KNIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY PRIZE
Photos: La Tosha Pointer, Yi-Chun Wu, Chris Cameron
Empowering Creativity Through Dance
NCCAkron is excited to announce choreographer Cynthia Oliver of Cynthia Oliver Co Dance Theatre (Urbana, IL) as the latest recipient of the $50,000 Knight Choreography Prize.
Each year NCCAkron selects a living choreographer or artist collaborative whose body of work is distinguished not only for their artistry but also for their originality of thought and impact. Made possible by Knight Foundation, this award is designed to support the artistic experimentation and career longevity of choreographers in the United States.
Cynthia Oliver
Choreographer/Director of Cynthia Oliver Co Dance Theatre
Cynthia Oliver (Choreographer/Director) is a Bronx-born, Virgin Island-reared dance maker and scholar. Her work incorporates textures of Caribbean performance with African and American aesthetic sensibilities. She has toured the globe as a featured dancer with contemporary companies David Gordon Pick Up Co., Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Bebe Miller Company, and Tere O’Connor Dance and as an actor in works by Laurie Carlos, Greg Tate, Ione, Ntozake Shange, and Deke Weaver. She earned a PhD in performance studies from New York University, is a New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award winning choreographer, a 2016 Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Mellon Fellow, a 2017 University of Illinois Center for Advanced Studies Associate (and now CAS Professor), and a 2007 University Scholar awardee. She served a five-year term as Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation in the Humanities, Arts and Related Fields from 2017-2021 and is currently Special Advisor to the Chancellor for Arts Integration at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she is a professor in the dance department with affiliations in African American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies.
She is a widely published author with articles in a variety of journals and edited volumes. Her single authored book is titled, Queen of the Virgins: Pageantry and Black Womanhood in the Caribbean (2009). Her last evening-length performance work, “Virago-Man Dem” premiered at the New York Brooklyn Academy of Music’s (BAM) Next Wave Festival 2017 and toured the country. She has also been named a 2021 United States Artist, a 2021 Doris Duke Artist, and a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow.
Photo: Olivia Moon
PREVIOUS PRIZE RECIPIENTS
About the Knight Choreography Prize
With an initial investment of $5 million from Knight Foundation, NCCAkron was established in 2015 to address research and development opportunities in dance. This nonprofit organization has become an intellectual matchmaker between national choreographers and the robust cultural ecology in and around Akron, OH, as well as operating as a hyperagent for dance across the national landscape. Over the past decade, NCCAkron has worked with more than 800 dance artists across 100 U.S. cities. In 2022, Knight Foundation invested an additional $1.5 million to establish this annual unrestricted cash and programmatic award for choreographers and sponsor it in perpetuity.
The Knight Choreography Prize is designed to support the artistic experimentation and career longevity of choreographers in the United States. NCCAkron intends for the award to provide essential time and space for the creative process, for research, and for rigorous play and positive failure. NCCAkron commits to co-create activities and residencies with artists as equal partners and promote equity in the arts by elevating underrepresented voices that are a valuable part of the 21st century dance ecosystem and the future of the artform.
NCCAkron invited dance artists, dance stakeholders, and NCCAkron alumni across the U.S. to nominate a choreographer for this award. An NCCAkron committee then selected five artists from that nomination list, based on established criteria, and those artists were invited to submit application materials. The final selection committee comprised NCCAkron alumni, board members, and Knight City artists. Miami-based choreographer Rosie Herrera was named the inaugural recipient of the Knight Choreography Prize in May 2024, and Shamel Pitts (Brooklyn, NY) received the second award in October 2024. The 2025 Knight Choreography Prize was awarded to Alice Sheppard (New York, NY/Los Altos, CA) and Laurel Lawson (Atlanta, GA). The Knight Choreography Prize is announced once a year, in the Fall.