In September 2020, BAC launched a commissioning initiative to support seven artists in the development of new work: choreographer/ performers Stefanie Batten Bland, Kyle Marshall, Bijayini Satpathy, and Mariana Valencia, and music and multimedia artists Holland Andrews, Tei Blow, and Justin Hicks. Each artist received funds to create a project expressly for digital presentation.
“For the launch of BAC’s new commissioning program, we have identified seven remarkable artists from a variety of performance disciplines,” said Mikhail Baryshnikov, BAC Founder and Artistic Director. “BAC is thrilled to support these innovative artists as they transpose their creative visions to the digital space, and I have no doubt their work will reflect unique personal responses to today’s social challenges.”
BAC Artist Commissions made possible with generous leadership support from Anonymous, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Howard Gilman Foundation, Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine Kaye Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Thompson Family Foundation, and Robert and Kathleen Wallace.
Lead support of dance programming at BAC is provided by the Rudolf Nureyev Endowment.
As of January, 2021.
Baryshnikov Arts Center to Commission New Online Works
Baryshnikov Arts Announces Digital Season

Holland Andrews
Holland Andrews is an American vocalist, composer, improviser, and performance artist whose work is based on emotionality in its many forms. In their work, Andrews focuses on the abstraction of operatic and extended-technique voice to build soundscapes encompassing both catharsis and the interplay between dissonance and resonance to tell stories of the interior worlds of humanity.

Stefanie Batten Bland
Jerome Robbins awardee Stefanie Batten Bland, is an interdisciplinary global artist who interrogates contemporary and historical culture. She situates her work at the intersection of dance-theatre and installation.

Tei Blow
Tei Blow is a performer, educator, and media designer based in New York. Blow’s work incorporates photography, video, and sound culled from found materials and mass media. He has performed and designed for The Laboratory of Dmitry Krymov, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jodi Melnick, Ann Liv Young, Big Dance Theater, and David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group.

Justin Hicks
Justin Hicks is a multidisciplinary artist and performer whose sound and music work has been featured at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Performance Space New York, The Public Theater, JACK, Paisley Park, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Highline, and The Institute for Contemporary Art (Philadelphia) among many others.

Kyle Marshall
Kyle Marshall Choreography (KMC) is a dance company that sees the dancing body as a container of history, an igniter of social reform and a site of celebration. KMC has performed at venues including: BAM Next Wave Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Joe’s Pub, Roulette, Actors Fund Arts Center, and NYC Summerstage.

Bijayini Satpathy
Bijayini Satpathy’s passion for Odissi was first groomed in Orissa and later honed in the famed Nrityagram Dance Ensemble after she was selected in an audition by the late founder, Protima Gauri, and became the solo debutant in 1997. She studied and perfected Odissi with Nrityagram as a performer, teacher, research scholar and administrator until 2018.

Mariana Valencia
Mariana Valencia is a New York based choreographer and performer. Her recent commissions have been by The Chocolate Factory Theater, Danspace Project, The Whitney Museum, The Shed, and Performance Space New York. Valencia has toured nationally and internationally in England, Norway, Macedonia and Serbia.
Emily Krouse, JC Dhien, Maria Baranova, Norbert De la Cruz III, Mahesh Bhat, Charlotte Curtis