Summer 2026 Dance Residency

The mission of EVIDENCE is to promote understanding of the human experience in the African Diaspora through dance and storytelling and to provide sensory connections to history and tradition through music, movement, and spoken word, leading deeper into issues of spirituality, community responsibility and liberation.

Founded by Ronald K. Brown in 1985 and based in Brooklyn, New York, EVIDENCE, A Dance Company focuses on the seamless integration of traditional African dance with contemporary choreography and spoken word. Through work, EVIDENCE provides a unique view of human struggles, tragedies, and triumphs. Brown uses movement as a way to reinforce the importance of community in African American culture and to acquaint audiences with the beauty of traditional African forms and rhythms. He is an advocate for the growth of the African American dance community and is instrumental in encouraging young dancers to choreograph and to develop careers in dance.

Brown’s choreography is in high demand. He has set works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Cleo Parker Robinson Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Jeune Ballet d’Afrique Noire, Ko-Thi Dance Company, Philadanco, and others. He choreographed Regina Taylor’s award-winning play, Crowns and won an AUDELCO Award for his work on that production. “I hope that when people see the work, their spirits are lifted. I am interested in sharing perspectives through modern dance, theater and kinetic storytelling. I want my work to be evidence of these perspectives,” says Brown.

EVIDENCE now tours to some 25 communities in the United States and abroad. The company has traveled to Cuba, Brazil, England, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa and Canada to perform, teach master classes and conduct lecture/demonstrations for individuals of all ages. EVIDENCE brings arts education and cultural connections to local communities that have historically lacked these experiences. Annually the company reaches an audience of more than 25,000.

Ronald K. Brown, raised in Brooklyn, NY, founded EVIDENCE, A Dance Company in 1985. He has worked with Mary Anthony Dance Theater, Jennifer Muller/The Works, as well as other choreographers and artists, and has been on the faculty of The Juilliard School. Brown has set works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Jeune Ballet d’Afrique Noire, Ko-Thi Dance Company, Philadanco, Muntu Dance Theater of Chicago, Ballet Hispánico, TU Dance, and Malpaso Dance Company.

He has collaborated with such artists as composer/designer Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya, the late writer Craig G. Harris, director Ernie McClintock’s Jazz Actors Theater, choreographers Patricia Hoffbauer and Rokiya Kone, composers Robert Een, Oliver Lake, Bernadette Speech, David Simons, and Don Meissner, and musicians Jason Moran, Arturo O'Farrill and Meshell Ndegeocello.

Brown is the recipient of the 2020 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. His other awards and recognitions include the AUDELCO Award for his choreography in Regina Taylor’s award-winning play Crowns, two Black Theater Alliance Awards, and a Fred & Adele Astaire Award for Outstanding Choreography in the Tony Award winning Broadway and national touring production of The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, adapted by Suzan Lori Parks, arranged by Diedre Murray, and directed by Diane Paulus.

Brown was named Def Dance Jam Workshop 2000 Mentor of the Year and has received the Doris Duke Artist Award, NYC City Center Fellowship, Scripps/ADF Award, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Choreographers Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, United States Artists Fellowship, a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award, Dance Magazine Award, and The Ailey Apex Award.

Brown is Co-Artistic Director of Restoration ART Youth Arts Academy Pre-Professional Training Program / Restoration Dance Youth Ensemble, a member of Stage Directors & Choreographers Society, and a Creative Administration Research artist at NCCAkron.

Cain Coleman is an award-winning, multi-hyphenate performer, creator, educator, producer and student based in Brooklyn. As a native of Richmond,Va Cain started his formal training at Richmond ballet, Henrico high school center for the Arts, Virginia school of arts and at Pine Camp cultural arts center Home of the City Dance Theater where he truly found his beginnings as a performer. Richmond is still a place of peace and inspiration for Cain. 

With a career marked by time spent with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Theatre, The Martha Graham Dance Company, The Metropolitan Opera and The Dragon Sisters, Coleman continues to explore the many possibilities of life. Coleman was recently honored as the Breakthrough Artist of the Year in 2021 and Best Duo/Group 2021/22. They were also nominated for Entertainer of the Year at the NYC Glam Awards in 2022. 

Coleman’s (AKA Odessa Da Gawd) collaborations with platforms, brands, and institutions such as Mugler, Amazon Music, Meta, Instagram, Brooklyn Museum, Queer Capital, MOBIFest, Absolute, Saks, and Lincoln Center all showcase their true commitment to pushing artistic boundaries. Recently, media outlets like Billboard, Vogue, WWD, Paper Magazine, Elle, Wonderland, Ladygunn, Guinness World Records, and the New York Times have recognized Coleman’s work, showcasing them as a trailblazer in various industries and avenues in the arts. 

As the Producer of DanceFest NYC, solo Recording artist, Personal Trainer at Equinox, a Guest Choreographer at the Ailey School and a MFA candidate at NYU Tisch, Coleman continues to inspire across generations with an open heart while remaining curious and active with his own artist pursuits. @Caincolemanjr

Kate Watson is an interdisciplinary artist who works as a director, choreographer and movement director for live performance, video, and television. 

Choreography includes: St. Vincent’s performance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Alex Da Corte’s Rubber Pencil Devil at the Venice Biennale and Carnegie international, a re-imagined version of Allan Kaprow’s Chicken by Da Corte, music videos for Animal Collective, Panda Bear and Black Dice (dir.Danny Perez), and St. Vincent, and Gaudeamus Festival in Utrecht (in collaboration with Bakudi Scream). 

Described by The New York Times as a space where "Wild Imagination ruled," her performance/installation work has been funded by multiple foundations including: Map Fund, Doris Duke Foundation, Creative Capital, Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She is a Pew Fellow in Choreography, a Movement Research AIR, and a Gibney Dance DIP resident. Her interdisciplinary performance work has toured extensively to venues including Redcat and SummerStage Central Park. 

Recently, she created an interactive listening experience, Ecology of Care, for Hauser & Wirth with her collaborator David Thomson, based on his text, through their ongoing research project the Artist Sustainability Project. 

She has curated music and performance, most extensively in collaboration with Afrofuturist producer and educator King Britt, creating the first ever music festival inside the Fringe Arts annual festival, which featured award-winning artists Helado Negro, Saul Willaims, Xenia Rubinos, and Vernon Read (In Living Color). 

She holds an MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

She will be in residence at the Chocolate Factory theater this summer with her collaborator Kalman Duran, creating a new performance installation.

Marguerite Hemmings specializes in emergent, improvisational and social movement styles and technologies. They research the subversive role of dance and music throughout the African Diaspora and channel this research through performance, body, text, social/public media, and moving image. Hemmings’ work is also embedded in alternative pedagogy and social practice/research and they have worked at University of the Arts in the School of Dance, Arizona State University, Princeton University, and many afterschool programs and community centers. 

Marguerite has received grants and fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, Harlem Stage, University Settlement, Dancing While Black, Urban Bush Women’s Choreographic Center Initiative, Arizona State University’s Projecting All Voices Fellowship, Abrons Arts Center, Headlong Performance Institute, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Mural Arts, Black Spatial Relics, and Independence Public Media Foundation to further their research.

Timothy Green is an award winning interdisciplinary body based performer and maker. He is a graduate of WAAPA (BA, (Performance Making), 2015) and The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London UK (MA (Advanced Theatre Practice, Distinction), 2020). Tim’s present research is pursuing a line of inquiry that applies the nomadic attitudes of de- and reterritorialisation to modes of notation, choreography, and performance; refuting ideas of static, objective, and wholly faith/truthful translations (adaptations) of a lived, embodied performance experience from one form or material to another.

Recent projects include performing in ‘Logue Lake’ (Elise Wilson and Geordie Crawley, Perth Festival 2024) (Outstanding Ensemble, PAWA Awards 2025), ‘Hell is Other People’ (Monkey Brain, 2023) (Best Individual Performance (Timothy Green) 2023 Blue Room Theatre Awards, Best Independent Production (Theatre) and Outstanding New Work (Theatre), PAWA Awards 2024), ‘Equations of a Falling Body’ (Laura Bones, Perth Festival 2023) (Outstanding Contemporary or Experimental Work and Outstanding Ensemble or Duet, PAWA Awards 2024), co-curating ‘SITU-8: CITY’ (STRUT Dance, 2022), ‘The Golem; or, Next Year in Jerusalem’ (Humphrey Bower and Timothy Green) (Best Independent Production, PAWA Awards 2020), ‘Handle with Care’ (Form(at) Festival, London UK), and ‘SUNSET’ (Maxine Doyle, Perth Festival 2019).

David Dorfman Dance For almost 40 years, David Dorfman Dance (DDD) has created movement that seeks to de-stigmatize the notion of accessibility and interaction in post-modern dance by embracing audiences with visceral, meaningful dance, music and text. By sustaining a vision to create innovative, inclusive, performance that is radically humanistic, DDD maintains a core commitment to examine and unearth issues and ideas that enliven, incite, and excite audiences in dialogue about social change and a myriad of other topics. Dorfman’s mission is “to get the whole world dancing.” 

DDD has performed widely from Europe to Central Asia, Turkey to El Salvador and at major NYC venues including BAM, The Joyce,The Kitchen, Danspace Project, La MaMa, NYU Skirball, The Duke on 42nd Street, Lincoln Center, The Met Breuer and 92NY//Harkness Dance Festival. David, the company’s dancers, and artistic collaborators have been honored with eight NY Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards.

DUAL RIVET is a women-led dance company focused on creating and sharing highly physical contemporary dance to a wide audience. Based in NYC, Dual Rivet creates work for stage and film that exchanges a cinematic and visceral language to influence both platforms. Directors Jessica Smith and Chelsea Ainsworth have been making and presenting work since 2017. They have performed and set work at Festival PRISMA (Panama), Centro Cultural Los Talleres (Mexico), Oklahoma International Dance Festival, Barnard College/Columbia University, West End Theatre, Kittery Maine, Musikfest Pennsylvania, Peridance Capezio Center, CreateArt, Arts On Site and many more. The company teaches a myriad of classes, throughout the United States and internationally, with an emphasis on contemporary partnering and floorwork. Dual Rivet is currently on faculty at The Juilliard School, Gibney, Peridance, SUNY Purchase and Adelphi University. The company hosts an annual choreography festival, MADE BY WOMEN, highlighting women choreographers and creators.

For more info: www.dualrivetdance.com.
Instagram: @dualrivet

JESSICA SMITH (she/they) is a New York City based dancer from New Orleans, Louisiana. She studied at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, London Contemporary Dance School, and received her BFA in dance from the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College. She has performed with companies such as Punchdrunk's Sleep No More NYC, Vim Vigor Dance Company, ZviDance and Kizuna Dance. She continues to teach and set work at schools, festivals, and training programs throughout the U.S. and internationally. Jessica was one of eight choreographers chosen for The Jacob's Pillow Ann and Weston Hicks Choreographic Fellowship in 2022. She was the Associate Director of Arts On Site NYC, a non-profit arts organization, for 4 years. Jessica is the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Dual Rivet, a highly physical contemporary dance company based in NYC. Jessica is currently on Faculty at The Juilliard School, Purchase College, Gibney, Peridance and STEPS.

CHELSEA AINSWORTH is a graduate of the Dance Department of The Juilliard School. After graduating she worked with Johannes Wieland/StaatstheaterKassel in Germany, Lorena Egan, Flexicure, Amber Sloan, Bryn Cohn + Artists and was on the modern/ballet dance faculty at Cap21 musical theater school and Chen DanceCenter. Currently she is dancing with The Bang Group, as well as ZviDance. She’s also the co-founder and Executive Director of Arts On Site, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting artists of all disciplines by offering affordable studio space and hosting monthly events to encourage community collaboration. She also built and curates residencies at a retreat and residency center in the Shawangunk mountains in upstate New York. In 2020 she joined the Dance Advisory Board of Marymount Manhattan College.