Alum Stephanie García Named 2025 Guggenheim Fellow
From García’s 2023 work Ofrenda. Photo by Winston Inoway.
Photo by Todd Collins
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has named School of Dance Associate Instructor and alum (MFA ‘23) Stephanie García in its centennial class of Guggenheim Fellows.
The Guggenheim Fellowship is one of the most prestigious fellowships in the academic and artistic worlds. The Guggenheim Memorial Foundation states that these fellowships offer “support to exceptional individuals in pursuit of scholarship in any field of knowledge and creation in any art form, under the freest possible conditions.” The fellowships are awarded to individuals who “have demonstrated exceptional ability in their chosen field and exhibit great promise in their future endeavors.”
García received this amazing news during Corriente Alterna, a performing arts series presented by García’s arts advocacy organization, PROArtes México. With the art series and the end of the semester, García said, “I have not had the time to let it settle yet… I am overwhelmed in a good way.”
As a fellow in Choreography, García joins a rank of Guggenheim Fellows that include such names as Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, Bebe Miller, Steven Paxton, Miguel Gutierrez, and many others. “Sharing this distinction with creators that are part of the national and, many times, international dance landscape and history… thinking of seeing my name listed beside these iconic dance-makers blows my mind,” said García. Additionally, García is the third member of the U School of Dance community to win a fellowship, after Distinguished Alumni Stephen Koplowitz and Distinguished Professor Ellen Bromberg.
From García’s 2025 work Untitled 1 (A/P). Photo by Emily Muñoz.
García is a multi-awarded, extremely accomplished artist, but, she says, “migrating to the United States after 16 years in the Mexican art scene has felt like starting from scratch and at times [been] overwhelming.” She continued, “I am the daughter of two untiring working-class parents. I found the arts by accident; my life was not designed to be an artist. With this context, you can only imagine what it means to see my name in a list that will not go away even when I die.”
Becoming a Guggenheim Fellow is another step in García’s journey to contribute to decolonizing art and bringing recognition to Mexican art and artists. She is the third Mexican artist and first woman Mexican artist to receive a fellowship in the Choreography field. While this is an achievement, it is still indicative of a lack of representation of Mexican and Latin-American artists in dance and choreography in international dance professional settings.
“Since I started working in the dance field in Mexico, I noticed the weighted influence of colonialism in dance,” said García. “It is in everything— how bodies supposedly must look, the myth of considering classical dance as ‘foundational,’ looking at dance expressions from stronger economies as an aspiration. I have always felt the contributions of Mexican dance-makers are undervalued.”
From García’s 2023 work Borderlands. Photo by Peter Hay.
With the announcement of the 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships, Edward Hirsch, an award-winning poet, and President of the Guggenheim Foundation, stated, “At a time when intellectual life is under attack, the Guggenheim Fellowship celebrates a century of support for the lives and work of visionary scientists, scholars, writers, and artists. We believe that these creative thinkers can take on the challenges we all face today and guide our society towards a better and more hopeful future.”
In being awarded this fellowship, García will have the resources to work toward “a better and more hopeful future” herself.
“Because of the difficult times we are living in right now, this award lands in a very special moment where not only my creative research but my advocacy work is focused on highlighting the amazing and unique talent that Mexican and Mexican descent contemporary art contributions offer to the world,” said García. “Mexican people are creative, resilient, relentless, kind, generous, gentle, and by receiving this distinction, I honor not only my ancestors, but I also have the chance to amend harmful stereotypes systematically preserved. My story is and can be the story of any other brown girl, woman, and/or Mexican/Latin American.”
Congratulations, Stephanie García, and thank you for your contributions to the School of Dance and to the field.