Mark DeGarmo Dance Awarded $168,500 Over 3 Years by the New York State Council on the Arts

New York, New York - Mark DeGarmo Dance announced today three grants totaling $168,500 from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) to support the recovery of the nonprofit arts and culture sector. Following New York State’s historic investment for The Arts, NYSCA has awarded $90 million since Spring 2022 to a record number of artists and organizations across the state. The first two, Regrowth and Capacity Enhancement grants in the amount of $10,000 each, were awarded in October 2022 for increasing staff hours and rebuilding in-person public performances. The third, a NYSCA Support for Organizations grant was awarded in November 2022 for $49,500 a year totaling $148,500 over 3 years. 

Governor Kathy Hochul said, “As a cultural capital of the world, New York State is strengthened by our expansive coverage of the arts across all 62 counties.  This year's historic commitment to the arts sector will spur our continuing recovery from the pandemic and set the course for a stronger future."

NYSCA Executive Director Mara Manus said, “We are immensely grateful to Governor Hochul and the Legislature for their unprecedented investment of $240 million to support arts organizations across the state. New York State arts organizations such as Mark DeGarmo Dance are the cornerstone of our vibrant arts economy. As crucial drivers of our health and vitality, we are grateful to the unwavering dedication of arts workers across the state.”

NYSCA Chair Katherine Nicholls said, “On behalf of the entire Council, I congratulate Mark DeGarmo Dance on this award. Their creative work provides the benefits of the arts to both their community and all of New York. Arts organizations are essential, leading our tourism economy and fueling sectors such as hospitality, transit, and Main Streets across our state.”

About the New York State Council on the Arts                                             

NYSCA preserves and advances the arts and culture that make New York State an exceptional place to live, work and visit. NYSCA upholds the right of all New Yorkers to experience the vital contributions the arts make to our communities, education, economic development, and quality of life. To support the ongoing recovery of the arts across New York State, NYSCA will award record funding in FY 2023, providing support across the full breadth of the arts.

NYSCA further advances New York's creative culture by convening leaders in the field and providing organizational and professional development opportunities and informational resources. Created by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1960 and continued with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, NYSCA is an agency that is part of the Executive Branch. For more information on NYSCA, please visit http://www.arts.ny.gov, and follow NYSCA's Facebook page, Twitter @NYSCArts and Instagram @NYSCouncilontheArts.

About Mark DeGarmo Dance

Mark DeGarmo Dance, founded in 1987 and celebrating its 35th Anniversary in 2022-23, is a leading New York City nonprofit dance organization located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side at NYC-owned The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center (The Clemente). MDD’s 13 programs support its tri-part mission integrating education, performance, and intercultural community-building. MDD educates under-resourced and marginalized New York City Asian American and Pacific Islander, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, Latinx, and Other communities and children; creates, performs and disseminates original artistic and scholarly work; and builds intercultural community through dance arts. 

In 2022, MDD collaboratively taught over 1,000 NYC under-resourced and disenfranchised elementary public school students with over 100 school teachers and administrators across Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens in its evidence-based Partnerships in Literacy through Dance & Creativity© program with the support of federal pandemic relief funds. The program was deemed “a national model” by the National Endowment for the Arts. President Barack Obama commended DeGarmo and MDD for “your service to your community and the nation.”

About the Founder, Executive & Artistic Director

Founder, Executive & Artistic Director Mark DeGarmo, Ph.D., B.F.A. is an award-winning, internationally recognized choreographer and performer, researcher and educator with a passion for transcultural and international community-building. He hails from the agricultural Hudson Valley region of New York State. New York press and audiences have heralded his performances as “mesmerizing” and “fearless”; and DeGarmo as “a gladiator in various arenas.” Dance Teacher Magazine made him its cover feature (June 2017). Martha Hill Dance Fund awarded him its Mid-Career Award (2015). Dr. DeGarmo’s transcultural work spans 14 countries. He is an American Cultural Specialist (Ecuador), Creative Agent (Australia), Crossing Bridges Dance Director (Mexico), Fulbright Senior Scholar (Peru), and served as U.S. Representative and Lecturer for the Volgograd International Dance Festival. He was twice a featured subject at international photo and costume exhibitions at Moscow’s A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum (Russia).

DeGarmo’s 60-minute Las Fridas: A Movement Installation and Offering is invited to the Mexico City International Contemporary Dance Festival in August 2023. DeGarmo’s latest research publication, Roadkill, American Style: A Performative Reflexive Autoethnography Through Embodied Imagination, Photography, and Poetry During COVID-19, March 17–June 30, 2020 was published November 2022 with original color photographs and poetry in hardcover and online in Massive/Micro Autoethnography: Creative Learning in COVID Times, Editors Daniel X. Harris, Mary Elizabeth Luka, and Annette N. Markham, Volume 4 in the Studies in Arts-Based Educational Research series by Springer, Singapore.

https://markdegarmodance.org, Follow Mark DeGarmo Dance: Facebook, Instagram & Twitter 

This program is supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of  Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.