Guild Hall is pleased to welcome GIBNEY Company as 2026 Artists-in-Residence, alongside the Company’s newly announced Resident Choreographer, Lucinda Childs.
Childs and the Company will be in residence intermittently throughout Guild Hall’s 2026 Season, with time dedicated to both preparing Childs’ work, Canto Ostinato ahead of the company’s 2026 Joyce Season, and developing a new full-length work for future seasons. Throughout their time in-residence, the Company will engage audiences through open rehearsals, conversations, and led classes.
Guild Hall is proud to support GIBNEY Company and Lucinda Childs as they begin this new partnership together.
GIBNEY Company is a world-class contemporary dance company that commissions and performs works by renowned and rising international choreographers exploring the intersection of rigorous physicality and responsive, humanistic storytelling.
Led by Artistic Director Gina Gibney and Company Director Gilbert T Small II, the Company is committed to reimagining the possibilities of dance—both on stage and in the community. Based in New York City at Gibney, a dance and social justice organization founded in 1991, the Company has expanded significantly since a transformative gift in 2020, commissioning and premiering new works while building a repertory for performances in New York and internationally. Recent choreographic collaborations include works by Lucinda Childs, Peter Chu, William Forsythe, Johan Inger, Emilie Leriche, Ohad Naharin, Mthuthuzeli November, Sonya Tayeh, and Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, with performances at The Joyce Theater, New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, and international festivals across Europe and North America.
At the heart of Gibney Company’s mission are its Artistic Associates—full time dancers who are also cultural entrepreneurs and advocates, engaging in Moving Toward Justice Fellowships that address social issues in the dance field. Through its unique model that supports sustainable careers, fosters collaboration, and champions artistic excellence, Gibney Company is shaping the future of contemporary dance—pushing boundaries, amplifying voices, and making an impact beyond the stage.
Lucinda Childs, born in 1940, began her career at the Judson Dance Theater In New York in 1963. Since forming her dance company ten years later, she has created over fifty works, both solo and ensemble and received numerous awards including the Dance Magazine Award, The Golden Lion award from the Venice Biennale and the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival award for lifetime achievement. In 1976 she was featured in the landmark avant-garde opera EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson, for which she won an Obie Award. In 1979 Childs choreographed one of her most enduring works, DANCE, with music by Philip Glass and film décor by Sol LeWitt, which toured internationally and has been added to the repertory of the Lyon Opera Ballet. Since 1981 Childs has choreographed over thirty works for major ballet companies and directed and choreographed a number of contemporary and eighteenth-century operas for the Los Angeles Opera, for La Monnaie in Brussels and for the Opera du Rhin, among others. Most recently, Childs directed and choreographed Philip Glass’s SATYGRAHA for Nice Opera Cote D’Azur which premiered in November 2025.