about

Our Mission

Dance Lab New York is the only independent organization exclusively dedicated to promoting and advancing the art form of choreography by gifting vital resources to a diverse range of dancemakers.

In order to create, a choreographer needs dancers, space, and time—three essential elements that are prohibitively expensive.

DLNY is an artist-centered, artist-led organization designed to alleviate the substantial fiscal and administrative burdens that stifle creativity for dancemakers. Our residencies provide dancemakers with a salary, a company of professional dancers, expansive studio space, a rehearsal director, key administrative support, and structured time for incubation.

By focusing on process over product, DLNY provides an oasis where choreographers can feel safe to take the risks that bring forth their boldest visions.

“Dance Lab is one of the very few artistic institutions in New York that's offering genuine opportunity because it's not stemming from product, stemming from offering, and it's stemming from opportunity.”

"Dance Lab New York is a gift. It's a gift to choreographers. It's a gift to create. There's nothing like it — where you are given a beautiful space and exceptional dancers to create anything you want."

“Dance Lab New York is the opportunity for creation, for development, and for artists to meet like-minded artists and to make something fresh and brand new.”

Our Beliefs

We believe everyone should have the right to tell their own story.

We believe that great creative freedom produces great art, so we remove all fiscal and administrative barriers to choreographic invention with no expectation of finished product.

We believe that by giving dancemakers autonomy and agency over their craft, they will be inspired to share their greatest creations.

We believe that by providing choreographers with the same unfettered pathways to creation that are commonly afforded other artists, we advance the art form.