Dissonance Dance Theatre Resident Choreographer Kareem B. Goodwin Named a 2026–27 Dance Research Fellow at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Ngoma Center for Dance proudly congratulates Kareem B. Goodwin, Resident Choreographer of its flagship company Dissonance Dance Theatre (DDT), on his selection as a 2026–27 Dance Research Fellow at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Announced June 15, 2026, the fellowship pairs each artist or researcher with archival resources and a dedicated dance librarian to explore the Library’s renowned Jerome Robbins Dance Division — this year focusing on the legacy of choreographer José Limón and the Limón archives acquired in 1974.

Goodwin is one of six fellows in the 2026 cohort. Each fellow receives a $10,000 stipend and six months of dedicated support working within the Library’s archives, culminating in a presentation at the Library’s annual Dance Symposium on January 29, 2027.

Goodwin’s project, The Weight That Isn’t Mine Alone: Rituals of Falling, Carrying, and Becoming, investigates the Limón dance technique through the lens of Black embodiment. The work 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, and instead honoring José Limón’s own legacy as a Mexican immigrant who choreographed through migration, displacement, and cultural tension. For the performance component, Goodwin’s 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 project is an investigation of lineage, humanity, and belonging.

The honor lands as Dissonance Dance Theatre enters its 20th Anniversary Season. Founded in 2007, DDT is Washington, DC’s Black-led contemporary ballet company, working at the intersection of contemporary, modern, and classical ballet, rooted in the African American concert dance tradition. Goodwin’s national recognition reflects the caliber of artistic leadership at the heart of Ngoma Center for Dance — and the organization’s broader mission to ensure that Black concert dance traditions are not only preserved but actively transmitted to the next generation.