NYPL for the Performing Arts Announces 2026-27 Dance Research Fellows Studying José Limón

Broadway + NYC

Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Off Broadway

Cabaret

Dance

Opera

Classical Music

Eastern

Central

Western

West End

WEST END

UK Regional

International

Canada

Australia / New Zealand

Europe

Asia

Latin America

Africa / Middle East

Entertainment

TV/Movies

Music

Ctrl + K to open · Esc to close

The cohort’s proposals bridge historical archival research with contemporary performance, identity politics, and even data science.

POPULAR

The Library for the Performing Arts has announced the cohort for the 2026-27 Dance Research Fellowship, which, each year, pairs an artist or researcher with resources and a librarian to explore an aspect in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division archives. This year, focusing on the legacy of José Limón and the Library’s Limón archives acquired in 1974, the cohort’s proposals bridge historical archival research with contemporary performance, identity politics, and even data science.

The 2026 Dance Research Fellows are Sarah Cecilia Bukowski, Kareem B. Goodwin, Tristan Koepke, Sumi Matsumoto, Christofer A. Rodelo, and CJ Salapare.

Methodologically, the projects proposed by this cohort span a remarkable range: from a pioneering use of Python data-visualization to map Limón's global geographic and pedagogical footprint, to an art-historical investigation into how Limón’s early training as a painter informed his choreography. Together, these projects stretch the boundaries of traditional dance scholarship, transforming static paper records into living, politically resonant histories.

The fellows will receive a $10,000 stipend and dedicated support from a dance librarian as they work with the Library’s archives over the next six months. The fellowship culminates with an opportunity to present their projects on January 29, 2027, at our annual Dance Symposium.

Dancer and writer Sarah Cecilia Bukowski is developing a book-length study titled HOME SUITE _____: Biocartographies of Performance and Belonging, exploring how contemporary, New York-based experimental performance makers negotiate the complex, diasporic concepts of identity, migration, and "home" through movement. During this fellowship, Bukowski will work on a foundational chapter titled “Homecoming: José Limón’s Explorations of Self and Culture,” placing Limón as a historical anchor to frame her studies of contemporary artists. Through the archives, Bukowski aims to reconstruct Limón's interpersonal and creative experiences in Mexico, and bridge this historical archive with contemporary dance practices by analyzing how the Limón Dance Company currently restages these works to address modern realities of race, gender, and culture.

Bukowski is a professional dance artist with over two decades of performance experience across ballet, modern, and contemporary dance. As a freelance dance writer and award-winning researcher at Columbia University, her unique professional background allows her to merge scholarly archival research with public discourse rooted in a deep, embodied knowledge of movement.

Developed by Philadelphia-trained Black choreographer and educator Kareem Goodwin, this research and performance project investigates the Limón dance technique through the lens of Black embodiment. The project reframes weight, fall, recovery, and suspension not as neutral mechanics, but as lived, historical inheritance and survival strategies, challenging institutional practices that teach Limón principles as sterile, detached systems. Instead, it honors José Limón's actual legacy as a Mexican immigrant who choreographed through the lens of migration, displacement, and cultural tension. For the performance aspect of the project, the choreography fuses traditional modern dance principles with jazz and Afro-diasporic movement to explore what it means to inherit and execute these foundational techniques inside a Black body today. Ultimately, The Weight That Isn’t Mine Alone is an investigation of lineage, humanity, and belonging.

Kareem Goodwin is a Philadelphia-based choreographer, dance educator, and artistic leader dedicated to nurturing the next generation of dancers through authentic training and bold, evocative choreography.

In Solemnities, Tristan Koepke examines José Limón’s choreographic works and papers to investigate how 20th-century American modern dance imagined alternatives to mid-century masculine performance, specifically focusing on queer histories and speculative masculinities. Analyzing how Limón's choreography and technique articulated vulnerability, tenderness, and emotional grief alongside physical power, Koepke draws on his firsthand experience performing Limón’s Missa Brevis to explore these nuanced themes.The project will culminate in a new dance work and supporting academic engagements.

Tristan Koepke is a dancer, choreographer, and educator based in Portland, ME. He is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Bates College.

R. Sumi Matsumoto will translate archival text into dynamic, data-driven visualizations of the transfer of José Limón’s visionary works and embodied knowledge. Matsumoto will synthesize a range of historic administrative records from the first 40 years of the José Limón Dance Company to build a detailed dataset that will underlie data visualizations. Global maps and proportional area charts explore how far Limón’s choreography and physical memory spread, while underscoring his cultural significance to national and international audiences. To anchor and humanize these visualizations, trends will be more deeply contextualized within Limón’s life. Visualizing José Limón’s Global Impact is a new way to appreciate Limón’s contributions to the art of dance and will bring into focus how a single person’s legacy is also a collective history.

R. Sumi Matsumoto is an information professional who specializes in dance archives and digital technologies. She is currently the Digital Archivist at Jacob’s Pillow. Matsumoto’s personal history with Limón’s legacy includes studying Limón technique and repertory at the José Limón Institute and volunteering in the Limón Archives.

Christofer A. Rodelo’s book manuscript, currently titled To Be Moved: Dance, Migration, and the Making of Latinx New York, provides the first-ever cultural history of Latinx dance from the 1920s to the '50s. It unearths the overlooked contributions of Latinx migrants—particularly queer Latinx men like Nicholas Magallanes , Francisco Moncion , and José Limón—who helped shape American modern dance and ballet in New York City while navigating intense structural whiteness and queer surveillance. Through the fellowship, Rodelo will focus specifically on Limón, investigating his deep personal and artistic networks with other Latinx and Latin American artists, such as Miguel Covarrubias and Rosa Rolanda Covarrubias, culminating in his landmark 1950 trip to Mexico City to develop works rooted in pre-Columbian aesthetics.

Christofer Rodelo is a performance and literary historian who examines Latinx expressive cultures in the 19th and 20th century. He is currently an assistant professor of Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, Irvine. His writing can be found in journals such as Latino Studies, TDR/The Drama Review, and Transgender Studies Quarterly.

The pioneering life, career, and choreography of José Limón emerged from a vital turning point during his early years: his move to New York in 1928 to study painting at the New York School of Design and his subsequent rejection of the medium, which would–providentially in hindsight–lead him to Harald Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi the following year, and to a life of dance and movement thereafter. Salapare’s project investigates how the visual arts—particularly painting—fundamentally shaped the choreography, pedagogy, and identity of Limón. Rather than viewing his rejection of painting in 1928 as a decisive break, this project reframes it as a catalytic force throughout his dances, choreographic process, and regional engagements. The title draws from dancer Betty Jones's recollection of Limón comparing a dance space to a "canvas on which we must paint with daring strokes."

Salapare is a writer, curator, and arts worker based in Brooklyn.

Evita

BroadwayWorld has just learned that Ethan Lipton's The Seat of Our Pants, is now available at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT).

The new Broadway musical Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) will be filmed for The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ Theatre on Film and Tape Archive.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts will open a large-scale exhibition exploring Martha Graham and her dance company, Martha Graham: The Mother of Psychological Dance.

BroadwayWorld has just learned that Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Purpose, is now available at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT).

Get an Alert Each Time Stephi Wild Writes

Videos

Recommended For You

Sign up for announcements, and exclusive discounts on tickets to your favorite shows!

© 2026 - Copyright Wisdom Digital Media , all rights reserved. Privacy Policy

_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/The-New-York-Public-Library-for-the-Performing-Arts-Reveals-the-2026-27-Dance-Research-Fellows-Focusing-on-Jos-Limn-20260616)._