PRIDE RESIDENCY

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

ANNOUNCING OUR
2025 RESIDENT ARTISTS

JAY BEARDSLEY is an interdisciplinary dance artist currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Their talent and commitment to dance has led them to train and perform across the United States and internationally. Jay's stage performance credits include Ballez, work by Merce Cunningham, Douglas Dunn + Dancers, PERFORMA, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, and their own performance project Katerina & Jay. They have collaborated with Sidra Bell Dance New York, GREYZONE, Cornfield Dance, and MICHIYAYA Dance.

Jay Beardsley
(they/them)

MAGGIE JOY (she/her) and CORINNE LOHNER (they/she) are dance collaborators and long-time friends. Both from Dallas, TX with a B.F.A. from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, they currently freelance as performers and educators in New York City and make work that prioritizes queerness, play, and partnering.

Between the two of them, they’ve danced for David Dorfman, Dual Rivet, cullen + them, Douglas Dunn + Dancers, Yin Yue, and more. Their first collaboration was supported through InQUAD programming and was performed at the Jack in Brooklyn, NY.

Maggie Joy (she/her) and
Corinne Lohner
(they/she)

A thrower of parties both on and off stage, heavily influenced by social dance and the human impulse to move, RYLAN JOENK is a movement artist dedicated to creating work that dissects and challenges the expectations of contemporary dance performance. By playing with elements of theatricality and improvisation to explore collective justice and queer identities, Rylan's work exists at the intersection of camp, kitsch, and fervent sincerity.

Rylan began dancing at the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago before attending Walnut Hill School for the Arts, under the direction of Michael Owen. As a student at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Rylan had the opportunity to perform works by Dana Ruttenberg, José Limón, and many peers, finding their greatest passion in the collaborative and experimental nature of taking part in new work.

After receiving a BFA in dance in 2024, Rylan's piece pearl was presented at Arts On Site for 7MPR Midnights' Pride Celebration. The piece's predecessor, PEARL DIVER, is set to be presented at WestFest 2025.

Rylan Joenk
(they/she)

DYLAN RICHMOND is a choreographer, dancer, and poet from the Connecticut shoreline. He graduated cum laude from Bowdoin College with a B.A. in Dance and English where he received the President’s Award for his exceptional achievements and contributions to the college. Dylan has performed or presented work at Yale University, UCLA, Bowdoin College, Queen Mary University of London, TOTAH, the Grand Ole Opry, and at the African Diasporic Dance Summit at Connecticut College. As a poet, Dylan is a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee and is notably published in “From Root to Seed: Black, Brown, and Indigenous Poets Write the Northeast.” Currently, Dylan is the company manager for New York Live Arts and the Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Company.