Art Omi: Dance
About
Art Omi: Dance brings together ten accomplished dance artists from around the world for three weeks of creative exchange each summer. Residents experience each other’s creative process and the freedom to play in this collaborative residency program.
The emphasis of the Art Omi: Dance residency is not a performance product; rather, a gently facilitated process of experimentation and collaboration. This exploration is enhanced by providing resources that dancers and choreographers often lack: space, time and other artists with whom to work. The result is a model of creative process and community building that envisions consequences for the participants beyond the sphere of art making.
Informal showings each summer invite the public to experience the residents' creative process, collaborations, and the development of their ideas.
Art Omi: Dance welcomes professional dancers and choreographers of all styles who have the desire to share ideas and process with dancers from around the world. Applicants should not have specific projects in mind, but should come open to working with others on jointly conceived projects. Applications for the summer residencies are accepted each winter.
Art Omi residency programs offer artists the vital opportunity of space and time to create. Lodging, meals and studio space on Art Omi’s beautiful 200-acre campus in the Hudson Valley are provided at no cost to the residents.
Accommodations & Facilities
Art Omi is located two and a half hours north of New York City in the historic Hudson River Valley. Named for a neighboring village, Art Omi is close to the small town of Ghent, New York, as well as Albany and Hudson, which offer train connections only thirty minutes away.
The facilities, situated on three hundred acres of open land, include a large two-story barn with indoor studios; contemporary residence buildings designed with a vernacular reference to local barns, surrounded by abundant perennial beds, expansive lawns dotted with fruit trees, adjacent to The Fields Sculpture Park.
A Federal Period farm house serves as a gathering center, providing a full kitchen, television room and library; while the front porch overlooks rolling hills and the majestic outline of the Catskill Range. A swimming pool, bicycles, WiFi access and several state of the art computers are available on the premises.
Columbia County, and the nearby Berkshire Mountains, are popular destinations because of their historical, natural and cultural riches. From bird sanctuaries to modern dance, presidential mansions to farmer's markets, the environs offer a singular blend of rural quiet and cultural stimulation. Staff and friends in the neighborhood are often available for excursions of interest to residents.
Past Residents
2023 Residency Dates: Friday, July 20 - Sunday, August 7, 2023
Click here to view the Art Omi Alumni Directory, including the full list of Art Omi: Dance Alumni.
How to Apply
2024 Residency Dates will be announced shortly.
Application Requirements:
- a brief statement on working collaboratively
- a photo
- 100 word Biography
- one letter of recommendation
- information on the applicant's recent choreographic works and presentations, performance experience, and training history
- three video samples of work as a performer, improviser, and/or choreographer
Director & Board
Program Director
Christopher K. Morgan has directed Art Omi: Dance since 2006, shaping its unique approach to cross cultural collaboration and peer-to-peer mentorship. His Native Hawaiian ancestry and a wide-ranging dance career that moved him to San Diego, Munich, Washington DC, New York, Dublin, London, and Hawai'i - all influence his work. He is Vice President of Programming at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center (the MACC), curating dozens of music, dance, and theater performances each year, overseeing the Schaefer International Gallery, and a robust arts education program that serves thousands of Hawai'i youth, adults, and arts educators. From 2017-2021 he served as Executive Artistic Director of Dance Place in Washington, D.C. stewarding the organization through the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact by maintaining Dance Place’s entire 23 person staff with no layoffs or furloughs and continuing to pay artists. Christopher founded dance company Christopher K. Morgan & Artists, in 2011; the same year Dance Magazine profiled him as one of six breakout choreographers in the United States. His choreographic work has received support from Creative Capital, New England Foundation for the Arts, Dance USA, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, and Western Arts Alliance. Nominated by President Joseph R. Biden and confirmed by Congress, Christopher serves on the National Council on the Arts. He lives in Makawao, Hawai'i with his husband, opera director Kyle Lang.
Program Board
Maria Mitchell
Lynn Neuman
Amber Sloan
Nicole Smith
Gus Solomons, Jr.
Art Omi: Dance Supporters
Art Omi's programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Additional program support is provided in part by the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Ruth Foundation for the Arts.
