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Adji Cissoko, Dancer, Alonzo King LINES Ballet
Artist
2022
National Sawdust is a non-profit performing arts organization and music venue in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn conceived in 2015 by arts lover and musician/attorney, Kevin Dolan, and composer Paola Prestini.
Toulmin Fellowship
The Toulmin Fellowships for Composers and Choreographers were established in November 2020 by the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU (CBA) and National Sawdust with generous support from the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation to foster collaboration between composers and choreographers who are women and other marginalized genders.
Toulmin Fellows receive financial support, time, and space to develop their work, as well as continued programming and infrastructure for the growing Toulmin alumni community. The artists have access to CBA’s community of fellows and alumni and the broad resources of NYU, immersing them in a community of scholars and a rich, intellectual environment where they can take risks, try new ideas, and receive feedback. National Sawdust provides expert mentorship to further inform the fellows’ work and feature their works-in-progress and/or performances through its Ideas Zone on-line platform and at other live performance and work-in-progress showing opportunities.
The CBA and National Sawdust partnership has supported more than 50 women choreographers and composers to help develop their skills, create and present new work, and build a community of artists with diverse training and perspectives. The program is committed to supporting choreographers and composers who are historically underrepresented in the field, by gender, race, or ethnicity. A majority of the program participants are women of the global majority.