Silvana Cardell is awarded 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship

On April 7, 2022, the Board of Trustees of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation approved the awarding of Guggenheim Fellowships to a diverse group of 180 exceptional individuals. Chosen from a rigorous application and peer review process out of almost 2500 applicants, these successful applicants were appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.

Amongst the awardees was Philadelphia’s Silvana Cardell, Choreographer; Director, Cardell Dance Theater; and Associate Professor, Department of Dance, Georgian Court University.

“Now that the past two years are hopefully behind all of us, it is a special joy to celebrate the Guggenheim Foundation’s new class of Fellows,” said Edward Hirsch, President of the Guggenheim Foundation and 1985 Fellow in Poetry. “This year marks the Foundation’s 97th annual Fellowship competition. Our long experience tells us what an impact these annual grants will have to change people’s lives. The work supported by the Foundation will aid in our collective effort to better understand the new world we’re in, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going. It is an honor for the Foundation to help the Fellows carry out their visionary work.”

Since its establishment, the Foundation has granted nearly $400 million in Fellowships to over 18,000 individuals, among whom are more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of all the national academies, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award, and other internationally recognized honors. The great range of fields of study is a unique characteristic of the Fellowship program.

Cardell holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from The University of the Arts and a Master of Fine Arts, in Choreography from Temple University. Since 2009, she has been Georgian Court University Dance Program Director and Associate Professor. She is also the Founder and Artistic Director of Cardell Dance Theater.

Passionately committed to equity, diversity, inclusion and anti-racist dance practices, she creates performances that challenge systemic oppression.   

Since 1990,  Silvana has created and presented work in her native Argentina, the US, and internationally. She has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, grants and awards. 

In Argentina, she has received  Premio Fundación Antorchas 2001, Instituto Nacional de Teatro, Secretaria de Cultura de la Ciudad, Red Latinoamericana de Productores de Danza y Teatro, Teatro General San Martin, Presidente Alvear, and Teatro de las Provincias.

In the United States, her work has been funded by Swarthmore College Project, The University of the Arts, Georgian Court University Summer Research Grant, The Pew Center for the Arts & Heritage Project grant and the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Mid Atlantic Foundation for Arts, and New England Foundation for the Arts, National Dance Project.

Cardell’s work has been commissioned by Group Motion, where she has been a dancer and Manfred Fishbeck’s collaborator  and company co-director from 2004 to 2007. Her work has been  presented at The University of the Arts, Arts Bank, Swarthmore College, Harold Prince Theater at the Annenberg Center of the Performing Arts, Georgian Court University, Mt. Vernon Dance Space, New Festival’s Dance House, New Festival, and Christ Church Neighborhood House, Performed at La Mama, in New York, Black Mountain Museum & Arts Center, London 22, Asheville, North Carolina, The Ferst Center in Atlanta, The Dance Complex in Massachusetts, at EDANCO, Dance Festival, Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo.

Cardell has been a choreographer in five plays directed by  Blanka Zizka’s at Wilma Theater productions.

As an independent artist, a significant part of her artistic practice resides in the university setting where she integrates the arts into the curriculum building audiences on campuses. She trains and educates the new generation of dancers and has been a guest choreographer and a lecturer at Kent State University, Swarthmore College, Universidad de Buenos Aires, and The University of the Arts, among others. Currently she is the Chair of the Dance Program at Georgian Court University, where she has mentored both faculty and students, a new generation of dancer artists who have gone on to professional careers in this field.