The College of Staten Island will host two artists who have been selected for this year’s cohort of the CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI), an expansive residency program that provides New York City choreographers and dance companies with creative space, financial support, and engagement opportunities on CUNY campuses and beyond.
Jeevika Bhat will be in residency at CSI’s Center for the Arts and K.J. Holmes’s CSI residency will be in partnership with Snug Harbor Cultural Center.
Bhat is an East Harlem-based dancer and choreographer who explores the confluence of her cultures through a Contemporary/Indian American medium. Her background is in Odissi, an East Indian classical dance form known for its nuanced storytelling and graceful fluidity, which she studies under the guidance of Guru Jyoti Rout. Academically, she is a graduate of UC San Diego, where she earned a BS in Mathematics with minors in Linguistics and Dance, and UC Irvine, where she earned an MFA in Dance.
Her upcoming work, Clothesline, which will be presented at CSI, has been previously supported by the CUNY Dance Initiative/The City College of New York, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, GALLIM, and the UNC Charlotte Department of Dance.
K.J. Holmes—dance artist, actor, vocalist, writer, teacher—has been practicing improvisational forms as process and performance since 1981. An avid improviser and creator of solo/duo/ensemble work, she has collaborated extensively with dancers Simone Forti, Karen Nelson, Lisa Nelson, and Steve Paxton; poets Julie Carr and Edwin Torres; musicians Roy Campbell, Jr. and Jeremy Carlstedt. Her work has been produced in NYC at venues including The Chocolate Factory Theater, Danspace Project, The Kitchen, NDA, PS 122, and Roulette, and she has been a featured performer at Arts for Arts annual Vision Festival. K.J. has performed in the work of Matthew Barney, Miguel Gutierrez, Karinne Keithley Seyers, Xavier Le Roy; music video from Mitski, among others; as well as developing her own solo/ensemble work.
She is currently conducting a new ensemble piece, Blu/print, begun in fall 2023 with a grant from the New York State Choreographers Initiative through the New York State Dance Force with the mentorship of composer/instrumentalist Henry Threadgill.
Holmes teaches at NYU/Experimental Theatre Wing and Movement Research in NYC, as well as traveling nationally/internationally teaching, performing, and creating. She will be an Artist in Residence at the Bogliasco Center in fall 2026 and is a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow.
About CDI
From July 2026 through June 2027, CDI will support its largest cohort of resident artists to date, underwriting 26 residencies for early- and mid-career choreographers at 14 CUNY colleges across all five boroughs, as well as four partner arts organizations. Selected through a competitive open call that attracted 266 applicants, the 2026–2027 artists reflect the breadth of New York City’s dance community and mirror the diversity of CUNY’s student population.
Working across a wide range of dance forms—including ballet, street dance, tap, flamenco, contemporary, and culturally specific traditions—resident artists receive rehearsal space, financial support, and time to develop new and existing work. Residencies also create opportunities for students and local communities to engage directly with professional artists through performances, master classes, guest lectures, and open rehearsals.
CDI enables CUNY colleges to make their studios and stages available to the City’s dance community, supporting artistic activity that would otherwise be difficult to sustain given the chronic shortage of affordable rehearsal and performance spaces.
Since its launch in 2014, CDI has awarded residencies to 300 choreographers, helping artists develop new work, build and sustain careers, and reach new audiences.
Photo caption: [L-R] Jeevika Bhat and K.J. Holmes
By Editor
