Three CoA+A faculty receive ASC Creative Renewal Fellowships
Professor of Dance Kim Jones, Professor of Art Marek Ranis and Assistant Professor of Dance Ashley L. Tate are among the 10 local artists awarded 2026 Creative Renewal Fellowships from the Arts & Science Council.
“The Creative Renewal Fellowships are intended to reinvigorate experienced artists by offering the time, resources and freedom to explore new directions, deepen their practice and sustain their long-term creative vitality in Charlotte-Mecklenburg,” the ASC said in a press release. Each professor will use the fellowship funds for a specific project.
Jones will continue her exploration of Korean culture through the project “Echoes of the Drum: Reconnecting Korean Folk Lineage in Contemporary Dance Practices.”
“My proposed activities focus on immersive, embodied study with Korean master artists to deepen my research into traditional Korean music, dance and performance practices,” Jones said. She will travel to both New York City and Korea for mentorship, observation, documentation and artistic exchange with elder practitioners who are recognized as cultural heritage carriers.
This work builds upon Jones’s study of the life and work of Choi Seung-Hee, an artist who is regarded as the first Korean modern dancer. Begun in 2019, that research has been supported by a Faculty Research Grant, a New York Public Library Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute.
With his fellowship, Ranis will expand his long-term project, “Landscape of Identity,” which explores how landscapes shape personal and collective identities in the context of environmental change, the Anthropocene and human migration. Ranis began the project in 2024 in Norway and this summer will expand it to Finland through two artist residencies: Eckerö Post Art Residency and Fiskars Village Art Residency.
“Working with host organizations in both locations, I will collaborate with multi-generational farming families, Sámi community members and newcomers and immigrants,” Ranis said. “I will film conversations in participants’ homes and during walks, focusing on how personal history, displacement or rootedness, and cultural memory shape relationships with Northern landscapes often described as “sublime.” These filmed encounters will guide the creation of paintings and a final video artwork of approximately 30 minutes.”
Tate’s fellowship will provide professional development funds to attend the Versa-Style Dance Intensive in Los Angeles, a six-day immersive program focused on hip-hop and street dance training with master choreographers and instructors.
“The intensive will deepen my technical proficiency in styles such as house, locking and whacking, while also supporting the development of my choreographic voice through daily technique classes, freestyle labs and movement-based research,” she said.
In addition to training, Tate plans to develop new choreographic work that integrates street dance with contemporary and interdisciplinary approaches, including multimedia exploration. She will document her process through video, photography and written reflection, including daily journaling and improvisation studies, to support ongoing research and creative development beyond the program.
In October, Tate hosted the inaugural “To the Beat Y’all: A Hip Hop Symposium” at UNC Charlotte. Her research centers on how African Diasporic dance education, practice and performance function as pathways for social justice. She has presented her research at multiple conferences and conventions, including the European Hip Hop Studies Network Conference in Cork, Ireland, and the Dance Studies Association Conference in Washington, D.C.
