Trillium Arts is delighted to announce Kristi Vincent Johnson, Nicole Vaughan-Diaz and Chris Yon and Taryn Griggs as awardees of Trillium's second annual North Carolina Choreographic Fellowship Award. These extraordinary artists, who hail from locations around the state, will be in residence at Trillium during the months of August and September. Each group will be joined by their dancers and/or key collaborators to advance their projects toward completion.
THE NORTH CAROLINA CHOREOGRAPHIC FELLOWSHIP (NCCF), launched in 2023, provides established North Carolina based choreographers and their dancers with a full menu of resources and benefits including private lodging, rehearsal space, administrative mentorship, per diems and a $1,000 honorarium. If they so choose, NCCF awardees may opt to engage/interact with Trillium's growing cohort of regional and local artists. NCCF residencies are seven to nine days in length, providing space and time to deepen creative endeavors and rejuvenate in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains.
Following an open call application process earlier this spring, a panel reviewed a robust and competitive set of applications. The panel selected the awardees with a priority given to artists who are at a catalytic point in their career and/or are actively incubating a new project for future public presentation.
“The 2024 Awardees were selected as Trillium's NCCF Fellows not only because of their artistic merit, but also because their projects reflect a diverse range of ways that dance holds up a mirror to our contemporary times," says Phil Reynolds, Trillium Arts President. "Trillium is honored to support these artists who enhance the creative community for the entire state of NC."
MEET THE AWARDEES
Kristi Vincent Johnson. Photo courtesy of the artist.
KRISTI VINCENT JOHNSON
Durham, NC
Instagram: @profkvj
Kristi Vincent Johnson, a Louisiana native, is an artist-educator, choreographer, filmmaker, and scholar whose work transcribes the joys, struggles, triumphs, and tragedies that shape our identity and define our shared humanity. Over her two-decade career in higher education, Kristi has created more than 40 choreographic works and has received commissions from organizations such as The Ernie Barnes Foundation and the NC Museum of Art. Her acclaimed films, I Want To Ask The Trees and The Communion of White Dresses based on the poetry of the NC Poet Laureate, Jaki Shelton Green, have been presented in such festivals as the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, the Longleaf Film Festival, the San Francisco Arthouse Film Festival, and the Black Truth Film Festival. Her creative work for both stage and film exemplifies the high value she places on community and collaboration. As a result, Kristi was selected as the 2021 NC Campus Compact Engaged Faculty Scholar to initiate community-campus partnerships and advance the scholarship of engagement at her respective institution. Kristi Vincent Johnson holds a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Texas Christian University and a Doctorate of Education in Kinesiology from UNC Greensboro. Currently, she serves as Assistant Professor and Director of Dance at North Carolina Central University, where she is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Repertory Dance Company.
FELLOWSHIP PLANS:
"During my residency, I plan to start production on my new film, "Black Being," which is inspired by the powerful poetry of Jaki Shelton Green, the NC Poet Laureate. The location, which covers 22 acres of stunning land, provides an ideal environment for exploring site-specific choreographic prompts and developing ways to integrate the natural spaces with choreographic intention. We will use these movement explorations to investigate approaches to creating a harmonious relationship between the movement, the landscape, and the figurative language used to illustrate the theme of “perseverance" highlighted in the poem. This program promises to be a transformative experience beyond anything a typical studio could offer, as it will challenge us as artists to embrace risk-taking and employ innovative techniques essential to crafting thought- provoking and aesthetically satisfying work. Upon completion of the film, my intention is to submit it to a variety of film festivals, with the goal of broadening the reach and recognition of documentary poetry, dance, and film."
Nicole Vaughn-Diaz. Photo courtesy of the artist.
NICOLE VAUGHN-DIAZ
Asheville, NC
Website: nvdproject.com
Instagram: @nvdproject
Facebook: www.facebook.com/nvdproject
Nicole Vaughan-Diaz is a choreographer, performer, and filmmaker, based in Asheville, North Carolina. Originally from Miami, FL, Vaughan-Diaz earned a BFA in Dance Performance from the University of South FL (2013), where she was granted the BRAVO and Hope Rietschlin scholarship awards for exceptional artistry.
As a performer, Vaughan-Diaz has been an integral member of the critically acclaimed Kate Weare Company (NYC), from 2013 to current. Additionally, Vaughan-Diaz has performed works by Doug Varone, Rosie Herrera, Sasha Waltz, Michael Foley, Kate Hilliard, Luke Murphy, and ODC/Dance.
In 2019, Vaughan-Diaz founded NVD Project, and has since presented work at venues including: Judson Memorial Church (NYC), The Public Theater (NYC), Arts on Site (NYC), and more. Vaughan-Diaz’s choreographic work has been hand-selected and presented by The Future Dance Festival (NYC), the North Carolina Dance Festival (Greensboro, NC), and was awarded the Challenge Winner Award (2019) for the 24th Annual DanceNOW Festival of New York City. In 2023, Vaughan-Diaz was commissioned by the American Dance Festival to present a new work as part of the Made In NC series, and was recently named a 2024 ‘Artist in Residency’ at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City.
FELLOWSHIP PLANS:
Nicole Vaughan-Diaz’s intention with the Trillium Arts NC Choreographic Fellowship is to begin reviving her long-awaited evening-length piece titled, Maeror; originally crafted in NYC and placed on hold following the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The piece, named after the Latin word for ‘grief’, is a trio dance performance about exactly that – the lasting impact of grief and the many forms and faces it often emulates. Through sophisticated and risky partner-work, carefully curated gestural phrasing, and tender thought-provoking imagery, the work aims to seek collective growth and understanding surrounding loss, in hopes of learning how to best recognize and support each other during times of
bereavement. The Trillium Fellowship will allow the work time and space to be reawakened to a new cast of performers and to continue developing material critical to shaping the narrative of the piece. Nicole will be joined by two dance artists and a filmmaker to document her process.
The Yoggs. Photo courtesy of the artist.
CHRIS YON AND TARYN GRIGGS (THE YOGGS)
Winston-Salem, NC
Website: chrisandtaryn.com
Instagram: @vodvilyon and @taryngriggs
Taryn Griggs and Chris Yon create original dance works that are deadpan slapstick, understated melodrama, autobiographical science fiction, cubist vaudeville, asymmetrically consonant explorations of magic and virtuosity in everyday movement. They met at the Bessie Schönberg Artist Residency at The Yard in 2002 and have been working together ever since. They were participants in the dance communities of New York City, Minneapolis, and Iowa City, before moving to Winston-Salem. Chris and Taryn’s choreographies have been presented across the US, Canada, Ireland, and France. In New York, in addition to the presentation of their work at La MaMa, Dance Theater Workshop, PS122, The Kitchen, and Danspace Project, they appeared together in the work of David Neumann, Yoshiko Chuma, Karinne Keithley Syers, and Sara Rudner. During their years in the Twin Cities, they were both McKnight Fellows, co-curators for Choreographer’s Evening at the Walker Art Center, and their work was presented as part of the Walker’s Momentum Dance Series at The Southern, Red Eye Theater’s Isolated Acts, Jaime Carrera’s Outlet Performance Festival, and 9x22 at the Bryant Lake Bowl.
Since moving to Winston-Salem, their work has been commissioned by the North Carolina Dance Festival (NCDF), American Dance Festival (ADF), and they have developed a platform for new work and collaborations through Interstitial: A site specific dance during the changeovers between art exhibits at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art. Griggs teaches at UNCSA, Yon at Appalachian State University. Their current project is Yoggs Family Newsletter (2014-present) which has been workshopped Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts (WS,NC) as part of their Interstitial series, The Southern Theater (MPLS) part of the Candy Box Festival, Goodyear Arts Center (CLT) as part of the North Carolina Dance Festival, as part of the Modes of Capture Symposium (Limerick, IE),, and this spring at La MaMa Moves (NYC). It is receiving generous residency support through the second annual Trillium Arts North Carolina Choreographic Fellowship ahead of its premiere at the Nasher Art Museum co-presented by the American Dance Festival on September 12, 2024.
FELLOWSHIP PLANS:
As part of their Trillium Arts North Carolina Choreographic Fellowship Residency, Chris Yon and Taryn Griggs will be working on an evening length version of their Yoggs Family Newsletter, a dance that explores memory and how one family tells its story narrated by their daughter Bea, ahead of its premiere at the Nasher Art Museum co-presented by the American Dance Festival on September 12. They will be joined in residence by collaborators: theater director Cindy Gendrich and video artist Steve Morrison. They will be using the Red Barn Studio at Trillium as a proxy for the great hall at the Nasher Museum where the Yoggs and their collaborators will experiment with how to integrate the audience into their trio as momentary chorus members to their family stories, dances and drawing games.
Congratulations to this year's awardees!
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