The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU (CBA)—an international research institute for scholars and artists of ballet and its related arts and sciences—announces choreographer and filmmaker Kim Brandstrup and critic and author Alastair Macaulay as CBA’s 2019-2020 Director’s Fellows.
The Director’s Fellowship was introduced in 2018 with former New York City Ballet dancer Allegra Kent and BAM Executive Producer, Emeritus Joseph V. Melillo. It gives a CBA residency to artists, scholars, and practitioners who have made significant contributions to the field of dance. Director’s Fellows have access to CBA’s studio and office spaces, NYU’s academic resources, and a stipend to pursue projects of their own design. Director’s Fellows bring deep expertise and informed practical guidance to the residency, strengthening the work of CBA’s fellows, staff, and community at large.
“CBA fosters a contemplative environment for creative thinking, research, and art making. It made my Fellowship an invaluable professional endeavor at a key inflection point in my career,” reflected 2018 – 2019 Director’s Fellow Joe Melillo.
During the residency, Brandstrup will initiate an artistic project on the relationship between music and dance, create a new dance, and lead a mentoring program for choreographers. Macaulay will work on his critical biography of Merce Cunningham and further his study of Ashton, Balanchine, and classicism.
The Director’s Fellowship is given at the discretion of CBA’s Founder and Director, Jennifer Homans.
CBA is delighted to welcome the 2019-2020 Director’s Fellows:
Kim Brandstrup is Danish-born, London-based Kim Brandstrup is a multi award-winning choreographer and filmmaker. He studied Film at the University of Copenhagen, then dance and choreography with Nina Fonaroff at the London School of Contemporary Dance, running his own company, Arc, for 20 years. Since 2005 as a freelance choreographer he has worked extensively with Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, English National Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Rambert, and many others. He has also worked in close collaboration with director Deborah Warner, most recently on Billy Budd (Royal Opera House) and Eugene Onegin (The Met). As a film-maker, he made Leda & the Swan commissioned by the Royal Ballet, and most recently FACES with Carlos Acosta, Alina Cojacaru and Zenaida Yanowsky for the opening of the Linbury at the Royal Opera House.
Awards include two Olivier Awards (1989 & 2010), the Wilhelm Hansen Honorary Prize (2016), the 2016/17 Reumert award, and the 2016 Critic’s Circle National Dance Award. He was awarded an AHRB Research Grant in 2003-2006 and was a Research Fellow at Middlesex University in 2003-2018. For the past two decades he has been a mentor for young dancers and choreographers including for The Royal Ballet (Dancelines 2003-2007), Royal Ballet Flanders, Royal Danish Ballet, and Rambert.
At CBA, Brandstrup will initiate an artistic project around the relationship between music and dance under the umbrella title Again, Again, Again – on rhythm and the indefatigable pleasures of repetition. Alongside academic research he will make a new piece for Fall For Dance with NYCB’s Sara Mearns and Taylor Stanley, and will devise and lead a mentoring program for a select group of choreographers.
Alastair Macaulay has been a critic of, and lecturer on, the performing arts for forty years, in London and New York. He was chief theatre critic of the Financial Times in the years 1994-2007, chief examiner in dance history to the Imperial Society for Teachers of Dancing 1987-2002, guest dance critic to The New Yorker in 1988 and 1992, and chief dance critic to the Times Literary Supplement 1996-2006 before becoming chief dance critic to the New York Times in 2007-2018. He is the author of the short biography Margot Fonteyn (1998) and the extended book of interviews Matthew Bourne and his Adventures in Dance (2000, second edition 2011). In 2019, he has taught at the Juilliard School and the 92nd St Y and has continued to contribute dance writing to the New York Times. He is at work on a book on Merce Cunningham.
Macaulay will be at work on two projects at CBA: his critical biography of Merce Cunningham and his study of Ashton, Balanchine, and classicism. The latter was the topic of his 2018 Lincoln Kirstein Lecture for The Center for Ballet and the Arts.
The Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University (CBA) is an international research institute for scholars and artists of ballet and its related arts and sciences. It exists to inspire new ideas and new ballets, expanding the way we think about the art form’s history, practice, and performance in the 21st century.
The Center is made possible by founding and ongoing support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and New York University and additional support from The Charles H. Revson Foundation, Fishman Family Fund, an advised fund of the Brooklyn Community Foundation, Merce Cunningham Trust, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. We also extend a special thanks to individual members of CBA’s Center Circle for their essential support.
