Spring 2025 Guest Artists
Jodi Melnick
The profound expression of the dancing body and lucid performing instincts drive my creative process. I’m deeply invested in how dance can be akin to a living text and how the work is transformed through the phenomenon of dancing, my process is through movement invention.
Melnick has been part of the Barnard dance department since 2008, also teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, and a guest at Yale University.
My most recent work was presented at Carvahlo Park Gallery in Brooklyn ( with NYC Ballet principal Sara Mearns)Hudson Hall, NY, The Al Held Foundation, Bard College, the University of Chicago,and at the Belltable in Limerick, Ireland. Additional work premiered at: Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Little Island, The Joyce Theater, City Center, the Kitchen, New York Live Arts, The Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Spoleto Festival, Jacobs Pillow, The Dublin Dance Festival, throughout Estonia, Russia, and Japan..
Melnick danced in the Twyla Tharp Dance Company (90’-94’,09’), with Mikhail Baryshnikov (2005-08’), creating a trio with Donna Uchizono, and continue creative experiences with Sara Rudner, David Neumann, Liz Roche, Maya Lee-Parrtiz, Beth Gill, Yoshiko Chuma, Rashaun Mitchell, Silas Reiner, John Jasperse, Claudia La Rocca, Jon Kinzel, Charles Atlas, and playwright Sibyl Kempston. Honors include, Doris Duke Impact Award, Guggenheim Fellow, Jerome Robbins New Essential Works Grant, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant, two Bessie Awards, Gibney’s DIP Residency Grant, Lower Manhattan Cultural Center 2 -year extended Life Grant, and Center for Ballet Arts Fellow, and NYSCA dance/force choreographers initiative awardee.
Maguette Camara is a recognized West African choreographer, musician and teacher who is based in New York City. He began his career with the Ballet Bougarabou Dance Company and his extensive experiences with this company allowed him to perform and present workshops in Morocco, Canada, Senegal and the United States, earning him the privileged opportunity to perform as the representative of Senegal in the festival of De Jeunes Createurs. Mr. Camara’s has performed in diverse venues such as include Lincoln Center Outdoor Concert Series, the Guggenheim Museum, The Rolling Stones World Tour, Epcot Center Disney World, the World Trade Center Jazz Festival. Mr. Camara is artistic director of the group Manekadang-Dance and Drum.
KYLE ABRAHAM (Founder and Artistic Director, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham) He/Him/His: has premiered his work to international audiences and acclaim since 2006. Abraham has been profiled in Document Journal, Vanity Fair, Ebony, Harper’s Bazaar, Kinfolk, O Magazine, Paper, Surface, Vogue & Vogue UK, W Magazine, among many other publications. He is the proud recipient of a National Dance Critics Award for Choreography (2024 – Are You in Your Feelings / Alvin Ailey Dance Theater); Dance Magazine Award (2022); Princess Grace Statue Award (2018); Doris Duke Award (2016) and The MacArthur Fellowship (2013). In addition to performing and developing new works for his company, Abraham has been commissioned by a wide variety of dance companies, including American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The National Ballet of Cuba, New York City Ballet, Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, and The Royal Ballet. In 2024, Abraham premiered his newest evening-length work, Cassette Vol. 1 in Hamburg, Germany, and Mercurial Son for American Ballet Theater this past October to rave reviews.
Abraham has led and curated several performance series including the Danspace Project (2024 / 50th anniversary season) and Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City (2023, 2022), among others). In 2020, Abraham was the first ever guest editor for Dance Magazine.
He serves as the Claude and Alfred Mann Endowed Professor in Dance at The University of Southern California (USC) Glorya Kaufman School of Dance (2021-). Abraham sits on the advisory board for Dance Magazine and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the inaugural Black Genius Brain Trust, and the inaugural cohort of the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, a partnership between the Prada Group, Theaster Gates Studio, Dorchester Industries, and Rebuild Foundation.
Instagram: @kyle_abraham_original_recipe
Tamisha A. Guy, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, began her formal dance training at Ballet Tech, under the direction of Eliot Feld. Later, she attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and SUNY Purchase College as a double major in dance and arts management. In 2013, Guy graduated with honors from SUNY Purchase College and joined the Martha Graham Dance Company shortly after. In 2016, Guy was selected as one of Dance Magazine's Top 25 to Watch, and she also received the 2016 Princess Grace Award. In 2017, she was named one of the Best Dancers of the Year by Dance Europe. In 2021, she received the 2022 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Dance. Tamisha currently dances with A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, is a current Lecturer in Dance at Barnard College, and is the Founder of HUETAPE, a skin-toned kinesiology tape brand with the mission to produce quality tape products while celebrating the unique needs of melanated individuals.
Antonio Carmena was born and raised in Madrid, Spain. He began his dance training at age seven with the Royal Conservatory of Professional Dance in Madrid. Mr Carmena was awarded Grand Prix in the Seventh Eurovision Competition for Young Dancers, and in 1997, was named the "Most Outstanding Young Dancer" in the First International Dance Competition in Zaragoza, Spain. After winning a Prix de Lausanne Scholarship, he came to New York City in 1997 to study at the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet. He was invited to become an apprentice with New York City Ballet in October 1998 and joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in October 1999. In March of 2006 he was promoted to soloist.
Since joining New York City Ballet, Mr. Carmena has danced featured roles in Balanchine's Chaconne, The Nutcracker (Soldier & Chinese Tea), Jewels (Emeralds), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Oberon), Prodigal Son, La Sonnambula, Symphony in C (3rd Movement), La Valse, and Vienna Waltzes. He has danced in the following Jerome Robbins ballets: Dances at the Gathering (Brick), The Four Seasons (Winter & Fall), Interplay and Piano Pieces (Le Petit Cavalier). He was seen in Peter Martins The Sleeping Beauty (Bluebird), Swan Lake (Benno), Eight More and Fearful Symmetries. Mr. Carmena has originated a feature roles in Alexei Ratmansky's Russian Seasons.