Trillium Arts looks forward to hosting TWO dynamic dance residencies with Trillium's NC Choreographic Fellows and their dancers this spring. Resident artists are working within timely themes of climate activism and environmental racism, immigration and migration and Black culture.
MEET THE AWARDEES
Jingqiu Guan
Durham, NC
Website: jingqiuguan.com
Originally from Chengdu, China, Jingqiu Guan is a filmmaker, choreographer, dancer, and scholar. She currently teaches at Duke University as an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Dance. Jingqiu makes interdisciplinary performance work and dance film that engage with social issues and cultural memories. Centering voices and expressions of women, immigrants, people of color, and individuals with disabilities, her work explores cultural identities, motherhood, and addresses issues of racial and disability justice.
As a filmmaker, Jingqiu has presented her dance films and documentaries in a number of film festivals worldwide and won various awards, including the Outstanding Documentary Film Award (Mama Dancers 2025) at the Beijing Dance Festival, Outstanding Direction Award from Manifest Dance-Film Festival in India and Best Dance Film Award from Black Lives Rising Dance Film Festival (The Weight of Sugar 2021), Chinese Screendance Maker Award from Hong Kong’s Jumping Frames International Video Dance Festival, Best Student Film Award at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, the Grand Jury Award from Chicago’s In Motion Dance Film Festival (Family Portrait 2019), etc.
Jingqiu’s choreography for live performance has been presented at various venues such as the Getty Museum, Highways Performance Space in Los Angeles, Shadow Box Theater, the Arts Center in NC, Space Place Theater in Iowa, Duke University’s von der Hayden Theater, and Reynolds Industries Theater. She is in the process of developing a multimedia dance performance inspired by stories of migration and immigration connected to trains and railroads.
FELLOWSHIP PLANS:
During the residency, I will collaborate with four dance artists to develop an evening-length multimedia dance theater production, tentatively titled Rail-Tracks, which recounts stories of migration and immigration through an immersive journey of a train ride across time and space, from modern China to 19th-century US and wartime Germany. The residency will be the first time the entire cast rehearses in person altogether, as not all dancers reside locally. We look forward to having dedicated time and space to delve deeply into crafting this work and building a community within us to reflect together on the relevance of these stories in today’s cultural and political landscape. In addition, we plan to conduct a community workshop and present an informal showing to connect with local residents and artists during the residency. The completed work is planned be to premiered in January 2027 at the von der Heyden Theater at Duke University through Duke Arts.
ASHLEY L. TATE
Charlotte, NC
Instagram: dancert8
Website: https://ashleyliane9.wixsite.com
Ashley L. Tate is a director, choreographer, educator, and performer from Saint Louis, Missouri. She is an assistant professor of dance at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, an affiliate faculty member with the UNC Charlotte Department of Africana Studies, and founder and artistic director of Ashleyliane Dance Company (ADC). Tate earned a BS in Computer Information Science from Texas Christian University and an MFA in Dance from Washington University in St. Louis, where she received the prestigious Spencer T. & Ann W. Olin Fellowship for Women in Graduate Study. She has taught as an adjunct professor of dance at Saint Louis University, Washington University in St. Louis, Webster University, and Southeast Missouri State University, and she previously chaired the dance department at Grand Center Arts Academy. Audiences have seen her choreography in concerts across Missouri and beyond, including (but not limited to), New York City, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Chicago, Boulder, Greensboro, Charlotte, and Santa Monica. Tate's current research centers on how African Diasporic dance education, practice, and performance function as pathways for social justice. She has presented her research at multiple conferences and conventions, including the European Hip Hop Studies Network Conference in Cork, Ireland, and the Dance Studies Association Conference in Washington, D.C.
FELLOWSHIP PLANS:
During the Trillium Arts Fellowship, I intend to continue developing a dance work that began during the pandemic, an exploration of climate activism and environmental racism through movement-based storytelling. The natural setting will serve as both contrast and catalyst, deepening our connection to land while amplifying the voices of communities most impacted by environmental harm. With time for reflection, experimentation, and embodied research, my dancers and I will co-create a physical language that honors resilience, grief, resistance, and joy. This residency will not only advance the work artistically but also strengthen my commitment to using dance as a tool for civic engagement and social change. For the production, I am interested in presenting the work at the Carolina Theatre in Charlotte, NC, and also creating site-specific performances in public outdoor spaces to further the connection between dance, environment, and activism.
Special Thanks:
The 2026 North Carolina Choreographic Fellowships are sponsored by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts; the Madison County Tourism Development Authority and the Madison County Arts Council.