Dance/USA selected Alumnus Ricarrdo Hunter-Valentine (MFA 2024) as a finalist for their Fellowship to Artists Program. 

Washington, DC (March 13, 2025) Dance/USA, the national service organization for the dance ecosystem, announces Finalists for the third iteration of Dance/USA Fellowships to Artists (DFA), generously funded by the Doris Duke Foundation. DFA Finalists are invited to submit a full application for the program; 25 Round Three Artist Fellows will be selected by a national peer-review panel and announced in October of 2025. 

One of the few regranting programs available to independent artists with an unrestricted financial award, DFA supports dance and movement-based artists from across the U.S. and its territories who work at the intersection of social and embodied practices. DFA recognizes the wide variety of ways in which artists engage in social transformation through dance, which often do not fit into established models of arts funding. This includes community-building and culture-bearing practices, healing and storytelling practices, activism and representational justice practices, and more.  

Also, Hunter-Valentine's and MFA Alumnus Orlando Zane Hunter-Valentine's company Brother(hood) Dance! returns to  Jacob’s Pillow on Wednesday, July 16, 2025 (one-night only) to perform Black on Earth. "We are excited to bring this work back to the Pillow after our inaugural garden performance in 2021," says Hunter-Valentine.