The National Choreographers Initiative is gearing up for its “NCI Discovery 2025” concert at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, featuring new ballets by four renowned choreographers from across the United States.
Headquartered at the University of California, Irvine, the NCI is an annual three-week intensive program founded in 2004 by award-winning choreographer Molly Lynch. The 2025 cohort is comprised of Natasha Adorlee, Glenn Edgerton, Morgan Sicklick, and Makino Hayashi.
The creation of the ballets takes place in the dance studios of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine, where Lynch teaches dance. To date, the thriving project that Lynch oversees has presented 80 choreographers — with a noteworthy 34 being women — along with 177 dancers from 58 national dance companies, according to the Barclay Theatre’s website.
Each dancemaker is free to choose the style and theme of their work-in-progress ballet for the program, and of the 80 new works premiered at the NCI, 35 have gone on to be performed by major dance companies. Lynch explained the secret of keeping the initiative going for 21 years: “There’s great interest from the dance community and the local community. We have a lot of loyal donors and people who keep coming back by supporting the project and attending the show over the past 20 years.
“We were sold out pre-pandemic,” Lynch added, “and in 2020 we couldn’t do the project, but have been gradually building back since then, and have seen a steady growth in terms of ticket sales. After COVID, we started streaming it, as well. It’s been a good avenue for family members and friends of choreographers and dancers.”
NCI has grown into a kind of mini-brand solely by word of mouth, with the selection process, which began in January this year, easy enough: Applicants submit links to videos, a resume or CV, and any press articles the choreographers might have received. The number of applications has continued to rise, with Lynch looking at submissions from more than 100 choreographers in recent years. Her criteria are simple: “We want them to use the ballet vocabulary, and I mean that in the broad sense,” she said. “Those who want to work with ballet dancers using the genre but not necessarily trying to do classical ballet or neoclassical ballet.
“We don’t require them to be on pointe; they can be in flat shoes, socks, whatever they choose, but knowing they’re going to be working with professional ballet dancers,” Lynch continued. “Likewise, for the dancers. They should have a collaborative spirit and want to try something new and different, but look to experimenting. We want them to not feel the pressure of having to dance a premiere. If it works, that’s okay. If it doesn’t, that’s ok too.”
Indeed, Lynch pointed out that experimentation is key because “it allows them to work and develop something that’s the next step,” she said. “And if it’s something more true to their artistic aesthetic, they can use that moving forward.”
The three-week program has a budget of $140,000 for travel expenses, paying the dancers and choreographers, as well as a housing and shoe allowance. The money is also used to pay for theater time and crew. “The expenses we have are focused on the art,” Lynch said. “There’s not a lot of overhead or extras.”
Lynch said she’s in the studio daily from 9am to 6pm during those weeks, teaching class in the morning, moving in and out of rehearsals, talking to choreographers, and watching the dancers. “I give feedback as needed,” she said. “I’m there as an ear to support everybody in the process, and make sure they’re taking care of themselves — that they’re hydrated and fed. I’m the producer, if you want to call it that.”
With this year’s program featuring three women choreographers and one male, Lynch said she’s aware of the choreographic disparity between the sexes. In its early years, the NCI hosted more male choreographers than female. Lynch said she tries to include at least one female choreographer each year while also being supportive of male choreographers
When admitting a choreographer, Lynch said she keeps her audience in mind: “What might be of interest to them, and what might be different from one choreographer to another,” she said. “I’m looking for four choreographers that might bring something different to the table, and that varies from year to year.”
Lynch, 66, is beginning her 20th year of teaching at UC Irvine, and said she has no plans to step down from NCI. “I’m not getting any younger, but I would like to see this kind of work continue — that we support artists and the development of new choreographers and make more opportunities for ballet,” she said.
