Associate professor of theater arts Gerald Casel has received a grant from the National Dance Project (NDP) to create a new work titled Not About Race Dance. His project is one of 20 selected for funding to support the creation of new dance works that will tour the United States in 2020.
Now in its third decade, the National Dance Project is widely recognized as one of the country’s major sources of funding for dance, supporting both the creation and touring of new works.
A panel of national dance artists, presenters, and arts administrators selected this year’s recipients out of 170 competitive applications. Each project is awarded $45,000 for the creation of the new work, as well as $10,000 in unrestricted general operating support.
Casel noted that the grant also includes touring funds for national presenters and residency centers--such as the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University and the National Center for Choreography in Akron, Ohio--where they will hold creative and technical residencies.
He added that the show will tour to such venues as LaMama (New York), Contemporary Art Center (New Orleans), and the American Dance Festival (Durham, North Carolina). The premiere will be at CounterPulse (San Francisco) in Fall 2020. CounterPulse is also co-presenting the work and will provide additional resources, including administrative support and space for the company’s flagship community engagement program, Dancing Around Race.
Casel has danced professionally in companies including Michael Clark, Russell Dumas, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Lar Lubovitch and Stephen Petronio, where he also served as assistant director and director of education. He has created choreography for The Barnard Project, New York University’s Second Avenue Dance Company, Da Da Dance Projects and The X Factor Dance Company of Scotland.
Casel earned a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School in 1991 and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2007. He joined the UC Santa Cruz theater arts faculty in 2013.
