NVA & Guests’ Youth Creation Program is a free summer intensive for dancers ages 14-18 who are curious about movement, performance, and making work of their own. Participants train alongside professional artists, explore the creative process of a contemporary dance company, and collaborate to develop original choreography. The first edition took place in July 2026 at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center in New York City and was made possible by a generous grant from the Danse Mirage Foundation.

Over the course of the program, participants explored contemporary dance, partnering, acting, improvisation, repertory, and choreographic research with NVA & Guests’ company members and guest teaching artists. The program culminated in a Friends & Family Showing, where the young artists performed the work they had created together.

More than simply learning steps, the Youth Creation Program invites young dancers to play, ask questions, take creative risks, and discover what they want to say through movement. The program grows directly from NVA & Guests’ commitment to mentorship, collaboration, and making professional artistic experiences more accessible. We believe young people deserve rigorous training, meaningful guidance, and a space where their ideas, experiences, and individual voices are taken seriously.

Program at a Glance

Ages: 14-18
Location: New York City
Tuition: Free
Program format: Multi-day summer intensive
Experience: Contemporary dance, partnering, acting, improvisation, repertory, and creative research
Teaching team: NVA & Guests’ choreographer, company artists, and guest teaching artists
Admission: By application

What Participants Experience

Each day combines physical training with creative exploration. Participants begin by developing their technical, expressive, and performance skills through contemporary dance and related forms. They then move into improvisation, partnering, acting, repertory, and choreographic research. Throughout the program, students work closely with professional artists to investigate ideas, generate movement, make choices, and shape original material. They experience how a new work is built: by trying something, questioning it, changing it, and trying again. Participants are not expected to arrive with all the answers. Curiosity, generosity, and a willingness to explore are at the heart of the program. Young dancers are encouraged to contribute their own perspectives and discover how their individual ideas can become part of a shared artistic process.

Access and Inclusion

NVA & Guests is committed to creating a welcoming environment for young artists from different cultural backgrounds, identities, communities, and financial circumstances. The Youth Creation Program is offered free of charge because we believe financial circumstances should not prevent a young person from accessing meaningful artistic training and mentorship. By removing tuition and bringing young dancers into direct contact with working professional artists, the program creates an opportunity that might otherwise be out of reach for many families.

What Participants and Families Said

“The NVA &Guests Youth Program exceeded our expectations. Our dancer is with a performance and technique-based dance school that does not participate in competitive dance, where artistry and expression are emphasized. This program expanded her vocabulary and her confidence in new material and technique. Meeting dancers from different programs, schools, and styles was really exciting for her, discovering her abilities and creativity really emboldened her as a dancer.” - Parent of a 2026 participant

“The NVA&Guests Youth Creation Program was truly amazing. The ten days spent rehearsing, learning repertoire, and diving into new ways of movement within contemporary dance, pushed my limits physically and mentally, but I enjoyed every second of it. Being able to work with the company members of NVA&Guests really inspired me and gave me a lot of helpful insight on having a professional dance career. I left this intensive with new tools for creating new work and exploring different movement, and will continue to take all the insight I learned during this intensive with me in the future.” - Violet Lynch a 2026 Youth Creation Program participant

“I'm so thankful to everyone who made this happen! I hope this program and everything the company is doing will serve as inspiration for more much needed spaces like this one within the broader culture of dance” - EJ Kinzel a 2026 Youth Creation Program participant

Looking Ahead

The Youth Creation Program is an important part of NVA & Guests’ growing commitment to education and mentorship. We hope to continue offering the program free of charge while expanding the number of young people we can serve and deepening the training, mentorship, and performance opportunities available to them. Our long-term goal is to build an ongoing pathway through which young dancers can develop their technical skills, artistic voices, confidence, and connections to the professional dance community.

Future Programs

Dates and application information for the next Youth Creation Program will be announced soon.

Interested students and families can sign up for our newsletter to receive future program announcements.

Support the Youth Creation Program

The Youth Creation Program is free for every participant, but it is not free to produce. Support from foundations, community partners, and individual donors makes it possible for NVA & Guests to pay our teaching artists, rent professional studios and theaters, provide program materials, document the students’ work, and offer additional support that helps young people participate fully. Your support allows us to give young dancers rigorous professional training without placing the cost on their families. It helps us build a space where teenagers are trusted as artists, encouraged to think independently, and given the tools to create work that reflects their own ideas and experiences.

Help us keep the Youth Creation Program free and accessible to the next generation of artists.

Partner With Us

We welcome conversations with foundations, schools, youth organizations, community partners, and individuals who share our commitment to accessible arts education and youth mentorship.

To learn more about supporting or partnering with the Youth Creation Program, please contact us!