Photograph by Josh Cogan
HOLLY BASS is a multidisciplinary performance artist, choreographer and writer whose work explores themes of American history, generational labor and liberation. Her mediums include dance, theater, poetry, photography, installation, video and performance. Her work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
She is the 2025-2026 Roman J. Witt Visiting Artist at the University of Michigan, a joint program of the Stamps School of Art and Design and University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). She performed at the 2022 Venice Biennale as part of Loophole of Retreat, Simone Leigh’s special project for the U.S. Pavilion. She contributes book reviews to the “New York Times” and was the first journalist to put the term “hip hop theater” into print in a 1999 article for “American Theatre” magazine. From 2014-2019, she directed an arts program for adjudicated teens in DC’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. From 2019-2025, she was the National Director for Turnaround Arts at the Kennedy Center, a program to increase arts access in under-resourced elementary and middle schools.
She has been recognized with awards for multiple art forms. She received a 2024 Washington Award for art and social justice. She is a 2022 MAP Fund recipient for theater, a 2020 Live Feed Resident Artist at New York Live Arts for choreography and dance and a 2021–22 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow. She studied modern dance under Viola Farber and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College before earning her Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
download a pdf of Holly's full-length CV
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
RECENT CURATED EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES
Black Performance Archive, solo performance in a shared program, Wexner Arts Center, Columbus, OH - February 2025
Get In The Game, group show, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco - October 2024A
Toast to the Boogie, (as Double Rainbow: Future Archives), group show, DC Arts Commission I Street gallery, Washington DC - July 2024
The Trans-Atlantic Time Traveling Company, evening-length ensemble performance, playwright/co-director, Theater Alliance, Washington, DC - Feb 2024
PRISMMMS (Double Rainbow: Future Archives), collaboration with Maps Glover, Transformer, Washington DC - January 2022
between a rock and a soft place, Mary B. Howard invitational group exhibition, Tephra ICA, Reston, VA - December 2022
Cosmic Garden (Double Rainbow: Future Archives), collaboration with Maps Glover, Cultural DC, Washington DC - November 2022
American Woman: Venice Edition, solo performance, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, Loophole of Retreat by invitation of Simone Leigh - October 2022
Men of Change, Smithsonian SITES touring exhibition, Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts & Culture, Charlotte, NC - October 2022
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
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, 2019-2025
Led team of six staffers, 28 local associates and over 60 celebrity ambassadors for this national art education program created in 2011 by the Obama administration and currently based at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Turnaround Arts works with schools and communities to strategically use the arts as a transformative agent to develop anti-racist schools and promote culturally responsive teaching. Worked with over 70 schools in multiple states and 30+ school districts ranging from major urban centers to rural Indigenous communities with an annual budget of $2.1 million.
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.