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Catwalk Institute Winter 2026 Residency:
In the Quiet of Winter, New Work Emerges
This winter at Catwalk Institute, our spaces were energized by an incredible group of artists working across film, performance, music, writing, and interdisciplinary practice. Each residency brought new ideas to life—projects evolving, collaborations forming, and creative risks taking shape in meaningful ways.
From returning alumni continuing long-term work to first-time residents diving into new directions, this season reflected Catwalk’s core mission: offering artists the time and space to focus, experiment, and grow.
As we move into spring, we’re inspired by the momentum built over the past months and excited to continue fostering a legacy of support for artists and their work.
We’re proud to share our Winter 2026 residents below.
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Annie Howell (NYU)
Writer, filmmaker, and educator developing a gothic stage musical on the opioid crisis alongside a narrative feature exploring family dynamics and hidden agendas. Her work often blends psychological tension with dark humor, creating layered stories that examine power, vulnerability, and the complexities of care.
linktr.ee/anniejhowell
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Molly Rydzel (NYU)
Playwright and screenwriter working on ChatGPT Says He Raped Me, a provocative new play examining consent, AI, and authorship. Her writing pushes into uncomfortable territory with sharp wit, interrogating how technology reshapes narrative authority and personal truth.
https://mollyrydzel.com
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Josie Bettman (Vassar)
Choreographer and performance artist continuing development of a narrative short film rooted in memory and embodiment. Her work merges movement and cinematic language, investigating how the body carries story, trauma, and transformation across time.
https://vimeo.com/user61548105
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Paulo K Tiról & Ian Miller
Composer Paulo K Tiról and music director/pianist Ian Miller collaborate on DEAR AMERICA, a musical adaptation exploring immigration, identity, and belonging. Tiról’s compositional voice—rooted in lyrical storytelling and cultural hybridity—pairs with Miller’s dynamic work as a music director, orchestrator, and performer, bringing the project to life both musically and theatrically.
Ian Miller, who previously served as music director and orchestrator for the show’s world premiere and cast recording, continues to shape its evolving sound while also advancing his own compositional work and pianistic repertoire during the residency. Together, their collaboration bridges narrative and music in a way that is both intimate and expansive.
https://www.paulophonic.com
https://musicianmiller.com/music-director/
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Rebecca Hart (NYU) & David Kornfeld
Performer and writer Rebecca Hart and composer/multi-instrumentalist David Kornfeld collaborate on submersible, a darkly funny semi-opera inspired by the 2023 Titan submersible implosion. Hart, returning to Catwalk following her 2024 Main Residency, continues shaping the libretto and theatrical framework, while Kornfeld—whose credits include Jagged Little Pill and Shucked—develops the musical language of the work.
Together, they are building an opera-adjacent piece that blends myth, humor, and sonic world-building, giving voice to both the Titan and Titanic as female characters while advancing an integrated draft of this evolving project.
rebeccahart.substack.com
www.davidkornfeld.net
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João Paulo Schlittler (NYU)
Filmmaker and researcher continuing Banana Bubble, a decades-spanning documentary on migration and memory. His work weaves archival material with personal narratives, reflecting on displacement, labor, and cultural identity.
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Jean Zimmerman (Columbia)
Author and arborist beginning a new historical novel on early American botanist Jane Colden while continuing work on her forthcoming memoir. Drawing on her deep knowledge of trees and plant life, she brings overlooked figures to life through vivid, sensory storytelling and richly researched narratives rooted in the natural world.
https://www.jeanzimmerman.com
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Marin Sardy & Danielle Ezzo
Writer Marin Sardy and interdisciplinary artist Danielle Ezzo collaborate on Psychic Telephone, a project exploring perception, belief, and image-making. Moving fluidly across text, sound, and visual media, their work investigates how meaning is constructed, distorted, and reinterpreted through acts of translation and transmission.
Blending conceptual inquiry with sensory experience, the project invites audiences into a space where intuition, miscommunication, and shared imagination shape the evolving narrative.
https://www.marinsardy.com
https://www.danielleezzo.com/
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Shona Tucker & James Michael Marshall
Writer, director, and performer Shona Tucker, Mary Riepma Ross Chair of Drama at Vassar College, joins Catwalk with writer, filmmaker, and playwright James Michael Marshall. Tucker’s work spans theatre, television, and film, including her trilogy Mississippi Mud and performances on Broadway in To Kill a Mockingbird and Death of a Salesman.
Marshall, a former professional basketball player turned filmmaker, has directed music videos, television, and film, and founded The Marshall Studio and The Luck Laboratory to support emerging artists. Together, they continue developing new narrative work across stage and screen, blending performance, storytelling, and visual media.
https://dramatists.com/dps/bios/shona-tucker
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Keika Okamoto (Columbia)
Visual artist creating new work inspired by landscapes across Japan and the Hudson Valley. Her practice reflects a sensitivity to place and atmosphere, translating fleeting environmental impressions into layered compositions.
https://www.keikaokamoto.com
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Research Mattress (NYU)
A collaborative group of artists, Alice Tang, Judy Lieff, Mohamed Ihsan, and Maria Maciak, Research Mattress explores relationality, ecological awareness, and sensory experience. During their residency, they develop Sensory Unlearnings, a series of performative and research-based works including micro-films, rituals, and a Field Atlas that gathers ecological observations and conceptual threads.
Their interdisciplinary practice challenges anthropocentric thinking and invites audiences into embodied, site-responsive experiences.
https://www.researchmattress.org/
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Nathan Butler (SAIC)
Artist developing Wound Cartographies, exploring movement, sound, and psychotherapeutic mapping. His interdisciplinary approach engages with healing, memory, and embodied spatial awareness.
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Emily Elyse Everett & Yael Karoly
Writer-performer Emily Elyse Everett and composer Yael Karoly collaborate on a folk-rock adaptation of The Scarlet Letter. Reimagining Hawthorne’s classic through a contemporary lens, their work blends theatrical storytelling with original music to explore themes of identity, shame, and public judgment.
Rooted in both performance and composition, the project brings a modern emotional immediacy to the text, using music as a driving force to reinterpret its characters and conflicts for today’s audiences.
https://www.emilyelyseeverett.com/
https://yaelkaroly.com
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Durra Leung (NYU)
Composer and writer continuing his musical trilogy exploring identity, queerness, and immigrant experience. His work blends humor, vulnerability, and cultural insight across theatrical and musical forms.
https://www.durraleung.com
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Chloe Sarbib
A Distinct Voice in Contemporary Independent Cinema
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Chloe Sarbib (Columbia)
American and French-Algerian filmmaker who attended Catwalk Institute’s Winter 2026 residency, where she continued developing her work exploring identity, contradiction, and the emotional complexity of human relationships. Her films are known for their psychological depth and nuanced storytelling, often examining how personal histories intersect with larger cultural forces.
Supported by Sundance, Tribeca/Chanel’s Through Her Lens, Cine Qua Non, and the Saltonstall Foundation, her work has screened at major international festivals. Working across writing, directing, and translation, Sarbib creates films that are both intimate and formally refined—positioning her as a compelling voice in contemporary independent cinema.
Discover more at https://www.chloesarbib.com/
| Resonance Returns — Summer at Catwalk | |
Coinciding with Upstate Art Weekend (July 18–21, 2026), Catwalk Institute is pleased to announce the upcoming edition of Resonance—a dynamic gathering of artists working across disciplines to share new work in development and performance.
This year’s cohort has been carefully selected, bringing together a group of artists whose practices reflect the urgency, experimentation, and cross-disciplinary spirit that define Catwalk. We look forward to introducing this year’s participants in the coming weeks.
Stay tuned for the full lineup and event details.
| | Sunrise from Kaaterskill Clove, by Sanford Robinson Gifford, 1866. A luminous example of Hudson River School painting, capturing the atmospheric depth and spiritual grandeur of the Catskill Mountains. | | |
Painted in 1866, captures the luminous atmosphere and spiritual grandeur of the Catskill Mountains—an iconic subject for Hudson River School artists.
In the mid-19th century, the Catskills became a defining landscape for American art, as painters sought to capture not just scenery, but a sense of the sublime. Artists like Gifford, Thomas Cole, and Frederic Church transformed the region into a visual language of light, atmosphere, and transcendence.
Travelers and artists alike were drawn to sites such as Kaaterskill Falls and the surrounding clove, where dramatic elevation and shifting weather created ever-changing conditions. These works helped establish the Catskills as both a cultural and spiritual destination—where nature was experienced as something vast, reflective, and deeply human.
Today, Catwalk Institute continues this tradition—inviting artists to engage with place, perception, and the evolving relationship between landscape and creative practice.
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