The prestigious fellowship recognizes USC Kaufman faculty members for their influential contributions to choreography.

By USC Kaufman Staff

A pair of USC Kaufman faculty members have been named 2026 Guggenheim Fellows. The honors are awarded annually by the Guggenheim Foundation to recognize and support “exceptional individuals in pursuit of scholarship in any field of knowledge and creation in any art form under the freest possible conditions.”

Kyle Abraham, the Claude and Alfred Mann Endowed Professor of Dance, and Amy O’Neal, a lecturer in dance history, hip-hop and composition, are two of the 223 fellows in the 2026 class, which includes artists, scientists and scholars in 55 distinct fields. Fellows were selected through a rigorous application and peer-review process from a pool of nearly 5,000 candidates. Members of the 2026 class were chosen based on both prior career achievement and exceptional promise. Both Abraham and O’Neal were selected for their notable work in choreography.

USC Kaufman Guggenheim Fellow Kyle Abraham

Known for his innovation as a choreographer, dancer and artistic director, Abraham is the founder of the groundbreaking Brooklyn-based dance company A.I.M. He joined the USC Kaufman faculty in fall 2021. In addition to being named a Guggenheim Fellow, Abraham has received several other prestigious honors. In 2013, he was named a MacArthur Fellow by the MacArthur Foundation, which noted his work as “a choreographer and dancer probing the relationship between identity and personal history through a unique hybrid of traditional and vernacular dance styles that speaks to a new generation of dancers and audiences.”

His work has been shared throughout the world, including at notable venues in the United States, from New York City Center to Lincoln Center to Brooklyn Academy of Music to The Joyce Theater.

Abraham received a Princess Grace Award for choreography in 2010 and a Princess Grace Statue Award in 2018. In 2019, he received a Bessie Award for exceptional dance and performance in his original production “The Radio Show.” In 2012, Abraham was a Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award recipient and Ford Fellow. The following year, he served as a choreographic contributor for Beyoncé’s British Vogue cover shoot. Among many other career accolades, he was a 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award recipient. Most recently, in May 2026, Abraham received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from his undergraduate alma mater, Purchase College, State University of New York.

USC Kaufman Guggenheim Fellow Amy O’Neal

After more than two decades as a dancer, choreographer and dance educator in Seattle, O’Neal relocated to Los Angeles in 2016. Two years later, she joined the USC Kaufman faculty, where she teaches hip-hop, house and hybrid hip-hop contemporary and improvisation techniques, and lectures on Black social dance history, practices and media literacy.

O’Neal’s passion and research meet at the intersection of the hip-hop, house and contemporary dance communities, where she explores the “nuances and layers of hybridized movement vocabularies.” Her evening-length work “Opposing Forces” toured from 2014 to 2017, and a documentary about the show, “How It Feels,” premiered in 2019.

As a guest practitioner of Black dance culture, O’Neal has participated in experimental all-styles battles and house dance battles, co-organized and co-produced Seattle House Dance Project, and developed hip-hop curriculum for the University of Washington. Since 2019, she has been creating experimental dance work centered on the people and practices of hip-hop and house culture while directly addressing race, gender and the nature of innovation.

Prior to being named a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow, O’Neal received grants from Creative Capital, National Performance Network, National Dance Project, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Art and 4Culture. She is a two-time Artist Trust Fellow, DanceWEB Vienna scholar and Herb Alpert Award nominee. In 2014, she received the inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award from Cornish College of the Arts, where she earned her BFA.

According to Guggenheim President Edward Hirsch, the 2026 fellows represent the world’s best thinkers, innovators and creators in art, science and scholarship. “As the Foundation enters its second century and looks to the future,” Hirsch said, “I feel confident that this new class of 223 individuals will do bold and inspiring work, undaunted by the challenges ahead. We are honored to support their visionary contributions.”