Illinois dance professor Cynthia Oliver wins 2026 Knight Choreography Prize
The prize carries $30,000 in cash and $20,000 in program support over two years.
CHAMPAIGN - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign dance professor Cynthia Oliver has received the 2026 Knight Choreography Prize, the university's News Bureau announced Tuesday. The prize, given by the National Center for Choreography-Akron and funded by the Knight Foundation, comes with $30,000 in unrestricted cash and $20,000 in program support over two years.
According to the announcement, the award honors a living choreographer's body of work, and a selection committee chooses the winner from five finalists drawn from nominations by people in the dance field. "For Cynthia, innovation is not just a trending term of the moment but an embodied practice," said Christy Bolingbroke, executive/artistic director of NCCAkron.
Oliver's newest work, the three-part dance piece "Turn. Turning. TURNT.," was presented at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on Oct. 2-3 and is scheduled at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Nov. 4-7. The university says she plans to use the cash for that project's costs, including dancers' fees, and the program support to finish a memoir on choreography.
Source: University of Illinois News Bureau, "Illinois dance professor, choreographer awarded Knight Choreography Prize," Oct. 13, 2026 (https://news.illinois.edu/illinois-dance-professor-choreographer-awarded-knight-choreography-prize/).