PERIDANCE COLLECTIVE

9-Months | Ages 17-23

A Hybrid Between Pre-Professional Training Program and a Repertory Company

The Peridance Collective is designed for passionate, driven dancers between the ages of 17 and 23 who are eager to cultivate their artistry and pursue a professional dance career while also balancing outside pursuits. This innovative program combines the rigor of a pre-professional training program with the immersive experience of a repertory company, structured around the life of a full-time student or professional.

This unique program offers a perfect opportunity for dancers who want to keep dance at the forefront of their lives while pursuing other endeavors or adding an additional layer of performance and process to their dance training. Through a carefully balanced schedule, rehearsals and classes are designed to complement full-time obligations outside the studio, allowing dancers to grow their craft while still making room for their academic and personal goals.

What's Included:

6+ hours of dancing per week
Work with 3 professional choreographers on original works
6+ performance opportunities
2 weekly technique classes (1 company class and 1 class of dancers choice from Peridance's Open Schedule)
Choreographic opportunities
Individual mentorship
Class discounts on additional training at Peridance Center
Join a global network of performing artists in New York City

Program Structure:

Comprehensive Technical Training: The Peridance Collective offers dancers access to world-class instructors and choreographers who guide students in honing their technical skills. Participants engage in weekly classes as part of Peridance’s open schedule that cover a range of contemporary techniques, from ballet to contemporary, designed to push the boundaries of each dancer’s physicality and artistry.
Collaborative Rehearsal Process: Dancers become part of an ongoing creative process that mirrors the experience of working in a professional company. This collaboration is grounded in the mentorship of top-tier choreographers, who bring in new work for the dancers to perform. Students will experience the rigor of rehearsals, team-based creation, and the development of a collective artistic voice, simulating the dynamic of a professional ensemble.
Freelance Network & Open Classes: A key element of the Peridance Collective is the ability to expand your freelance network through open classes and workshops that connect students with professional dancers and choreographers from around the world. These experiences provide valuable networking opportunities, further bridging the gap between training and career, while enabling dancers to engage with the larger New York City dance community.
Performance Opportunities: Throughout the program, students perform across the tri-state area, showcasing their work in a variety of professional settings. These performances provide invaluable experience that helps dancers refine their craft and build their portfolios, all while giving them the opportunity to share their artistry with diverse audiences. Whether it’s on a small stage or in a major venue, dancers are able to develop the confidence and skills needed for their future careers.
Balanced Schedule: Designed with the full-time student/ professional in mind, the Peridance Collective offers a schedule that allows dancers to balance their professional training with their academic or professional pursuits. Classes and rehearsals are scheduled around a traditional 9-5 schedule, ensuring that dancers have the time to focus on their education or work obligations without sacrificing their artistic development.
Creative Process with Professional Choreographers: Students work with three professional choreographers during their time in the program. This provides them with a diverse range of creative processes, choreographic styles, and artistic philosophies. It is a chance to explore new ways of thinking about movement, performance, and collaboration, while fostering versatility and creativity.
Building Your Artistic Voice: Beyond just being a technical training ground, the Peridance Collective encourages dancers to discover and cultivate their own artistic voice. The program includes choreographic opportunities where students can experiment with their own ideas, participate in workshops, and share their creations with the community.

Program Duration:

The Peridance Collective runs from September 2025 - May 2026, offering a full academic year of intensive training, creative development, and professional exposure. Throughout this period, dancers will be immersed in an enriching environment that nurtures both their artistic and technical growth while preparing them for the next steps in their dance careers.

Why This Program Is Ideal for Aspiring Dancers:

Hybrid Experience: A perfect blend of a pre-professional training program and a repertory company experience, structured around a traditional student/ professional schedule.
Diverse Performance Opportunities: Students will have the chance to perform throughout the tri-state area, gaining exposure to different audiences and performance environments.
Work with Leading Choreographers: The program allows students to work directly with world-renowned choreographers, giving them insights into the creative process and opening doors to future professional opportunities.
Flexibility for Academics: With rehearsals and classes scheduled around a typical 9-5 timetable, dancers can stay committed to their academic/ professional pursuits while continuing to develop their dance careers.
Launchpad for Professional Careers: The Peridance Collective serves as a springboard for dancers who aspire to join professional companies, build their freelance careers, or pursue their own artistic projects.

Whether you're looking to build a strong foundation for a professional career, add extra performance experience to your dance degree, or deepen your artistic practice while balancing other pursuits, the Peridance Collective offers an unparalleled opportunity to grow as a dancer in New York City.

Audition Now and take the next step toward becoming a versatile, professional artist in the heart of the dance world.

Tuition

DOMESTIC STUDENTS

$3,820

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

12-month International Study Program enrollment is required and Peridance Collective will count towards required class hours.

CLICK HERE to learn more.

If the dancer is also participating in Peridance's Independent Study Program (12-months only), tuition for Peridance Collective is included in the 12-month program tuition. Rehearsals and classes are eligible to count toward the required class hours. Costume fees will be additional charges.

How to join Peridance Collective:

STEP 1: Register HERE for an in-person audition or to submit a video audition.

STEP 2: Audition results will be emailed to you.

STEP 3: If accepted, a program coordinator will follow up with enrollment information.

Audition

Live In-Person

Click the button below to register.

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Video

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DIEGO FUNES PERIDANCE COLLECTIVE DIRECTOR

Diego Funes is one of New York’s leading Contemporary Dance instructors and choreographers. His choreography has graced world stages. For over 15 years, he has created choreography inspired by his ballet, gymnastics and worldwide dancing career, featuring kinetic, exciting and unconventional solo and group pieces that challenge and inspire dancers and students.
He has taught and choreographed all over the world, including London, Italy, Spain, France, Sweden, Norway, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, and throughout the United States, including New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, St. Louis, Kansas City, Ft. Lauderdale and Miami. His credits as a dancer/choreographer include major works in dance theatre, musical theatre, film and television.

Diego’s choreography is highly athletic, with strong elements of classical dance and contemporary movement and expression that categorize both his work with students and with the de funes dance company, the corps he founded in 2006.

Diego trained in gymnastics from the age of four. As a teenager, he studied at the prestigious School of American Ballet, prior to dancing with Cincinnati Ballet, The New York City Opera, The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and Baletto del Sud.

He went on tour throughout Europe, later returning to the United States to break into musical theatre. His musical credits as a dancer include Cats, Hello, Dolly!, Riverdance, Anything Goes, A Chorus Line and The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. He choreographed acclaimed productions of Beauty and the Beast, Hello, Dolly!, And the World Goes Round, Zorba!, Leader of the Pack, the first New York revival of Subways Are for Sleeping and shows for Tokyo Disney.

He danced in numerous videos for MTV and with headlining music artists such as Liza Minnelli, Whitney Houston and Will Smith.

In 2007, he choreographed the major motion picture, P.S. I Love You, directed by Richard LaGravenese and starring Gerard Butler and Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank.

Diego lives in New York City, where he is the Youth Ensemble Director at Peridance Center. He also teaches at Ballet Arts at City Center and at Pace University

Check out Diego Funes webiste: https://www.defunesdance.com/about

SCOTT AUTRY 2024/2025 CHOREOGRAPHER

Scott is a 2022 graduate of The Juilliard School and an Artistic Associate with the Gibney Company from 2022 to 2023. He has been able to share the work of choreographers including Ohad Naharin, Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, Bobbi Jene Smith, Aszure Barton, Johan Inger and Lea Ved. He was selected as the 2022 Juilliard Choreographic Fellow for the inaugural collaboration between LaGuardia Dance and Juilliard Dance and was honored to receive the Héctor Zaraspe Prize from the Juilliard Dance Department for demonstrating outstanding talent and development as a choreographer. Autry recently created “a space to see” choreographic residency as his Moving Towards Justice fellowship project to support young, queer creators develop deeper roots in their own artistic voice. He is a native of Colorado Springs, Colorado.

BETH GRACZYK 2024/2025 CHOREOGRAPHER

Beth Graczyk is a body-based artist based in Brooklyn/Lenapehoking whose 18-year career as a creative-maker and bench scientist has allowed her to cultivate a unique perspective that reaches actively within and between the forms of art and science. Graczyk seeks to work with populations whose experiences are often ignored including female-identified, diversely-abled, and LGBTQIA+ bodies. Since 2002, Graczyk has performed throughout the US and in Japan, Ecuador, France, China and India and in NYC has been presented by Gibney, La Mama, Jack, CPR, and Movement Research amongst others. In 2019, Graczyk began directing a new work in collaboration with Aaron Gabriel examining the experiences of LGBTQIA+ artists with disabilities that was workshopped at the Walker Arts Center and featured in Critical Correspondence. This project received a 2021 Minnesota Touring Arts Grant. She has a collaborative partnership with John Gutierrez (G^2), and is on Faculty for the Peridance Certification Program. She travels annually to Kerala, India where she teaches, choreographs, and performs in partnership with Sen Jansen and Arunima Gupta. Concurrently, Graczyk is an author on 10 science publications and received a 2020 Pilot Award from Rockefeller University with collaborator Guadalupe Astorga for research on visual perception in Autism. Graczyk co-directed the performance company Salt Horse in Seattle from 2008-2016 where they received funding from 4 Culture, Artist Trust, Washington State Arts Commission, NEA and commissions including City of Seattle, Northwest Film Forum and Cornish. @bethgraczyk

BELINDA MCGUIRE 2024/2025 CHOREOGRAPHER

Belinda McGuire is an American-Canadian dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, producer and teacher. She is the founding Artistic Director of Belinda McGuire Dance Projects which supports the research, development, production, and presentation of international and collaborative multidisciplinary dance performance. Her work, heralded for its remarkable emotional resonance and sinuous power, has toured across North and Central America, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East. A graduate of The Juilliard School, she has performed with The Limón Dance Company and The Metropolitan Opera Ballet, among others, and has taught and choreographed for Juilliard, Harvard, The Limón Institute, Marymount, Canada’s National Ballet School, Tisch, and Purchase, among others.

Program Director

Diego Funes

Email

diego@peridance.com

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