Artist Services

Subsidized Space Rental

TOPAZ ARTS’ Artist Services provides affordable rehearsal space rental to the dance community. Our dance studio is 25′ x 48′ with a marley-laid sprung heated floor; the 13-foot-high ceiling is accented with a skylight; equipped with full-length mirrors, audio/video equipment, WiFi.

TOPAZ ARTS offers subsidized rates at $10 per hour for dance rehearsals only for up to 6 participants. A site visit is required prior to booking space for first-time renters, in order for you to view the space and its location.

Please note, we offer NYSCA subsidized rates for dance rehearsals only (non-commercial work, no photography, film, or classes). No shoes, hard props, or substances are allowed on the marley floor.

TOPAZ ARTS is located at 55-03 39th Avenue in Woodside, Queens > directions

To inquire about dance rehearsal space availability or to make an appointment for a site visit, please contact us by email at dance@topazarts.org.

TOPAZ ARTS Subsidized Space Rental Program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

 Please enjoy this short video highlighting 20 years at Topaz Arts!

Here’s a glimpse of the past 20 years at Topaz Arts – highlighting artists, projects, exhibitions, and community events that have happened since we started in 2000, and there are many more! Created for our 20th Year and since TOPAZ ARTS was temporarily closed due to the pandemic for our 20th Anniversary Celebration. Honoring our resilient community of Queens, we highlight the artists that have come to TOPAZ ARTS over these past 20 years, to create, to dance, to be inspired.

2020 © TOPAZ ARTS, Inc.
original music by: Todd B. Richmond

Current Residencies:

TOPAZ ARTS 2024-25 AAPI Dance Residencies

Celebrating dance artists of Asian American and Pacific Islanders Heritage, TOPAZ ARTS supports artists with time and space to develop and create new dance works. TOPAZ ARTS gives choreographers the opportunity and freedom to create in a focused and inspired atmosphere. Being situated in the most diverse county in the nation – Queens – we continue to cultivate new audiences for dance from within our community, largely of immigrant population.

AAPI Dance Artists Residencies engages both artists and the community, raising awareness and empowering voices through the stories, bodies and experiences of Asian American and Pacific Islanders. Each choreographer receives fully subsidized rehearsal space and artist stipend. Topaz Arts supports the creative process, fosters cultural exchange, allowing for experimentation, visibility, and access to diverse audiences. The residency gives artists creative time with opportunities available according to the needs of each artist, such as open rehearsals and feedback sessions. In 2024-25, the following artists – Ching-I Chang, Jennifer Chin, Marie Lloyd Paspe, Barkha Patel, Sugar Vendil, Annie Ming-Hao Wang – will participate in a creative residency at TOPAZ ARTS:

Ching-I Chang – Made in Taiwan, active in America and quiet places, Chang has a deep love for dance and nurturing harmony. She has worked with Gesel Mason, Michel Kouakou, Punchdrunk, Susan Marshall, Wendy Jehlen and many brilliant artists. She received her MFA from University of Utah in 2017. She is a Certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst, Yoga and Yoga Nidra Meditation Facilitator.

Jennifer Chin is a dance artist who has performed and taught throughout the US and abroad with many inspiring choreographers, including Alan Danielson, Kristin Jackson, Arthur Aviles, Michael Mao and Yin Mei. Her work has been performed in Mexico, Guatemala, Croatia; Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Florence Dance Festival, International Contemporary Dance Festival, Nicaragua; and Breaking Ground Festival in Tempe, Arizona. Locally in NYC, her choreography has been performed at Bare Bones Showcase-American Dance Guild, BAAD! Ass Women-Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Dancenow/NYC, Danspace Project’s Food-for-Thought, The Future is Female Festival. She has been commissioned to create work by Queens College, Peridance Center, and The Yard where she was a dancer-in-residence for four years. She has worked in opera on Leonard Bernstein’s MASS, a Theatre Piece for Players, Singers and Dancers with a cast of over 100 performers. She received her MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and BA from Queens College.

Marie Lloyd Paspe is a Filipina-American choreographer, dance and vocal artist, educator, writer, and activist. Marie is a 2024 Harlem Stage WaterWorks Emerging Artist Fellow and from her time with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, received a Bessie Award for Outstanding Choreography with the company for contributions to the 2021 production “Deep Blue Sea.” She was a 2024 Target Margin Theater Institute Fellow, 2023 GALLIM Moving Artist Resident, and the 2022 Asian American Arts Alliance Jadin Wong Fellow.

Barkha Patel is a kathak dancer, choreographer, educator, and the Artistic Director of Barkha Dance Company based in New York City. Barkha has performed solo and ensemble works at dance festivals in India and the U.S. Her work has had the opportunity to present at venues such as Dance Theatre Harlem, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Joyce Theatre and Little Island Dance Festival, 92Y, and Chelsea Factory among others. Barkha has been artist in residence with Movement Research in NYC, was a Jerome Hill Artist Finalist 2023 (Jerome Foundation), and awarded the 2023 Juried Bessie Award and a 2024 Princess Grace Awardee in Dance.

Sugar Vendil is a choreographer, composer, pianist and interdisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking, known as Brooklyn, NY. Vendil’s work germinates from a kinesthetic and improvisatory approach. Her work challenges preexisting notions of virtuosity. Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia, a memoir of a Filipinx American childhood with her ensemble, Isogram (Cindy Lan, Annie Nikunen, Marie Lloyd Paspe, and Annie Wang) is supported by National Performance Network and co-commissioned by Living Arts Tulsa, High Concept Labs, and National Sawdust, and will tour in 2025. As an Artist in Residence at Topaz Arts, she will begin work on trapunto etudes, a performance installation. Her album, May We Know Our Own Strength is out on Gold Bolus Recordings.

Annie Ming-Hao Wang is a freelancer with training in classical ballet, Graham technique, and Chinese martial arts. In her work, she is searching for a multi-dimensional physicality that is informed by crisscrossing interests in textiles, watercolor painting, storytelling, spatial mathematics, and the immigrant experience. Annie has been presented by Five Myles, Pioneers Go East, Leimay OUTSIGHT, Brooklyn’s Center for Performance Research, the 92Y, the Exponential Festival, and BRIC. She has been awarded residencies at Leimay, BRIC, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Marble House Project and has been a Brooklyn Arts Council grantee. Annie is a company member of Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group and also dances with Same As Sister, Maho Ogawa, and Sugar Vendil.

 

Past Residencies:

Dance in Queens 2012: Space Exploration Dance Residency. This artist residency focuses on contemporary dance makers, offering choreographers concentrated time and a private space in which to explore new ideas.

Up to six choreographers will be selected to receive free rehearsal space at TOPAZ ARTS. Choreographers will each be awarded 30 hours during April to June 2012 (hours to be used within a one-month period) in the spacious 1,250 sq. ft. studio. The intent of this residency is to support concentrated time for the creation process, allowing choreographers a space in which to explore ideas or new working methods, with an opportunity to have informal open rehearsals or artist talks to discuss their creative process among peers and audiences.

Choreographers from all five boroughs of New York City may apply. Also open to artists outside of NYC, but please note: there is no stipend, no travel and no housing provided. Choreographers will be chosen from a competitive application process and reviewed by a panel of professionals in the dance field on the basis of artistic merit, description of intent for the residency and video work samples. Awardees will be announced by mid-March.

The deadline has passed. Please check back next Spring or sign up here to receive email updates.

Dance in Queens is an annual summer residency and performance series which began in Summer 2003 as a collaborative project between TOPAZ ARTS and the Queens Museum of Art, to provide opportunities for contemporary dance in the diverse community of Queens.

2011-12 Dance in Queens Awardees: Space Exploration
Monstah Black
Dina Denis
Molissa Fenley
I-Ling Liu
Aaron Mattocks
Chia Ying Kao

2010 Dance in Queens Awardees: Solo Flight
Daniel Charon
Ursula Eagly
Dina-Verley Saab-Mills

2009 Dance in Queens Awardees
Regina Nejman and Company
Richard Rivera
Malini Srinivasan
Daniel Gwirtzman

2008 Dance in Queens Awardees
Andrea Haenggi | AMDaT
Paul Singh | Singh & Dance
Laura Peterson Choreography
Anthony Whitehurst

2007 Dance in Queens Awardees
Mikuni Yanaihara | Nibroll (Japan)
Noemi Segarra | no e(s) collective
Samar King | Yaa Samar! Dance Theater
Chris Giarmo

2006 Dance in Queens Awardees
Kiyoko Kashiwagi | Anime Dance Theater
Baraka de Soleil | D Underbelly
Adam Scher | Adam Scher Dance
Elise Knudson | Airelise Dance

2005 Dance in Queens Awardees
Dusan Tynek and Dancers
Johanna Hegenscheidt
Leonides Arpon
Parijat Desai
Yin Mei

2004 Dance in Queens Awardees
Hana Vanderkolk
Judith Sanchez Ruiz
Kaori Ito
Christalyn Wright

2003 Dance in Queens Awardees
Camille A. Brown
Regina Nejman and Company
Heather Maloney
Mayuna Shimizu | Blue Muse Dance

TOPAZ ARTS support for this residency project is made possible by the New York State DanceForce with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts Dance Program; and, in part, by NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.