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Gainesville’s Dance Alive National Ballet Receives $10K Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

In June, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded a $10K Art Works grant to Gainesville’s Dance Alive National Ballet (DANB), one of the leading touring ballet companies in the Southeast. Dance Alive announced the award will support artists fees for the creation of two dance works by Resident Choreographer Brain Carey Chung.

National Endowment for the Arts Acting Chairman Mary Anne Carter approved more than $80 million in grants as part of the Arts Endowment’s second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2019. Art Works is the Arts Endowment’s principal grantmaking program. During this award cycle, the program received 1,592 applications and awarded 977 grants in this category.

“These awards, reaching every corner of the United States, are a testament to the artistic richness and diversity in our country, organizations such as Dance Alive National Ballet are giving people in their community the opportunity to learn, create and be inspired.”


Mary Anne Carter, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts

Mr. Carey, recently named Resident Choreographer for Dance Alive National Ballet, created a work for the Company that premiered February 2019 to great success.

DANB Artistic Director Kim Tuttle noted that the Company had been looking for an additional choreographer who would stimulate and excite both audience and dancers. After working with him through February and much conversation, the invitation was extended and accepted.

Chung’s choreography is conceptual, drawing inspiration from history, literature, music, nature, philosophy, poetry, pop culture, psychology, religion, the sciences, sports, technology, the visual arts, and yoga. He is particularly interested in where the formal in classical ballet intersects and participates with the informal in gesture and movement. Methodologies utilized to create the vocabulary for each piece embrace elements of chance, spontaneity and individuality, which allows unique associations and resonances to arise and influence scripted choreographic phrases.

Mr. Chung will work with students in a workshop setting during June and return in August to begin work with the professional company. His new works premiere in the spring of 2020 with “Loveland” opening in February followed by “Athletes of the Gods” in March.

Brian Carey Chung is a Jamaican-born, naturalized American dancer, choreographer, poet and registered nurse. His sixteen-year dance career (1991-2006) spanned the country’s most celebrated contemporary ballet companies, touring internationally with Lines Ballet, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, and Armitage Gone! Dance and Ballet Hispanic of NY. After retiring from the stage he was rehearsal director and assistant choreographer to Karole Armitage; both for her company and her 2008 re-creation of the musical, HAIR, for the Public Theatre in New York City.

In 2009, Chung formed the Collective Body Dance Lab in New York City. The lab, a project-based, creative think tank, brought together independent artists, designers, musicians, singers, composers, and dancers in the production and performance of new dances.

Chung has taught on the faculties of Lines Ballet in San Francisco, and Peridance Capezio Center, Broadway Dance Center and the Joffrey Ballet School in New York City. He has lectured and taught masterclasses for Lines, Complexions, and Armitage, and at universities throughout the U.S.A. From 2011-2013, he was the Assistant Professor of Ballet at Northern Illinois University. Chung holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Florida, a Master of Fine Art in Creative Writing: Poetry from New York University, and a Master of Science in Nursing from Johns Hopkins University. In addition to being Resident Choreographer for Dance Alive National Ballet, Chung works as a nurse on the Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cardiac Surveillance Unit (D1) at Stanford Health Care, Stanford University.

About the National Endowment for the Arts
Established by Congress in 1965, the NEA is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the NEA supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. For more information, visit www.arts.gov.

About Dance Alive National Ballet:
Founded in 1966 by Mary Ellen Pofahl, Dance Alive National Ballet features an international roster of award winning dancers. Elegant and exciting, they are at the heart of the company’s undeniable success. DANB’s repertoire ranges from the quintessential classic Nutcracker to the cutting-edge movement of contemporary ballet. Because of its excellence, the company is the only dance company in the state to be selected for the State of Florida Touring Roster for 40 years consecutively. Throughout this choreographic tapestry are woven the ballets of Artistic Director Kim Tuttle and Choreographer-in-Residence Judy Skinner whose distinctive artistic styles brand the company. Entertaining and insightful, provocative and joyous, this creative aesthetic is at the heart of the Company. For more information, visit dancealive.org.

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