Molly Lieber was driving through New York City when she learned that she was selected as a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow. Her longtime collaborator Eleanor Smith called with news that they were chosen, together, from a pool of nearly 5,000 applicants.
“I actually pulled over the car,” she said. “I was so excited. I really wasn’t expecting it.”
Lieber, who earned her Master of Fine Arts in Dance in 2024, is among this year’s recipients of the prestigious fellowship awarded by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The honor recognizes and supports scholars and artists as they engage in research across any field of knowledge or creative discipline.
For Lieber, the recognition is also a celebration of collaboration. She and artistic partner Eleanor Smith have created performance work together for nearly 20 years.
The pair’s Guggenheim proposal centers on performance installations that use mirrors within natural environments such as parks and botanical gardens.
Through these immersive experiences, Lieber and Smith explore themes of embodiment, visibility and agency, inviting viewers to reconsider how women and femme identities are seen and how they see themselves.
“We use a lot of mirroring in performance work because it’s sort of like a mirrored gaze,” Lieber explained. “A passerby would see the performer looking at themselves, seeing you through looking at themselves. It sort of flips the whole old-school male gaze.”
Finding the language for her work
While the Guggenheim Fellowship recognizes Lieber’s ongoing artistic practice, she credits her experience at UWM with helping her better articulate the ideas behind that work.
Having spent years creating performances, teaching and working in healthcare, Lieber returned to graduate school seeking a deeper understanding of the theoretical foundations informing her artistic practice.
“It made me understand a lot about what it is that I’m doing as an artist,” Lieber said about researching and writing her MFA thesis. “I had much more language at my fingertips and understanding of where that language is coming from.”
Lieber said the opportunity to engage seriously with feminist theory transformed not only how she approached making art, but also how she thought about teaching and her role in the world.
“I was able to put the theory together with the work I was doing in the hospital and then with the performance work,” she said. “It was really helpful to me to make those overlaps and to be supported in defining them.”
Making graduate education possible
Support extended beyond the classroom. As a mother of young children living and working in New York, Lieber said the Dance MFA’s low-residency structure, fellowship support and family-friendly environment made graduate study attainable.
“They really make it possible,” she said. “It’s in the summer. I brought my kids, and they were very supportive about having a family.”
Lieber also reflected on the impact of the faculty mentors who encouraged her intellectual curiosity and artistic growth.
“Maria was wonderful,” she said about dance professor Maria Gillespie, who served as her MFA advisor. “She helped me realize what feminist theory I wanted to look into and how it overlapped with somatics and dance.”
Lieber recalled faculty creating an environment where rigorous artistic inquiry and open dialogue could coexist. Where artists from around the country converge for six weeks to learn together and from each other.
“They create these scenarios where you feel comfortable. And it’s not so precious that you can’t talk about it,” Lieber said. “But it’s also important enough that you should be working on it and getting an MFA in it and continuing it for your life.”
Alongside her Dance MFA, Lieber completed a graduate certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies, again with ample support from faculty. Xin Huang, Lieber’s certificate advisor, made it possible to earn the certificate despite being a low-residency student.
The power of collaboration
Today, Lieber teaches dance and women’s and gender studies at Queens College while continuing her artistic practice with Smith. The Guggenheim Fellowship offers both affirmation and opportunity.
“That’s the thing with getting a Guggenheim,” she said. “You’re suddenly affirmed in what you’re doing.”
For students and emerging artists, Lieber encourages collaboration over competition.
“Collaboration is such an amazing thing,” she said. “Sometimes the best ideas are somewhere in the mix of communicating with somebody.”
As she looks ahead to the work the fellowship will make possible, Lieber remains committed to the same values that have shaped her career: dialogue, experimentation and the belief that art can help people see familiar ideas in new ways.
“I continue to be very interested in that,” she said. “You twist the image, and somebody sees something in a new light.”
Story by Oliver J. Johnson