Residency Reflection: Kierah King

 

Chicago artist Kierah King did a virtual residency with the Dance Center in the fall of 2020. This blog post features just a few of the projects that King helped organize and create during that time.

With this residency my goal was to involve, connect, and create with as many artists as possible through surveys, events, and different forms of digital connection.

Projects made possible through Virtual Residency!

  • Show Up Show out Survey

  • Don’t Speak - MOVE

  • CYPHER4CHANGE

  • Black Woman, Why? Dance Film

  • Dance Center Artist Collective

Don’t Speak - MOVE

Held on Friday, September 25, 2020, the goal of this event was to connect in space as movers and examine how our own bodies can move and tune into the natural rhythm and flow of what surrounds us. In other words - listening to nature, the sounds of downtown, the heavy breathing, the steps of dancers, or even yourself through headphones and setting your own tone.

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CYPHER4CHANGE

CYPHER4CHANGE is an anti-capitalist, pro-artist, active movement that does not center itself around any particular system of power. Rather, we are a collective of energy and people attempting to further a narrative of unity and community. We believe in giving power back to the artist to prevent the birth of cognoscente as simple products or consumers. CYPHER4CHANGE is a demonstration of art that is active and happening; in the now and not the when. It took place on Friday, September 18, 2020 in Humboldt Park.

Black Woman, Why?

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This piece started out as a self-reflection and discovery of myself as an individual in America who identifies as a Black Bi-racial Femme and what that means.

I had kept thinking of the where the term ghettofabulous came from and the need to “look over my shoulder” as my father always taught me to check my six and defend myself in ways I would never know if I needed or not.

I started diving into different standards of beauty created against black women.

I wanted to not only create a visual for the narrative of my own life, but for all of the black women around me. Without dismissing or undermining any individual or my own experiences, while being open and empathetic for the trials and tribulations of being here and being a Black Women in the 21st century.

 

Kierah King graduated from Columbia College Chicago in May 2020, receiving her BFA in Dance with a Minor in Black World Studies. Kierah was homeschooled in Hartford, CT where she learned the power of service, education, and creativity as central to life.

Kierah advanced her studies at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts where she received her Arts Diploma, and then on to Columbia College Chicago where her passion for social justice, activism, and community building came through in different forms of choreographic work. Kierah has presented choreographic work at the Centre National de la Danse in Pantin, France in 2019. 

She premiered HA(B*tch)ually on the Dance Center stage in 2019 and performed this work again in Kalamazoo, Michigan for the American College Dance Association. Kierah is currently working as a Co-MISSION Artist in Residence at Links Hall where she is developing her new digital work: “Rec(Creational) Use Only,” premiering in May 2021.