Dance Professor’s Rhode Island Residency Results in New Work

Assistant Professor of Dance Alyah Baker was selected as one of six choreographers in a national cohort for the Rhode Island-based Choreography Project, a three-week summer residency in Providence, Rhode Island, that culminated in a performance of new works on August 24.

Baker’s piece, for four dancers, is titled “juste, juste.”

“The dance was a meditation on devotion and desire and the transcendent possibilities of both pathways, set to a song from David Lang entitled ‘just (after song of songs),’” Baker said.

Baker joined the Department of Dance last academic year. She is a dance artist, scholar, and the founder of Ballet for Black and Brown Bodies, an education and advocacy platform that engages BIPOC dancers in culturally relevant ballet training. In 2021, Baker founded AB Contemporary Dance, a project-based dance company. The company’s recent project, “Quare Dance,” was a recipient of a 2023-24 grant from the National Performance Network Creation and Development Fund.  

This summer, Baker was also selected to participate in the T2 Choreofest with T2 Dance Company, which took place in August in Broomfield, Colorado. Out of the seven participating choreographers, she was chosen to be the featured guest choreographer for the company’s fall season. Baker’s work will premiere on October 19 at Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, Colorado, as part of T2 Dance Company’s program, “Voices.”

The day before, on October 18, Baker will perform her own piece, “starshine and clay,” as part of the N.C. Dance Festival’s mainstage performance in Greensboro. Baker describes the work as “a solo journey through ancestral memory and Afrofuturist vision, imagining alternate worlds inspired by Black feminist poetry and soundscapes.”

Learn more about Baker’s choreography, performance and teaching at her website.

Pictured above, the cast of “juste, juste” in performance: Abigail Molina, Katherine Vigly, Shannon Mullaney and Nina Yoshida-Webster.