“If we can change the way we relate, we can change What we create”
Berkeley Ballet Theater’s Artist-In-Residence Program
BBT’s Artist-In-Residence Program offers 60 hours of free studio space to two artists working in dance and/or other disciplines to build a new work, develop a new practice, or research their creative process. The two artists will work independently for four hours a day and will gather for two check-ins each week to reflect with one another and the residency facilitators.
BBT is excited to support the next generation of artists through this residency opportunity.
BBT’s artist-in-residence program will be off during Summer 2024.
We look forward to reviewing 2024–25 Season applications and invite you to share BBT’s Artist-In-Residence Program with members of your community.
2022-23 Season Artists in Residence
Jocelyn Reyes
"I’d like to use this residency to begin the creation process with my collaborators of a new evening length dance project (yet to be titled). I’m interested in exploring ideas around desire, willpower, health, behavioral repatterning, spirituality and change through choreography, improvisational scores, classical music, theatricality and lots of play. Informed by my personal experiences with early trauma, religion and my semi- recent diagnosis of fibromyalgia and diabetes, I’m interested in exploring the intersection of these themes within the contexts of both Latin American culture and contemporary dance."
- Jocelyn Reyes (Photo by Guillermo Webster)
Chafin Seymour
"For this residency opportunity I plan to continue to develop ‘Briar’. This work is important for a myriad of reasons, the most apparent of which is the centering of historically marginalized identities (in terms of gender and race) in staged theater and storytelling. This focus is reflective of a desire to continually imagine the decolonization of artistic production and presentation as a way to model similar possibilities in larger society. Along these lines I have an interest in disrupting the often-monolithic portrayal of Black American identity. In this work I do this through the narrative structure in which I mine my own personal history as a Black mixed-race artist but more importantly through the collaborators with whom I choose to create and foster my work, including artists like Styles Alexander who is featured in the duet version recently presented this past December." -Chafin Seymour (Photo by Anthony Thorton)
Previous Artist-in-Residence
Fall 2019: Megan and Shannon Kurashige/Sharp & Fine
Spring 2020: Chuck Wilt/UNA Productions
2020-2021 Season: Kathryn Florez/Fullstop Dance
2020-2021 Season: Liss Fain/Liss Fain Dance
2021-2022 Season: Molly Rose-Williams
2021-2022 Season: Alyssa Eve Mitchel
2021 - 22 Season Artist-in-Residence Molly Rose-Williams, photo by Hillary Goidell
2021 - 22 Season Artist-in-Residence Alyssa Eve Mitchel, photo by Kyle Adler Photography
2019-20 Season Artist-in-Residence UNA Productions, photo by Jim Carmody
2019-20 Season Artist-in-Residence Sharp and Fine, photo by RJ Muna
2020-21 Season Artist-in-Residence Liss Fain Dance, photo by RJ Muna
2020-21 Season Artist-in-Residence Fullstop Dance, photo by Grace Martineau