Dancer/Choreographer Benjamin Millepied is the founder and Artistic Director of L.A. Dance Project (LADP) which was founded in 2012 as a contemporary dance company dedicated to artistic innovation and excellence. In 2017, LADP opened its own studio and performance space in Los Angeles.
Part of that mission includes LAUNCH: LA, a residency program open to early-career Los Angeles-based dance-centric artists who receive studio space to create and rehearse, financial support to cover lighting and production as well as a stipend for the artists. The residency process includes open rehearsals followed by Q&As with the audience and the artists and four fully produced shared-bill performances at LADP’s theater.
The application deadline for dance makers to apply for LAUNCH: LA 2026 is rapidly approaching. Application MUST be submitted by Thursday, July 10th at 11:59 pm PDT. See more eligibility details below.
Megan Paradowski in rehearsal for her work “SIMULACRA” – LAUNCH: LA 2025 – Photo by Skye Schmidt Varga.
Rachelle Rafailedes Mucha is LADPs Director of Artist Residency Program and a former dancer, Rehearsal Director and Teacher who performed with LADP, was part of the artistic and administrative team that initiated LAUNCH: LA in 2021 during the COVID pandemic. Mucha graciously agreed to an interview with me on Zoom.
Mucha highlighted Benjamin Millepied’s interest in championing emerging artists. When he opened the LADP’s studio and performance space, Mucha said Millepied wanted the space to be a hub where non‐affiliated artists could come to create, and a few process‐based residency programs did occur between 2017 and 2021. These residencies were less formalized, and each lasted only one week.
As the city emerged from from the pandemic, Millepied, Mucha and others recognized Los Angeles dance artists needed deeper, more sustainable support, and they began exploring better ways to organize LADP’s resources to strengthen their local dance community.
LAUNCH: LA 2025 – Rosalynde LeBlanc in rehearsal for “WOMANLAND” – Photo by Skye Schmidt Varga.
“The company itself (LADP) works with mid-career to established choreographers but we wanted to help those artists who need to get their foot in the door and make that jump into getting their work seen by more people,” Mucha said. “So LAUNCH: LA was born with the idea that this was going to be for Los Angeles based, emerging choreographers only.”
This kind of support was and is still greatly needed. Producing a dance concert is very expensive when attempting to pay dancers, find and rent a space or theater to present the work, and locate and pay musicians, lighting designers, costume designers, and technical crew.
With the resources already at LADP and much needed by emerging artists, Mucha explained, “It just made sense to produce all the way from an artist’s idea through to the premiere.”
Megan Paradowski’s”SIMULACRA” – LAUNCH: LA 2025 – Photo by Skye Schmidt Varga.
Funding support for artists has always been difficult but in today’s environment, that funding has diminished even further. Everyone at LADP wants LAUNCH: LA to support artists through every stage of the creative process and to ensure that their presence and commitment remain steady.
There is an open call for applications happening as I write this article. Applicants are asked to provide a resume, project description, statement of intent for the residency, a proposed budget, and samples of their work. Participating artists receive a stipend, so LADP wants to know how they will apply this money to their production.
The selection committee consists of Artistic Director, Benjamin Millepied, Associate Artistic Director Sebastien Marcovici, and Rachelle Rafailedes Mucha. Each review the applications separately before discussing as a group. The ultimate decision about who the two finalists are lies with Millepied.
During the three-week residency dance artists from LADPs extended community sit in on rehearsals to offer feedback. Past contributors include Artists Janie Taylor, Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber.
SIMULACRA by Megan Paradowski – Photo by Skye Schmidt Varga for L.A. Dance Project LAUNCH: LA 2025.
Mucha said that often the dance artists will “take the reins” and run the Q&A sessions themselves even though there is always LADP staff there to help facilitate the event.
Former LAUNCH:LA resident artists include: Taliha Abdiel (2022), DaEun Jung (2022), Mike Tyus and Luca Renzi (2023), Megan Doheny (2023), Jamal Kamau (2024), JA Collective (2024), Kroeger and Sagadencky (2024), Julia Eichten and Kevin Zambrano (2024), Megan Paradowski (2025), and Rosalynde LeBlanc (2025).
LAUNCH:LA functions as an annual residency program, and while it has typically occurred once per year, LADP managed to run it twice in a single season.The
organization hopes to expand it. As always, its future depends on funding. For 2026, that funding comes from the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) and the Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine Kaye Foundation, a private philanthropic organization based in Garden City, NY.
I asked Mucha to describe how important LAUNCH: LA is and what it provides for the dance makers who take part in these residencies.
Simulacra Megan Paradowski – Photo by Skye Schmidt Varga for L.A. Dance Project, LAUNCH LA 2025
“I want people to understand that the environment is super supportive. We try to say yes as much as we can to make their vision come true. So no dream is too big,” Mucha said. “We’ll tell you if it gets there, but we really want the artist to make the work they’ve been dreaming of making that has been stopped by these logistical barriers, financial barriers, and that kind of thing. We just want to make it happen and coming into our space, it’s yours. You feel welcome, you can use our kitchen, and you can use our office. It’s your place for 3 weeks, and hopefully beyond where you don’t have to worry about those stressors of making a dance. Your job is to come here and be creative and fail, if you have to fail, and then try again. We really just want to support the vision and have it feel like a place where you don’t have to think ‘how am I going to get people in the door? How am I going to pay my collaborators.”
Everyone at LADP wishes that they had more funds to pay these artists what they are truly worth, but they try to at least to provide something to help in that effort. “I think it’s just a time to take it from idea to the stage and we try to make it as full an experience as possible.” Mucha added. “We offer LADP staff for conversations on the administrative side of dance making, fundraising, marketing, legal contract, technical writer, etc. We are there for them to ask questions and support them in all aspects, not just what happens on stage.”
SIMULACRA Megan Paradowski – Photo by Skye Schmidt Varga for L.A. Dance Project, LAUNCH LA 2025.
Mucha went on to say that LADP wants these artists to be able to continue their career and possibly show the work that they made during their residency again in the future. Indeed, over 50% of them have done so.
“It’s not just a onetime thing where it happens and then it’s over, but you’re be set up to be able to keep making those connections,” she said. “We provide documentation like archival video footage of the performances, which they can use for grants and to reach out to presenters. We also have photos that are captured with dynamic angles and teasers that we use, and it’s all given to them to use at their will moving forward.”
Mucha also stressed that the LAUNCH: LA residency program is open to any dance style, not just that of what LADP presents. It can be Hip-hop or a fusion like how choreographer DaEun Jung combined traditional Korean folk dance with contemporary dance.
“We really want to see the diversity and the breadth of work being done in Los Angeles,” she said. “I really worry that some people think, ‘Oh, it’s L.A. Dance Project,’ that they think it’s this kind of dance. But really, we want to see applications from all kinds of dance.”
I also had the opportunity to speak with a wonderful dancer, performer and choreographer, Rosalynde LeBlanc, who was one of the two artists to participate in LAUNCH: LA 2025. She presented a piece titled “WOMANLAND” that truly impressed me. I asked her to describe her experience with the residence.
“My experience was excellent,” LeBlanc began. “One of the things that made it such a great choreographic residency is how much support LADP provided – and I don’t want to discount the simple response of yes, ‘we can make it happen,’ as that goes a long way when an artist is in the creative process and someone says, ‘We can make it happen.’ – on the technical side and the production side it was full of yeses!”
LeBlanc described how, even when things became more complicated and might involve extra work on their part, or might potentially damage something, LADP set about to meet her in the middle and figure out a way to make everything work.
LAUNCH: LA 2025 – Rosalynde LeBlanc’s “WOMANLAND” – Photo by Skye Schmidt Varga.
She confirmed Mucha’s description of how LADP provides the artists with resources. “Everything, not just their space, but microwave, refrigerator, foot tape! While you’re there, anything that they have, you can use or partake of,” Le Blanc said. “It takes down a stress level that you don’t even realize that you carry when you go into a residency and they are like, ‘You can’t use the microwave.’ You come home when you come to LADP.”
It was also LeBlanc’s access to LADP’s network that made the experience so great. “Their advertising, their sharing of the open rehearsal period that cultivated an interest in your work; totally opened me up to a different audience that I probably never would have been able to access had I not done the residency.”
LeBlanc said that she is still meeting people who remark that they saw WOMANLAND last year at LADP. LADP’s name is known internationally so there is a prestige of having been one of only two dance makers to be selected by Millepied and his team to be part of LAUNCH: LA 2025 residency. “That carries a lot of name recognition and reputation with it,” she said.
LAUNCH: LA 2025 – Rosalynde LeBlanc’s “WOMANLAND” – Photo by Skye Schmidt Varga.
When asked if being selected to participate in the residency has helped with getting grants, LeBlanc said that she is still waiting to hear back from several grants that she has applied for, including the National Dance Project Award . “I feel that If I do get that, LADP will have a lot to do with it because you have to name organizational partners and to be able to say that LADP is one, is a big game changer.” LeBlanc said that she would let me know if she received the NDP Award.
A few more details about the LAUNCH: LA application
LAUNCH:LA Residency LAUNCH:LA supports early-career, LA-based dance-centric artists by removing the financial and logistical barriers of making new work. The residency provides space, time, funding, and a platform for artists to create and premiere original projects. It’s open to all backgrounds and disciplines, with priority for artists from historically underrepresented groups.
Residency Support
- Three weeks of rehearsal space in LADP’s DTLA studios
- $3,000 artist stipend
- $2,750 production stipend (including LAUNCH:LA lighting designer)
- Open rehearsals and Q&As with feedback from LADP-affiliated creators
- Four fully produced shared-bill performances at LADP’s theater
- Support for interdisciplinary projects (dance + tech, visual art, music, etc.)
Eligibility Not eligible: artists currently enrolled full-time in college or university dance programs.
Deadline Applications close July 10, 2026 at 11:59pm PDT.
For more detailed information on what is required for submitted applications, please click HERE.
To learn more about L.A. Dance Project, please visit their website.
Written by Jeff Slayton for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: L.A. Dance Project – Megan Paradowski in rehearsal for LAUNCH: LA 2025 – Photo by Skye Schmidt Varga.
