Photograph by Josh Cogan
HOLLY BASS is a multidisciplinary performance and visual artist, writer and director. Her work has been presented at spaces such as the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Museums, the Seattle Art Museum, Art Basel Miami Beach (Project Miami Fair) and the South African State Theatre. Her visual art work includes photography, installation, video and performance and can be found in the collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the DC Art Bank, as well as private collections.
A Cave Canem fellow, she has published poems in numerous journals and anthologies. She studied modern dance (under Viola Farber) and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College before earning her Master’s from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. As an arts journalist early in her career, she was the first to put the term “hip hop theater” into print in American Theatre magazine.
She has received numerous grants from the DC Arts Commission and was a 2019 Red Bull Detroit artist-in-residence and a 2019 Dance/USA Artist Fellow. She is a 2020-2022 Live Feed resident artist at New York Live Arts and a 2021-22 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow. A gifted and dedicated teaching artist, she directed a year-round creative writing and performance program for adjudicated youth in DC’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services for four years as well as facilitating workshops nationally and internationally. She is currently the national director for Turnaround Arts at the Kennedy Center, a program which uses the arts strategically to transform schools facing severe inequities.
EDUCATION
Masters of Science, Journalism,
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, NY, NY
Specialization: Long-form (magazine) print journalism
Bachelor of Arts,
Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York
Concentrations: Creative Writing, Social Sciences, Contemporary Dance
SELECTED CURATED EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES
The Outwin Triennial, group exhibition, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC - April 2022
See You There, group exhibition, The Corner, curated by Ruth Noack, Washington, DC - December 2020
Moneymaker (Election Edition), twelve-hour solo performance, New York Live Arts, New York, NY - October 2020
Liberation Labs, residency and exhibition, SPACES, Cleveland, OH - August 2020
RACE: TBD, Live Feed Residency, New York Live Arts, New York, NY - January & May 2020
Resident Artist group show, exhibition and performance, Red Bull Arts Detroit, Detroit, MI - November 2019
The Black Overlay, performance series and exhibition with Sherman Fleming, DC Arts Center, Washington, DC - June 2019
Inverse Performance Art, solo performance, shared program with Ayana Evans, H.J. Miossi Art Gallery, San Luis Obispo, CA - October 2018
The Trans-Atlantic Time Traveling Company, evening-length ensemble performance, Theater Alliance, Washington, DC - July 2018
Cultural Preserves: American Stories @ NGA, community-engaged performance, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC - March 2018
The Movement, dance theater performance about human trafficking, Strong in the Broken Places, Dance Place, Washington, DC - October 2017
Diamonds, Rings and Courts: Sport Is More Than a Game, group exhibition, St. John’s University Art Gallery, Queens, NY - September 2017
Spiral/Recoil, group exhibition, curated by Kayleigh Bryant Greenwell, Delaware Contemporary Museum, Wilmington, DE - August 2017
March Madness, group exhibition, curated by Hank Willis Thomas and Adam Shopkorn, Fort Gansevoort, New York City - March 2017
It Takes A Nation, group exhibition, Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC - September 2016
RACE: Talc & Ash, ensemble performance funded by Dance USA/Doris Duke Charitable Fund, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, DC - July 2016
Funk Parade: Birth of A City, a public art activation featuring Bass’ 6-foot disco ball and a team of roller skaters from the DC region, Washington, DC - May 2016
Mixed Bag, group exhibition, curated by G.A. Gardner, Box Out, Paris, France - April 2016
Root Work, solo exhibition, curated by Jarvis DuBois, BlackRock Art Center, Germantown, MD - May 2016
Looking Back/Looking Forward: 15 Years of Millennium Arts Salon, group exhibition, Brentwood Arts Exchange, Brentwood, MD - November 2015
Implicit Bias, group exhibition, Joan Hisaoka Gallery, Washington DC - November 2015
Flock 01, commissioned performance in conjunction with the Divine Comedy exhibition, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC - May 2015
Black Space (installation and performances), Martin Luther King Memorial Library, Washington DC - January 2015
Prizm Art Fair 2014, Miami Center for Architecture and Design, Art Basel Miami - December 2014
Fete, Martha Collective, Arts on Main, Johannesburg, South Africa - December 2014
Black Space (installation and performances), (e)merge art fair, Washington DC, Juried by Ai Wei-Wei, Mika Yoshitake and Jeffreen M. Hayes - October 2014
Reprise: 40 to the Fore, group show, Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA - July 2014
Afrikadaa is The Body: A Live Editorial, group show, David Roberts Art Foundation, London, England - July 2014
Select 2014, group show, Washington Project for the Arts, Artisphere, Arlington, VA - February 2014
Revival, (e)merge art fair, Washington DC. Juried by Molly Donovan, Eric Shiner, Shinique Smith - October 2013
More than Documentation: Photography and Performance, moderated by Deborah Willis and Karen Finley, in conjunction with Radical Presence exhibition, New York University, New York, NY - September 2013
Sweet Science, solo performance, State Theatre Women’s Festival, Pretoria, South Africa - August 2013
Crunk Lessons (after Adrian Piper), Supernova International Performance Art Festival, Arlington, VA - June 2013
Spotless, duo show, Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington, DC - June 2013
Hair Apparent, group show, Athenaeum Gallery, Alexandria, VA - June 2013
Hard Work/Clean, solo performance, Lavoir Moderne Parisien, Paris, France - May 2013
Pay Purview, solo performance, Right.About.Now Festival, Amsterdam, Holland - May 2013
Performance Aftermath, video series, Artisphere, Arlington, VA - April 2013
Monument, commissioned performance, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art - March 2013
Hard Work/Clean, solo performance, MACAO centro per le arti, la cultura e la ricerca, Milan, Italy - January 2013
Pay Purview, solo performance, Project Miami Art Fair, Art Basel Miami - December 2012
Pay Purview, solo performance, Seattle Art Museum in conjunction with Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Seattle, WA - October 2012
Come Clean, performance, (e)merge art fair, Washington DC - October 2012
Campaign Re/Form, group show, Greater Reston Arts Center, Reston, VA - October 2012
Dance1, community performance for Song 1, guerilla performance at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC - May 2012
Moneymaker, seven-hour solo performance, Corcoran Gallery of Art, 30 Americans by special invitation of Mera Rubell, Washington, DC - February 2012
She Got Game, group show, Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA - January 2012
Moneymaker, audio installation and five-hour solo performance, (e)merge art fair, Washington DC - October 2011
African Futures: DC, commission, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC - March 2010
Cream, Guest curator, Mera Rubell, Washington Project for the Arts, Katzen Center, Washington, DC - January 2010
Give and Take/Da y Toma, group show, Galeria Garash, Mexico City, MX - August 2009
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Campello, F. Lennox (ed.), 100 Artists of Washington, D.C., Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2011.
Willis, Deborah (ed.), Venus 2010: They Called Her “Hottentot,” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 2010.
Derricotte, Toi and Eady, Cornelius (eds.), Gathering Ground, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.
Labaton, Vivien and Martin, Dawn Lundy (eds.), The Fire This Time: Young Activists and the New Feminism, New York: Anchor Books, 2004.
COLLECTIONS
City of Washington, DC Art Bank
Corcoran Gallery of Art
Private collections
GRANTS, AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS
Dance USA, Engaging Dance Audiences, 2015-2016
New York Live Arts, Live Feed creative residency, 2019-2021
SPACES artist residency, Cleveland, OH, 2020
Red Bull Detroit, Artist Residency, 2019
Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, 2019-2021
Dance USA, Artist Fellowship, Social Practice, 2019; Engaging Dance Audiences, 2015-2016, 2017-2018
DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities: Artist Fellowships 1996, 1999, 2003, 2012-2022; Sister Cities 2013-2016; PEF grant, 2016, 2018, 2020-22; Community Arts grant 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014; City Arts, 2008, 2009; HHCAI (Hip Hop) grant 2007, 2008, 2010
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, writing residency, July 2011
Future Aesthetics Grant, Ford Foundation/Hip Hop Theater Festival, 2008
Atlantic Center for the Arts, residency with John Jasperse, Nov. 2006
National Arts Journalism Program (NAJP) fellowship at Columbia University, 2000-2001
Cave Canem Summer Program Fellowship, 1996-1998
Provincetown Fine Arts Work Program, summer fellowship/scholarship, 1995
ARTS-RELATED WORK EXPERIENCE
National Director, Turnaround Arts, 2019-present
Provide strategic direction, manage national staff, cultivate donors and in-kind partners, support network cohesion among local programs for this national program of the Kennedy Center that works to increase access to high quality arts education in elementary schools facing historic inequities. The program currently serves 62 schools in 31 districts across 9 states with a reach of 50,000 students.
Program Director, emBOSSed Arts@YSC, 2014-2018
Designed curriculum and led a staff of four teaching artists in this year-round program which provided biweekly creative writing and performance workshops to incarcerated and detained teens at the Youth Services Center, a juvenile detention facility under DC’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.
Freelance Curator, 1998-present
Curate performance series and visual arts exhibitions such as Take It to the Bridge at the Corcoran Gallery of Art (2012-2013), Campaign Re/Form exhibiton at Greater Reston Arts Center (2012), Space Invaders at Dissident Display Gallery (2008), Capital Fringe (2006), NYC Hip Hop Theater Festival (2001-2003), JazzSpeaks at the Kennedy Center, Cave Canem @ the Studio Museum in Harlem.
Teaching Artist, 1995-present
Offer workshops in writing, performance, movement and theater to diverse communities, from children to adults, novices to professionals. Taught poetry in public schools, battered women’s shelters and community centers with WritersCorps (1995-96). Taught creative writing and magazine journalism at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, (1997-99). Taught dance and dance criticism at University of DC.