WADE, supported by the Department of Dance at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, presents the Pride Residency, Performance and Community Engagement 2025.

Created by WADE after a series of listening sessions with the LGBTQA+ artistic community, the project responds to the need for underrepresented and historically marginalized artists for free rehearsal space, professional production opportunities to create work plus logistics and financial support to interact and impact the communities that are important to them. The Pride Residency, Performance and Community Engagement is divided into Spring and Fall Session.

The Spring Session revolves around the creative process. Up to 4 (four) emerging LGBTQ2+ choreographers are awarded up to fifty (50) hours of rehearsal space to create a new work or finetune an existing one that amplifies their voices and experiences. The rehearsal process runs from January 21st to June 15th, 2025 for a total of 20 weeks and culminates with a performance, free to the audience in the Jack Crystal Theater on Wednesday, June 18th. A moderated conversation with the artists and informal mingling session will follow the performance. The choreographers receive mentoring feedback from WADE collaborators, professional photographs and videos for their portfolio and a small stipend.

The Fall Session is dedicated to help the artists create and execute a one-of-a-kind community based event for their chosen organizations. These events can range from movement classes, to lecture demonstrations, to informal performances, Q&As, to a combination of different practices. The choreographers will receive four (4) 2-hour virtual training sessions to create a clear curriculum with specific learning objectives plus two (2) in-person “vision sessions” in which the plans of each community based event are presented and finalized. The intention is to run the events in November and December 2025.

Photos by John Eng