The 92Y has selected recent Juilliard Dance Division Acting Artistic Director Taryn Kaschock Russell to serve as the new Director of the Harkness Dance Center, which has been an integral incubator for new forms of dance since its founding 85 years ago.
In her new role as Director of the Harkness Dance Center, Russell will be influential in shaping the future of dance programming and education, with a focus on diversifying programming, artists, and patrons. Russell will assume her new role at Harkness on September 9.
She joins the Harkness artistic staff having served as Associate Director of the Juilliard Dance Division in 2016–2017, later taking on the role of Acting Artistic Director for the 2017–2018 academic year.
Prior to her role at Juilliard, Russell directed Chicago’s Hubbard Street 2 where she was responsible for programming and staffing the Hubbard Street Dance Collective’s summer intensives, and curating its National Choreographic Competition. She spent 12 years as a professional dancer, touring extensively with HSDC and the Joffrey Ballet.
Founded in 1935, the 92Y’s Dance Center has been an essential component in the development of American modern dance. Among the artists who have performed and taught at the center are Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Hanya Holm, Jose Limon, Pearl Lang, Katherine Dunham, Agnes DeMille, Erick Hawkins, Jerome Robbins, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey and Anna Sokolow, among many others.
