White Oak Dance Project was a

dance company A dance troupe or dance company is a group of dancers and associated personnel who work together to perform dances as a sport, spectacle or entertainment. There are many different types of dance companies, often working in different styles of dan ...

founded in 1990 by

Mikhail Baryshnikov Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Latvian-born R ...

and Mark Morris. The company took the name of the animal preservation and land plantation owned by philanthropist and Baryshnikov friend

Howard Gilman Howard Gilman (February 15, 1924 – January 3, 1998) was descendant of Isaac Gilman, who had founded the Gilman Paper Company in 1884. Biography Gilman was born and raised on Manhattan's Upper East Side. He attended Horace Mann School in the ...

. Gilman built a beautiful dance studio on his White Oak Plantation in

Yulee, Florida Yulee is a Census county division (CCD) in Nassau County, Florida, United States. The population is currently 28,798 as of April 2018. Yulee is part of the Jacksonville metropolitan area, which was home to 1,504,980 people in 2017. Today, t ...

near

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...

for the company to create its first tour. White Oak became a premier location to workshop works being created by many of the world’s leading choreographers. The company continued to tour until 2002, allowing the Foundation to concentrate on the 2004 opening of the

Baryshnikov Arts Center The Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) is a foundation and arts complex opened by Mikhail Baryshnikov in 2005 at 450 West 37th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The top three floo ...

in Manhattan. The company featured alumni of major dance companies and commissioned new pieces from Morris, Paul Taylor,

Twyla Tharp Twyla Tharp (; born July 1, 1941) is an American dancer, choreographer, and author who lives and works in New York City. In 1966 she formed the company Twyla Tharp Dance. Her work often uses classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music. Fr ...

Jerome Robbins Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television. Among his nu ...

, David Gordon and others.

References

Contemporary dance companies Dance companies in New York City 1990 establishments in Florida {{contemporary-dance-stub