani Marx
Music: Summer Walker & J. Cole, Australian String Quartet & Bryce Dresser
Narcissus was one of four new works selected to be performed on February 24, 2024 as part of Peridance Presents at the KnJ Theater, 126 East 13th Street, New York, New York 10003
Will A Ervin Jr. is an East Coast native. He earned his BFA in dance from Montclair State University (May 2017). He graduated with an MFA in dance from the University of Illinois in May 2020. He has also trained with Joffrey Ballet, EMIA Rennie Harris, Jacob's Pillow, and Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet.
Ervin has performed at the Alexander Kasser Theatre, the Joyce Theatre, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music with the Hearts of Men ensemble. As Artistic Director of his company Erv Works Dance, he has presented choreography at the University of Illinois set on 1st year Dance Majors, the Dumbo Dance Festival, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. His newest works were created for Kemar’s project headlining 2021’s Global Black Pride, presented after the keynote speaker President Joe Biden, Battery Dance Festival, Maria Torres’s Sol El Barrio, and the Joyce Theatre in partnership with Future Dance Festival, 92st Y, and The Martha Graham Dance Company.
Other accomplishments include interning with American Ballet Theatre’s Major Gifts Department, previously serving as the Co. Director of Dance at Brooklyn Center for the Arts and Resident Choreographer of Judah International Dance Theater. He was recently named Dance Lab by Josh Prince’s 2022 fall cycle choreographer, Dance on the Lawn's 2022 emerging commissioned choreographer, and just set work on Dimensions Dance Theater of Miami.
Since completing his commission with Accent Dance NYC as part of the pilot season of NEXT: Accent Dance NYC’s Emerging Choreographer Commission program, Will has gone on to present his work Narcissus at Peridance Presents, create a new work for Brooklyn Ballet’s 2024 Spring Season, and will make his Broadway debut in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, in April 2024.
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