The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation is pleased to announce that the $50,000 2025 Choreographer Awardee is Jeremy Nedd from Brooklyn, NY. Selected by an esteemed jury: Carla Peterson, Art Consultant, former Director of the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, and Artistic Director, New York Live Arts, Jay Carlon, Ellis- Beauregard Foundation 2024 Choreographer Awardee and Christy Bolingbroke, National Center for Choreography-Akron Founding Executive/Artistic Director, from a national pool of 387 stellar applications.The award is in partnership with Portland Ovations who will present Nedd’s work in the 2026-27 season as part of their Raising the Barre series.

Jeremy Nedd (he/him) is a dancer/performer and choreographer/director who divides his time between Basel, Switzerland and his hometown of Brooklyn, New York. As a performer Nedd has had engagements at the Semperoper in Dresden and Ballett Basel. He has also had the opportunity to work with various internationally acclaimed choreographers. Most notably, Trajal Harrell and Kyle Abraham, where he performed in the New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” award winning work “The Radio Show.”

As a choreographer he has realized and presented productions in major theaters and festivals across Europe (Switzerland, the UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal ) Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Rwanda) and South America (Brazil, Peru, Colombia). For several years Jeremy Nedd has been collaborating with the South African Pantsula collective Impilo Mapantsula. Together they have created three works. Most recently, he is a recipient of a 2023 Swiss Performing Art Award.

Jeremy Nedd responds to receiving the award by sharing:

“I am stunned, humbled and elated. It is a huge honor to receive the Ellis-Beauregard Choreographer Award. I’ve spent the past years producing work abroad and have yet to have the opportunity to present my choreography at home, in the United States. And though developed abroad, the topics I’ve worked around have continued to gravitate towards and be in dialogue with the context that has indelibly shaped me as a choreographer. I view the Ellis- Beauregard Foundation Choreographer Award along with the chance to present at Portland Ovations as not only motivation to continue pursuing the themes that inspire and challenge me, but perhaps more importantly, an opportunity to share, exchange and reconnect with the artistic landscape that has informed my work and perspective the most. This recognition gives me the courage to continue making dances that at their core are based in joyful resistance, cross cultural collaboration and empowerment. It is truly a privilege to be afforded support that can nurture artistic development. I couldn’t be more grateful.”

“It was at once joyful and challenging to review this year’s strong applicant pool for the 2025 Ellis-Beauregard Foundation’s Contemporary Dance Award. In the end, Jeremy’s work enthralls. Fully embodied dancing, sophisticated choreography, and arresting visuals beautifully activate his authentic exploration and celebration of contemporary social dance forms—and the vibrant conversations they engender.” — Carla Peterson, Art Consultant; former Director, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) at Florida State University (2014–2024); Artistic Director, New York Live Arts (2011–2014)

Ovations is thrilled to introduce dancemaker Jeremy Nedd to Maine audiences during

our 2026-27 season in partnership with the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Choreographer Award. The panel had an awesome task deciding among the many exciting submissions. We are grateful for their deep care and consideration in choosing the next awardee. — Aimee Petrin Executive Director.

“From concept to archival research to embodied inquiry, Jeremy Nedd’s groundbreaking vision and rigor offer a glimpse into the future of dance. Their practice responds to our cultural and sociopolitical moment, preserving legacy while innovating form and bridging criticality with accessibility in ways that excite me about performance’s transformative power. I am thrilled to celebrate Jeremy Nedd as the 2025 Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Choreographer Awardee and eager for audiences in the U.S. and abroad to witness the impact of their work”. — Jay Carlon, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation 2024 Choreographer Awardee and Juror.

The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation is proud to offer a Choreographer Award that provides enough economic support to foster a significant shift in ways of thinking and working. We look forward to Jeremy bringing their work to Maine in partnership with Portland Ovations next year.— Ellen Golden, President, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation.

The partnership between the Ellis Beauregard Foundation and Portland Ovations is significant because it simultaneously and uniquely grants funds directly to choreographers and provides a platform for them to share their work. The open call and application process affirmed there is no shortage of artists that continue to make good work – making this program more crucial than ever in the national landscape right now. I am most excited for Jeremy Nedd’s work to be recognized with the fellowship because of how he demonstrates dance and performance as a means of processing matters in which we all navigate, using movement to dissect social dynamics on the dance floor at the club as well highlighting cultural appropriation and choreographic choices in videogames. The body is a continuously relevant reference point. Jeremy’s application of body-based research in his work is most poignant for all of us at this point in the 21st century.  — Christy Bolingbroke, National Center for Choreography-Akron Founding Executive/Artistic Director and Juror.

The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation is enormously pleased to announce that Jay Carlon, based in Los Angeles, California, is the 2024 Choreographer Awardee. Although is was a very difficult decision involving a large pool of exceptional artists, our esteemed panel of jurors, Flee Willems, Independent Creative Producer based in France, Sita Frederick, Director, Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State, and Kayla Farrish, Choreographer and the 2023 Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Choreographer Awardee. “All agreed that Jay’s unique voice, devotion to community and compelling movement choices brought them to the top. They are a truly unique voice, states Donna McNeil, Founding Executive Director of the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation”.

Juror Sita Frederick adds, “I was impressed by the incredible creativity of the applicants. Jay’s artistry stood out for its visceral imagery, connection to communities, and narrative power”. Juror Flee Willems adds, “I am deeply honoured to be among the jurors selecting Jay Carlon for the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation’s Contemporary Dance Award in 2024. Jay’s distinct dance theater voice —marked by his layered storytelling and exploration of identity and belonging—resonates profoundly with audiences. His work is both compelling and accessible inviting reflection and growth through its richness, humility and evocative power. Witnessing Jay’s journey is inspiring and I look forward to seeing how he continues to shape and influence the national and global dance landscape”. Further, juror Kayla Farrish adds, “Witnessing Jay Carlon’s body of work, revived archives, personal narrative that uncovers Filipino histories, and onwards to bringing community together through sites/place and culture, Jay brings our humanity into proximity. His work is daring in its authenticity and in dreaming existence to be, while being so personal with visceral feeling. I feel that those who witness can fall in with him. I’m excited for their liberation studies and community building to reach and connect folks. Their visceral embodiment and reimagined performances space both live and film have such power and empathy. I’m excited to see how this award’s support can lead them to build more of this special work”

Jay Carlon (he/they) is a queer dance artist, choreographer and community organizer whose work is grounded in a collective journey toward decolonization and sustainability. Carlon grew up the youngest of 12 in a Filipino Catholic migrant family, on the Central Coast of California. His work facilitates collective healing and the exploration of post-colonial identity, ancestry, and the complex experience of queer and Filipinx communities in relationship to site and space.

Named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” Carlon has led workshops, artist talks, and facilitated discussions on decolonial ritual performance at institutions such as Johns Hopkins University, UCLA, University of the Arts, Purdue University, USC, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Asians @ Google. His work spans genres—from site-specific interventions and gallery installations to concert dance—and has been presented at CAP UCLA, REDCAT, 92nd Street Y, Lincoln Center, and more. As a performer, he has collaborated with artists including Miguel Gutierrez, The Industry Opera, Oguri, and the Metropolitan Opera. His commercial credits span performances and choreography for Solange Knowles, Mndsgn, Kanye West, and Rodrigo y Gabriela. He is the U.S. Associate Director for Sway, an Australian- based aerial spectacle company, where he has choreographed and performed at the 2014 Olympics and the 2018 Super Bowl.

Upon receipt of the award Jay Carlon notes, “I am deeply honored to receive the Choreographer Award from the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, which will be instrumental in expanding the social impact of my work. I believe that the compositional skills I’ve developed as a dance maker translate into the ways I choreograph community— shaping social movements and advancing the pursuit of liberation. This recognition strengthens my commitment to sustainability and deepens my journey of reclaiming heritage, building connections, and creating meaningful experiences for the communities I care deeply for. I look forward to channeling this support into art that uplifts, heals, and empowers.”

The Ellis Beauregard Foundation is pleased to announce its $50,000.00 – 2023 Choreographer Award recipient, Kayla Farrish. Paired with the award is a performance with Portland Ovations Raising the Barre initiative as well as a residency with Ellis-Beauregard Foundation in Rockland, Maine.

Farrish was selected through a jury process of esteemed professionals in the field of dance: Danni Gee, Director of Programming, Joyce Theatre, Colleen Jennings Roggensack, Vice President of Cultural Affairs and Director of the Gammage, Arizona State University and Graham Cole, Executive Director of White Bird, Portland, Oregon.

Kayla Farrish was born in North Carolina and currently resides in New York City where she works as a Choreographer, Director, Filmmaker, and freelance performer, and serves as adjunct dance faculty at Tisch. Farrish has worked with Kyle Abraham, Limon Dance, Kenyon Adams at Bard College and with MIT Black Feminist Theories and Space and Technology Presentation, Put Away the Fire, dear (Fall 2022- Spring 2024), La Mama Theater, Myths Until you Hold Me- New Solo Commission Harlem Stage- Black Arts Movement Examined: Dance Part VI E-Moves to name just a few of her engagements. Farrish is currently rehearsal director for Sleep No More NYC and a recent New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project Grantee. 

Regarding the award Farrish says, I am humbled, excited, and passionate about the possibilities of the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Contemporary Dance Award to provide both a way to share my work among communities in Maine and to also to be able to expand as an artist. It is unimaginable at times to understand how it is possible to create the visions that come to us as artists, and also as humans. It is a gift to be able to see what could be and to be granted opportunities for the early stages of our work. However, the gift to have a full creative process, collaborating, to dream beyond scarcity, and also not supporting ourselves along the way, it is incredible to receive this support. This makes my visions seem possible and creates accessibility for artists like myself to move forward. I envision creation that can support exchange with community towards liberation, acknowledgment of history and witnessing erased stories, and creating space for risk and transformation. I want this to be in communication with community. And I dream for more spaces of oppressed and marginalized voices to move, speak, and make with freedom. With the support of this Award, Creative Space, and Performance in Maine, I’m looking forward to what can unfold. It gives me hope that I’m so thankful for.”

Juror Colleen Jennings Roggensack comments, ”The Ellis Beauregard Foundation keeps dance alive, vibrant and vital to our local and global cultural landscapes. The selection of Kayla Farrish exemplifies the commitment to artistic innovation rooted deeply in communities.”

Juror Graham Cole adds I was honored to be among the jurors selecting Kayla Farrish for the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation’s Contemporary Dance Award this year. Kayla is a hugely talented choreographer, whose ability to inspire a wide range of viewers through her cinematic and emotional approach to dancemaking is already impressive at this early stage in her career. I, among many others, look forward to seeing how her artistic voice will continue to resonate as a result of this award.

 “I am thrilled by the juror’s choice of choreographer Kayla Farrish. I am delighted to have this unique occasion to introduce her to Maine audiences. New artists, new opportunities – some of the many gifts of the Ellis-Beaureguard Foundation Choreography award and the partnership with Portland Ovations Raising the Barre initiative” says Aimee Petrin, Executive Director of Portland Ovations.

“The Ellis – Beauregard Foundation is thrilled with the jurors’ selection of choreographer Kayla Farrish as this year’s awardee,“ noted Ellen Golden, EBF President. “This award is part of our ongoing commitment to supporting diverse disciplines and artists and contributing to the dynamic art community in Maine.” 

The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, Rockland, Maine, is thrilled to announce that a $25,000 award for Contemporary Dance has been granted to Faye Driscoll. The team of three esteemed jurors: Kyle Abraham, Janet Wong, and Philip Bither, were unanimous in their praise of Driscoll stating “Faye Driscoll is one of the most influential artists of our time. So many artists have drawn inspiration from the magnitude and breadth of her artistic footprint.” Driscoll was selected from a pool of over 105 applicants nationwide through an open-call process

Faye Driscoll (b. 1975, California, lives and works in New York) is an award-winning art and performance maker who uses an alchemy of bodies and voices, objects, and live sound to conjure worlds that are, like ourselves, alive and forever changeable. She creates immersive experiences of sensorial complexity and perceptual disorientation aimed to rile up the passive, numb, screened-out body. These interventions come in the shape of intimacies: a performer holding your hand, a death metal song made through recording your stomping feet, a place to rest, and a private guided choreography in your ear. Faye Driscoll’s awards are impressive, including Randjelovic/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts, MidAtlantic Arts International Award, Performing Arts Residency Lab (PeARL) at Montclair State University, Jacob’s Pillow Artist Award, Doris Duke Artist Award, United States Artist Fellowship, MAP Fund Award, FUSED/French US Exchange in Dance Award, National Dance Project Production Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Creative Capital Award, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Artist Award, The Jerome Foundation Award, National Dance Project Production Award, Bessie Award, Outstanding Production. The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation in Partnership with Portland Ovations is extremely proud to bring this supremely talented choreographer and performer to Maine. “ The inaugural year of our Dance Award has proven to be a welcome addition to the panoply of institutional support for choreography. Through the discipline of movement, and in Faye’s case, multidisciplinary work, audiences are offered pathways toward meaningful and deeply transformative experiences. The Foundation is committed to supporting the cultural trove of our nation and sharing those fine artist/awardees work with the people of Maine.” Adds Donna McNeil, Founding Executive Director, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation.Accolades from other sources: Faye Driscoll is a Bessie Award-winning performance maker who has been hailed as a “startlingly original talent” (Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times) and “a postmillenium postmodern wild woman” (Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice).The award also includes an additional $15,000. To ready the work for presentation through our partner organization, Portland Ovations. Aimee Petrin, Executive Director commented, “Ovations is excited to present Faye Driscoll during our 2023-2024 season. We are grateful to the panelists and the partnership with the Ellis Beauregard Foundation.Unique opportunities like this expand the curatorial process and allow Ovations to take artistic and financial risks. Because of this award, a new group of dance makers are shared with funders, curators and fellow artists.