National Choreographers Initiative to Close After 22 Years

The National Choreographers Initiative will give its final performance, The Last Dance, at the Irvine Barclay Theater on July 25, closing a chapter that began in 1990 as an experiment in choreographic freedom.

Founder Molly Lynch, then directing the now-closed Ballet Pacifica in Orange County, California, launched the project 35 years ago as the Pacifica Choreographic Project. "The vision was to develop a lab, basically, for choreographers," Lynch says. Selected choreographers spent a few weeks in the studio with Ballet Pacifica company members, then presented a work in progress and received direct feedback from the audience.

The formula worked. In 2004, shortly after resigning from Ballet Pacifica, Lynch moved the project to Irvine with the support of backers. Renamed the National Choreographers Initiative, it grew to include four choreographers and 16 professional dancers from across the country, rehearsing in the studios of the University of California, Irvine, and performing at the Irvine Barclay Theater. In 2006, Lynch joined UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts as a dance professor, a role she still holds.

NCI has run every July since, with the single exception of 2020. Its alumni include established dancemakers Val Caniparoli, Amy Seiwert, Ma Cong, and Sidra Bell.

The final edition breaks the initiative's own format. Instead of four new choreographers, this year's program features returning artists Emily Adams, Julia Feldman, DaYoung Jung, and Sarah Tallman. "It's a way of celebrating the past decade of NCI choreographers," Lynch says. Rather than the traditional audience Q&A, the evening will end with a soirée outside the theater to "go out on a high note."

The initiative's structure stayed constant over the years. Choreographers and dancers applied; the chosen artists worked together for three weeks, six days per week, three hours per day, before presenting their ballets for feedback. Lynch says she did little advertising — "it really spread by word of mouth" — and artists began reaching out from across the country. The July timing made NCI a valuable summer gig for off-season artists, while a three-year cap on dancer participation kept fresh perspectives in the studio. Choreographers, until this year's iteration, were always new.

NCI also became a networking hub. "I've seen artists go from one company to another based on the people they met at NCI," Lynch says. "I've seen dancers return as choreographers, and I've seen choreographers get hired by companies of participating dancers." She points to Richmond Ballet's current artistic director, Ma Cong, as one of the biggest success stories: a Richmond Ballet artist who performed in Cong's 2008 NCI work, French Twist, introduced him to then-director Stoner Winslett, launching Cong's ongoing relationship with the company.

Lynch cites rising costs and donor attrition among the reasons for closing. "The art form needs to keep evolving, and that's going to take different people with different ideas and visions," she says. "And different times need different things. The cost of doing NCI is going up—there's donor attrition that happens with nonprofits. I think it's time for the next generation to take on projects of their own, and do something new."

She made the decision soon after the 2025 edition's performance and has spent the months since in reflection. "I feel good about what we've done over the years, and I'm happy about all the choreographers that we've worked with, and all the dancers," she says. "It's been a true passion project. I'm looking forward to seeing this one last time."

Lynch hopes the relationships NCI fostered will continue to sustain the field. "I hope that these artists will be inspired to do something to further that community, as well," she adds. "And I say 'the dance community' at large, but the ballet community—contemporary ballet—that's where my heart has always been."