eni artist collective is a hybrid, dance-centered arts organization, functioning between a production company and creative agency. eni works to create and produce live events (performance, education, outreach) and simultaneously connect its supported artists to opportunities within the wider community.
Established in 2025 by co-founders and directors, Nicholas LaMaina and Ekko Greenbaum, eni was born in Brooklyn, New York out of necessity. Facing a scarcity of opportunity, community, and nationwide support for the arts, eni’s founding members recognized the urgency of creation and launched their first self-produced show, eni 01, representing the work of thirty-three dance artists and collaborators alongside the official establishment of eni as a non-profit.
As eni took form as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, many of our artists took on administrative and board roles. The artist is at the center of our mission; eni is built by its community and for its community. With honesty and urgency, the collective emerges with a belief that movement can bring people back into their bodies and back to each other.
co-founders Greenbaum & LaMaina, pictured where they first met at Bak Middle School of the Arts in South Florida, 2016
later pictured at the Boston Conservatory, 2021
At eni, we work to fight the stagnation of dance, reintegrate movement with its sister arts, and reactivate the senses for artist and audience alike. We exist as a challenge to euro-centric ideologies, rigid traditionalism, and the capitalist view of creation for trend and profit. We create and we dance to express and to share. As an emerging dance-arts organization, we work alongside our form’s evolution and history to promote movement as a universal, essential, and irreplaceable tool.
The current and evolving structure of our society has caused a shift away from the body, isolating us from human connection and invention. Too often, dance is reduced to a performative display of control, ownership, and virtuosity for elite audiences. We choose a different path. Dance is essential for all, as it is the most accessible form of embodiment, awareness, expression. We rewrite the narrative; dance is inviting and accepting, not intimidating. It is not simply the answer to our modern troubles, but a bridge to agency, empathy, and a heightened, human frequency that synthetic technologies cannot match. Movement is the heart's energy.
eni will always exist to provide a platform for palpable and honest artists with a curiosity to research through movement. We support our artists through creation process and performance, access to resources like studio space and open classes, and equitable pay, while simultaneously sharing the power of dance with our broader community through performance, education, and outreach programs.
want to help us keep dance alive? support us by donating or emailing us about volunteer opportunities.
eni artist collective founding members bowing at the premiere of their inaugural show, eni 01, 2026