staibdance
Recipient Information
Location
Atlanta, Georgia
Medium
Dance
Year of Award
2027
Grant or Fellowship
Southern Artist Spotlight Grant
Grant Amount
$0
Founded in 2007, staibdance is an Atlanta-based contemporary dance company known for its raw physicality, arresting imagery, and emotionally charged theatricality. Led by Iranian-Armenian Artistic Director George Staib, the company creates immersive evening-length works that draw from multicultural perspectives to probe the complexity of the human experience. Each project is crafted with rigor and risk—inviting audiences into spaces of reckoning, beauty, and shared humanity.
With ten original works in its repertoire—three currently touring—staibdance has been presented by the American Dance Festival, Opening Nights at Florida State University, Alabama Dance Festival, Temple University, and The Historic Bama Theatre, among others. Its most recent production, between dog and wolf, unfolded across five distinct Atlanta locations during a month-long run in October 2025, exemplifying the company’s commitment to bold, place-based performance.
Beyond the stage, staibdance invests deeply in artistic development and cultural exchange. Root Theory, its annual winter intensive, merges rigorous movement research with cross-disciplinary inquiry. Its two-week summer intensive in Sorrento, Italy unites world-renowned faculty with 50 emerging artists for immersive study, artistic exploration and transformative experiences.
The company’s curatorial platform, (MC)2, is a bi-annual multicultural dance festival that unites Atlanta’s culturally rooted dance organizations for six days of classes, performances, and community dialogue. The festival has expanded into a video docuseries Meaning and Movement, and a podcast Secret Architecture: the process of process, amplifying conversations around artistry, identity, and creative practice.
At its core, staibdance builds work—and community—through fearless exchange, cultural curiosity, and the transformative power of dance."
Artist Fee: $25,000 - $20,000
Availability: October 1, 2026 - June 30, 2027
Contact
Email Sarah Hillmer
www.staibdance.com
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