Lawrence dance lecturer Kraker chosen for prestigious MacDowell Fellowship

Mauriah Donegan Kraker, lecturer of dance, has received a prestigious 2023 MacDowell Artist-in-Residency Fellowship.

Selected from a pool of more than 1,800 applicants, she joins 141 other fellows – architects, composers, filmmakers, interdisciplinary artists, theater artists, visual artists, writers, and poets – from 23 states and 11 countries for a month-long residency. MacDowell’s stated mission “is to nurture the arts by offering talented individuals an inspiring residential environment in which to produce enduring works of the creative imagination.”

While in Peterborough, New Hampshire, this spring, Kraker will research and further develop a new dance work alongside New York-based collaborator Leah Wilks. Together, they function as the duo L+M, serving as co-choreographers, performers, and sound creators.

“A MacDowell Fellowship deeply supports and nourishes my choreographic research, encourages me to stay with an imaginative state of research/play while being fully supported with space and time in a way that is not often available to a dance artist/educator,” Kraker said. 

The creative work during this fellowship will be in sync with the learning happening at Lawrence, said Kraker, who teaches movement practices in the Theatre Arts department.

“This is the dance and artmaking we believe in and facilitate in each dance class at Lawrence: deep conversation around artistic process, interdisciplinary collaboration, student/faculty multi-media collaborations,” she said. “This cross-pollination of idea, interest, training is what makes Lawrence unique and is what sets up our artists for post-Lawrence success. I look forward to returning to Lawrence in four weeks and sharing my research methodologies with my classes at Lawrence.”