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The Dance Magazine/Harkness Promise Awards offer a $5,000 grant and 40 hours of rehearsal space each year to two innovative choreographers in their first decade of professional presentation of their work. These awards, presented in collaboration with Dance Magazine and conferred publicly at the Dance Magazine Awards ceremony—to be held this year on December 8th, 2025 at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles—are generously supported by the Harkness Foundation for Dance. We are pleased to announce that our 2025 Harkness Promise Awardees are Annie Rigney and Micaela Taylor.

Annie Rigney  

Annie Rigney is a New York based dancer, choreographer, educator, and Ilan Lev Method therapist. Her choreographic interest and movement research lies in the intersection between extreme physicality and healing. Annie danced with the Batsheva Ensemble, Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company, and in Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More. Her work has been commissioned by institutions including the Martha Graham Dance Company, NYU Tisch, SUNY Purchase, Ailey/Fordham BFA Program, the University of the Arts, and Resilience Dance Company and presented at venues including the Joyce Theater and 92NY. Annie is a 2025 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow and was the 2023-24 Artist in Residence at the 92NY, a recipient of the Moving Women Residency from Gallim Dance, and a 2023 CUNY Dance Initiative Space Grant. She is an adjunct professor at the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program and an alumnus of the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase.

https://www.annierigney.com

Micaela Taylor

Micaela Taylor is a dancer, choreographer, and the Artistic Director & Founder of the TL Collective. Trained in hip-hop and ballet, she has created her own dance genre called Expand Practice, exuding emotion from the core and creating varied physical shapes and textures as expressions of one’s authentic self. Her quirky style of exaggerated facial expressions, gesture, and athletic theatricality sets her work apart. Taylor created her own technique and is building The TL Collective from the ground up. She received the Inaugural Springboard EMERGE Choreographic Award, was named in Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2019, and graced the cover of Dance Magazine in April 2020.  Taylor has been commissioned to choreograph by Ballet BC, NDT 2, Rambert Dance Company, The Getty Museum, BODYTRAFFIC, Gibney Dance Company, Carlos Acosta’s Acosta Danza, alongside commercial work including music videos and campaigns for various brands and artists. Upcoming commissions include Paris Opera Ballet, English National Ballet, and currently choreographing for her first Vegas show produced by FiveCurrents productions, “Bob Marley Hope Road” premiering this summer at Mandala Bay Hotel and Resort.

https://dancemagazine.com/micaela-taylor

The Harkness Promise Awards, now in their fifth year, supported by the net proceeds from the Dance Magazine Awards ceremony, honor dance artists in the first decade of their choreographic career with an unrestricted $5,000 grant, 40 hours of studio space, and no requirement for a product. We are pleased to announce our 2023 Harkness Promise Awardees: BAYE & ASA/Amadi ‘Baye’ Washington & Sam ‘Asa’ Pratt, and Omar Román De Jesús/BOCA TUYA.

BAYE & ASA, selected as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” for 2022, is a company creating movement art projects directed & choreographed by Amadi ‘Baye’ Washington & Sam ‘Asa’ Pratt. They grew up together in New York City, and that shared educational history is the mother of their work. Hip Hop & African dance languages are the foundation of their technique. The rhythms of these techniques inform the way they energetically confront contemporary dance & theater. They use their choreography to create political metaphors, interrogate systemic inequities, and contemporize ancient allegories; building theatrical contexts that celebrate, implicate, and condemn the characters onstage. Their dance work has been presented at The Joyce Theater, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, Pioneer Works, The 92nd Street Y, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jacob’s Pillow, ODC, Blacklight Summit, Gibney Dance Center, Thread Artist Space in Senegal, Future Dance Festival, Southampton Arts Center, Westbeth, and Battery Dance Festival, while their film work has won numerous awards and has been presented internationally.

Omar Román De Jesús (Bayamón, Puerto Rico) is a Queer Puertorriqueño choreographer and director of NYC-based dance company BOCA TUYA, dedicated to creating visibility for emerging LatinX/a/o leaders in the arts. He is the inaugural Baryshnikov Arts Center Fellow at Kaatsbaan, a 2022 Princess Grace Award Winner in Choreography, a 2022 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography, a 2022 Palm Desert Choreography Festival Grand Prize Winner, and a 2020 Recipient of The Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship at Jacob’s Pillow. His work has been commissioned by the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Ballet Hispánico, Ballet Collective, Limón 2, MOVE/NYC, Bruce Wood Dance, Jacob Jonas The Company, Joffrey Ballet Concert Group, Whim W’him, Parsons Dance, and several universities and arts high schools. Over the past five years, he has toured internationally and has presented work domestically in New York, Georgia, Washington, Pennsylvania, California. Most recently, “Papagayos,” commissioned for Ballet Hispánico, premiered at New York City Center and was presented by the 2023 American Dance Festival.

The Harkness Promise Awards, which offer a $5,000 grant and 40 hours of rehearsal space for innovative young choreographers in the first decade of professional work, will go to Kayla Farrish and Johnnie Cruise Mercer. This award, conferred in partnership with the Harkness Foundation for Dance, is funded by net proceeds from the Dance Magazine Awards ceremony.

Kayla Farrish/Decent Structures Arts is an emerging company combining filmmaking, storytelling, dance theater performance, and sound score. The company has been commissioned by ODC Theater, Gibney, Little Island, Louis Armstrong House Museum, Danspace, Pepatian/BAAD! and beyond. Her residencies include Gallim, Gibney, BAC, Keshet MSE, BAX, Petronio, among others. In 2021, she created “Broken Record” with Brandon Coleman (Little Island), co-directed Melanie Charles Y’ll D’nt Care Abt Black Women Film, Saul Williams’/NYLA Motherboard Suites solo, Roster with Melanie Charles (Four/Four), and Martyr’s Fiction Feature Film. She has received recognition like: Bessie- Outstanding Production, Top 2021 Performances, Sundance Uprise Grant and others. In 2022, she collaborates with various artists and festivals.. Kayla is currently a rehearsal director at Sleep NoMore NYC and adjunct faculty at NYU Tisch.

A 2021 Princess Grace Award Recipient in Choreography, Johnnie Cruise Mercer is a queer- black think-maker; a choreographer, educator, impresario, and social entrepreneur based in New York City. In 2021, Johnnie was nominated for two Bessies NYC Dance and Performance Awards: Outstanding Breakthrough Choreographer, and Outstanding Production (for his choreography/direction on _AShadow Prince. As an educator, he facilitates within the New York Public School system through The Leadership Program, a mentorship-based organization that uses art to foster/cultivate leadership qualities. Johnnie is the founding producer and company director of TheRedProject/NYC (TRPNYC), a multi-disciplinary ensemble of artists dedicated to the study of movement philosophy and its use towards building communal spaces for black/other process, documentation, and investigation.

Press Release (PDF) >

The Harkness Promise Awards, which offer a $5,000 grant and 40 hours of rehearsal space for innovative choreographers in their first decade of professional work, is funded by net proceeds from the Dance Magazine Awards ceremony.

Alethea Pace is a Bronx-based multidisciplinary choreographer and performer. A former Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre company member, her work has been supported by BAAD!, Dancing While Black, Pregones Theater, New Dance Alliance, New York Live Arts and the 92Y. She is committed to creating work in and with her community that is rooted in social justice, born out of resilience and made in spite of the obstacles facing artists (and people) of color.

Yin Yue, artistic director of YY Dance Company, has taught her signature FoCo Technique around the world. Her company has toured to Germany and China, and presented at SummerStage, BAM Fisher, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Inside/Out and many other venues in the U.S. As a choreographer, Yue has received commissions from Martha Graham Dance Company, Philadelphia Ballet, Limón Dance Company, Gibney Company, BalletX, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Hubbard Street 2 and many others.

Press Release (PDF) >