The Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC has awarded a 2022 Winter Performance Grant to creator / performer Christopher Rudd for his upcoming new work WITNESS, a three-part work at the intersection of art and activism.

Christopher Rudd is a Jamaican born dance-maker, 2019 Guggenheim Choreography Fellow, and the inaugural New Victory LabWorks Launch Artist; working towards taking his completed WITNESS to the stage. He blends contemporary ballet with contemporary circus to speak to relevant social issues. At 11, Mr. Rudd became the first Black child to dance the title role in George Balanchine's "The Nutcracker", an accomplishment for which ABC's Peter Jennings named him Person of the Week in 1991.

Inspired by the murders of Trayvon Martin and countless African-Americans killed without justice, WITNESS mixes different genres of dance with contemporary circus to put America’s racial landscape into historical context, combat systematically taught racial biases, and imagine a more just future. With hopes of opening a rich dialogue on the challenging issue of race in America, especially with students, WITNESS aims to premiere in the Spring of 2023 in New York City.

Mr. Rudd envisioned creating dance from early on and was fortunate to have trained and worked with a variety of artists and companies which helped develop him as a multi-faceted choreographer.  He has performed with Carolina Ballet where he was a founding member, Les Grands Ballet Canadiens de Montréal, and Alberta Ballet.  Mr. Rudd was honored to work on the creation and dance for Cirque Du Soleil's Zaia, their first resident show in Asia.

Christopher Rudd also has performed in the opening ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, guested with Pennsylvania Ballet, and The Metropolitan Opera for 3 seasons.  Throughout his career he worked with a wide range of choreographers such as Mats Ek, Shen Wei, Diddy Veldman, Christopher Wheeldon, Mauro Bigonzetti, Margo Sappington, Mark Morris, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Donald Mahler, Tyler Walters, and Robert Weiss.  He also has been featured in works of George Balanchine, Jiri Kylian, William Forsythe, Jose Limon, Ohad Naharin, and Jean-Christophe Maillot.

Mr. Rudd was commissioned by American Ballet Theatre and made the groundbreaking Touché.  Touché is the company's first explicitly homosexual duet.  He has also choreographed for the Alvin Ailey School, Earl Mosley's Institute of the Arts, Duke University, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Dance Now! Miami, Alberta Ballet's Workshop, Harlem Stage's E-Moves, Ballet Divertimento in Montreal, Canada, and Muiktheater Vorarlberg in Austria.  His works have been seen in New York, Florida, Connecticut, Texas, North Carolina, Utah, Canada, France, Trinidad & Tobago, Burkina Faso, and Ecuador.

In addition to being the first recipient of The New World School of the Arts Alumni Foundation's Inspiration Grant, Mr. Rudd has been awarded grants from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, New Music USA, American Dance Abroad, Career Transition For Dancers, Harlem Stage's Fund for New Work, World Learning Global Development & Exchange, U.S. Embassy Burkina Faso, and Arts Envoy – a program supported by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs.

Mr. Rudd is honored to be the inaugural New Victory Theater LabWorks Launch Artist at the New Victory Theater in New York City.  He has also been awarded residencies from Tofte Lake Center, Kaatsbaan, STREB Lab for Action Mechanics (twice), Vendetta Mathea La Manufacture in Aurillac, France, and Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture through the CUNY Dance Initiative.

In 2015, Christopher Rudd founded RudduR Dance to create works of high artistic merit and as a platform to better the world through dance.  RudduR Dance has presented works on 4 continents in its first 4 years and made its SummerStage debut by participating in a globally accessible Juneteenth Tribute on June 19, 2020.  Currently, Mr. Rudd is working with Works & Process at the Guggenheim and New Victory Theater to develop his highly anticipated Witness.

Please visit Christopher’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo and his website.