NYU Production Lab Announces Participants of its 2025 Artist Development Program for Dance

Seven dance artists will participate in the NYU Production Lab's 2025 program for dance.

The NYU Production Lab announces the seven dance artists who have been selected for its 2025 NYU Artist Development Program for Dance, a five-month program running now through September that provides studio space, mentorship, and business skill development for those facing transitions in their dance careers.

NYU alumni Mimi Doan, Cole Stapleton, Dominique M. Fontenot, Jessie Gold, Liz Hepp, Shane Larson, and Anne Marie Robson Smock are dancers, teachers, and choreographers working in many styles of dance and performance. Each will work on a creative project throughout the summer and will present their works-in-progress in a showcase on September 9 at NYU's Center for Ballet and the Arts, a partner in the program.

"The NYU Artist Development Program for Dance intends to build an ecosystem within the dance field by helping alumni develop artistic networks and critical career skills as they navigate transition points in their careers," says Linsey Bostwick, director of the NYU Production Lab.

Bostwick leads the program with Francesca Abbado.

The NYU Production Lab piloted the program last summer with six artists. Three of those participants have since had their works presented, including acceptance into the New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks program and Philly Fringe festival.

The Dance Program is tailored to each artist's career path and goals. Each participant will have weekly access to studio space and every-other-week seminars. They also will convene for monthly events at the Production Lab that feature professionals in communications, audience engagement, and business development. These events are open to the NYU dance community.

The participants are alumni representing classes from 2000 to 2020 from NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, Tisch School of the Arts, and Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

"Unlike many development programs for artists, we do not focus solely on emerging or mid-career artists, but rather concentrate on artists who are in transition during different stages of their career," Bostwick says. "This group of dance artists represent a diverse array of dance genres, roles in the field, and schools of study across the university."

A committee of 11 dance professionals reviewed 29 applications for this year's program. Selection was based on the proposed creative project, the artist's desire to build community in dance, and whether the program would match their career transition needs.

The NYU Artist Development program in Dance is produced and run by the NYU Production lab with support from the Office of the Provost at NYU and NYU's Cross-Cutting Initiative on Inequality. In addition to the Center for Ballet and the Arts, the lab partners with the Center for Creative Research in the Tisch School of the Arts, the Jack H. Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, Tisch's Dance and Collaborative Arts departments at Tisch, the Dance department at Gallatin School of Individualized Study and the Dance Education department in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

Mimi Doan and Cole Stapleton (Gallatin, 2019): As founders of Company [REDACTED], Mimi Doan and Cole Stapleton have been collaborating as choreographers since 2019. Expanding beyond the purely imaginary or erotic, they utilize the fantasy of situation, circumstance, emotion, and play to create dynamic worlds for their pieces. Their work has been presented in New York City at the Performance Mix Festival #38, Movement Research at Judson Church, the Center for Performance Research, and various art galleries. Company [REDACTED] has received a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Art and been awarded residencies at Impulstanz in Vienna, Kulturfactory in Naples, and Nos En Vera in Buenos Aires.

Dominique M. Fontenot (Steinhardt, 2022) is an educator, choreographer, dance coach, and visual artist from Lawtell, Louisiana. She earned a BFA in Dance from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where she choreographed two original works exploring the African American experience within social contexts. Fontenot obtained an MA in Dance Education and Ballet Pedagogy from New York University and American Ballet Theatre (ABT), where she won the Outstanding Community Building and Service in Dance Education award. An ABT® Certified Teacher, she works as a dance teacher and arts coordinator for Achievement First Ujima High School and dance coach for Northwest High School's 'Dazzling Dolls.' She is also the artistic director of the R.E.A.C.H. Collective, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing opportunities for Black and Brown artists in the performing arts. This year she served as one of the directors for NYU Steinhardt's 2025 Sankofa Celebration for Black History Month.

Jessie Gold (Gallatin, 2000) is a dancer, producer, and choreographer. She has performed with choreographers Biba Bell, Caitlin Cook, and Walter Dundervill and in Simone Forti's Dance Constructions for Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done at MoMA. From 2016 to 2019, she toured internationally with Maria Hassabi for her theater works and live installations. Gold has choreographed performances for artists who present work in museums, including as a choreographic assistant for Haegue Yang's installation, "Handles," at MoMA in 2019. She developed a new work for Paulina Olowska's installation "Grotesque Alphabet" presented at the Walker Arts Center in 2021 as part of the exhibition "The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object, and Performance." Since 2021, she has been part of MoMA's performance production staff, working with artists Suzanne Ciani, Sarah Davachi, Nora Turato, Yve Laris Cohen, Okwui Okpokwasili, Rosa Barba, and Joan Jonas. Her work has been presented by Danspace Project Draftwork Series, Movement Research at Judson Church, and the Lever House Collection in New York; Roulette in Brooklyn; Bas Fisher Invitational and Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami; and the Maintenance Room in Detroit.

Liz Hepp (Tisch, 2013) is a freelance dance artist and producer based in Brooklyn. Most recently she performed in works by PeiJu Chien-Pott, Michelle Thompson Ulerich, Jessica Ray, Heidi Latsky, and Ben Wright and created the dance theater show "Fact or Fiction" with Caitlin Trainor's Trainor Dance which ran monthly at the PIT from Fall 2023 to Spring 2024. She danced as a company member with Dusan Tynek Dance Theater and Erick Montes' Danceable Projects from 2017 to 2020 and in 2018 performed in "Nick Mauss: Transmissions," an exhibition at the Whitney Museum. Other highlights include presenting her own work with poet Jean Surena at Art Cake in Brooklyn, training with David Zambrano for an intensive two weeks in Madrid. As a producer, she has worked with CreateART Performance, NOoSPHERE Arts, and Remote Daily.

Shane Larson (Tisch, 2015) is a NYC-based creator and movement educator, who received early training at the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists in Minnesota. He received a full scholarship to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with a BFA in Dance and a minor in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. He also studied at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance in Austria. In 2015, he joined the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, performing over 20 works nationally and internationally as well as leading workshops and residencies. As a multimedia artist, he captures and re-contextualizes personal environments through video and sound design, aiming to create indeterminate visual and audio consequences that unravel emotional states and provoke new discoveries between feeling and imagination.

Anne Marie Robson Smock (Tisch and Steinhardt, 2020) is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, performer, dance educator, and Pilates instructor. Originally from Salt Lake City, she earned a BFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah. Smock teaches at NYU Steinhardt, the Steps Academy, and throughout the city. A life-long fan of trying to ask questions that lead to better questions, she's always on the search for untamed joy, connection and cheap laughs. Smock values idiosyncratic motion over form and humor over rigidity. Using set movement as well as sections of structured improvisation, her works move within a tension of order and surprise. She works with collaborative processes to create dances that are unapologetically human, motional, comical, and visceral. Her work strives to form cathartic communities on stage and in performance that examine personal, ancestral, and social histories with absurdity, wit, and the right amount of anger.

About the NYU Production Lab
The NYU Production Lab is a development center whose mission is to support the next generation of artists in designing and launching thriving careers in their industries. The Lab serves as an experiential-learning bridge for students navigating the transition from an academic classroom to their professional field. The Production Lab aims to serve students and alumni at all stages with a commitment to diversity and an intent to foster an inclusive artistic industry. The Lab strives to be at the forefront of cultural entrepreneurship, preparing today's emerging artists for the jobs of tomorrow and expanding the arts ecosystem. Learn more at wp.nyu.edu/productionlab