Raja Feather Kelly | |
---|---|
Born | 1986or1987(age 36–37) [1] |
Nationality | American |
Education | Connecticut College (BA) |
Known for | Choreography |
Awards | New York Live Arts (2019) [1] SDCF Commission Award (2019) [2] [3] Randjelovic-Stryker Award (2019) [4] Harkness Promise Award (2018) [5]
ContentsDance Web Scholar (2009) [6] National Dance Project Production Grant, 2019 [7] |
Website | thefeath3rtheory |
Raja Feather Kelly is an American dancer and choreographer based in Brooklyn who is notable for his "radical downtown surrealist" productions which combine "pop and queer culture". [8] [9] He has choreographed numerous theatrical productions, including Fairview and A Strange Loop . [8] He is the artistic director of his dance company called The Feath3r Theory, [1] and he serves as the artistic director of the New Brooklyn Theatre. [4]
Kelly grew up in Fort Hood, Texas and later in Long Branch, New Jersey, [8] where he graduated from Long Branch High School and was selected to participate in the theater program of the Governor's School of the Arts. [10] He attended Connecticut College where he studied English and poetry and dance, graduating in 2009. [8] [11]
Reviewer Sara Aridi in The New York Times wrote that "one leaves a performance of Raja's infected by his curiosity, love of craft and just plain outrageousness." [1] His choreography was described in Vogue magazine as combining social dance with the black vernacular. [12] Critic Brian Schaefer in The New York Times wrote that Kelly's choreography has a "lighter touch, a flirty wink and a queer sensibility" that "treats pop culture as a kind of religion itself." [13] A prime influence of Kelly in his approach to dance was the American visual and pop artist Andy Warhol. [6] [13] Kelly has raised money for dance production by hosting telethons out of his apartment. [14]
In 2020, Kelly directed and choreographed an Off-Broadway production of We're Gonna Die by Young Jean Lee. It opened in Second Stage Theater's Tony Kiser Theater on February 4 and was scheduled to run through March 22. [15]
Renée Marcelle "Zizi" Jeanmaire was a French ballet dancer, actress and singer. She became famous in the 1950s after playing the title role in the ballet Carmen, produced in London in 1949, and went on to appear in several Hollywood films and Paris revues. She was the wife of dancer and choreographer Roland Petit, who created ballets and revues for her.
Alvin Ailey Jr. was an American dancer, director, choreographer, and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT). He created AAADT and its affiliated Alvin Ailey American Dance Center as havens for nurturing Black artists and expressing the universality of the African-American experience through dance.
Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and who staged some of the leading Broadway and film musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Kidd, strongly influenced by Charlie Chaplin and Léonide Massine, was an innovator in what came to be known as the "integrated musical", in which dance movements are integral to the plot.
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities and Warhol's superstars. The original Factory was often referred to as the Silver Factory. In the studio, Warhol's workers would make silkscreens and lithographs under his direction.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
Charles "Cholly" Atkins was an American dancer and vaudeville performer, who later became noted as the house choreographer for the various artists on the label Motown.
Capezio is the trade name of Capezio Ballet Makers Inc., an American manufacturer of dance shoes, apparel and accessories.
Performance Space New York, formerly known as Performance Space 122 or P.S. 122, is a non-profit arts organization founded in 1980 in the East Village of Manhattan in an abandoned public school building.
Mia Michaels Melchiona is an American choreographer and judge on the television show So You Think You Can Dance. She has worked with Tom Cruise, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan, Madonna, Ricky Martin, Prince, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. In 2005 she choreographed Cirque du Soleil's world tour Delirium and Celine Dion's A New Day..., for which she received an Emmy Award nomination. In 2007 she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography for her routine on "Calling You" during season two of So You Think You Can Dance. She won another Emmy Award during season five in 2010. She was a judge during season 7 with Adam Shankman and Nigel Lythgoe. She choreographed the dance sequence for "Get Happy" in the episode "Bombshells" of the television series House.
Hip-hop theater is a form of theater that presents contemporary stories through the use of one or more of the four elements of hip-hop culture—b-boying, graffiti writing, MCing (rapping), and DJing. Other cultural markers of hip-hop such as spoken word, beatboxing, and hip-hop dance can be included as well although they are not always present. What is most important is the language of the theatrical piece and the plot's relevance to the world. Danny Hoch, the founder of the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, further defines it as such: "Hip-hop theatre must fit into the realm of theatrical performance, and it must be by, about and for the hip-hop generation, participants in hip-hop culture, or both."
Sergio Trujillo is a Colombian theater director, choreographer, dancer and actor. Born in Colombia and raised in Toronto, Canada, he is an American citizen and resides in New York City. Trujillo was the recipient of the 2019 Tony Award for Best Choreography for Ain't Too Proud and the 2015 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer for Memphis. He is the first ever Hispanic recipient of the Tony Award for Best Choreography.
Ron Fletcher was an American Pilates Master Teacher, an author and a Martha Graham dancer. He was also a Broadway stage, network television, cabaret and International Ice Capades choreographer. He is identified as a “Pilates Elder”—a “first-generation teacher” who studied directly under Joseph and Clara Pilates.
Camille A. Brown is an American dancer, choreographer, director, and dance educator. Four-time Tony Awards nominees, she started her career working as professional dancer with Ronald K. Brown's company in the early 2000s. In 2006 she founded her own dance company, the Camille A. Brown & Dancers, producing severals dance productions, winning a Princess Grace Awards and a Bessie Award.
Kyle Abraham is an American choreographer and dancer. He founded his own company A.I.M by Kyle Abraham in 2006 in New York City and has produced many original works for A.I.M such as The Radio Show (2010), Absent Matter (2015), Pavement (2012), Dearest Home (2017), Drive (2017), INDY (2018), Studies on Farewell (2019), and An Untitled Love (2021). Kyle has also been commissioned to create new works for international dance companies such as Untitled America (2016) for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The Runaway (2018) for New York City Ballet, The Bystander (2019) for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Only The Lonely (2019) for Paul Taylor American Modern Dance and Ash (2019).
Larry Keigwin an American choreographer and the artistic director of KEIGWIN + COMPANY.
Frank Gatson Jr. is an American director and choreographer. He is the creative director for En Vogue, Brandy, Muni Long, Tyrese Gibson, Rihanna and Jennifer Lopez. He also is Kelly Rowland's and Beyoncé's main creative director and choreographer, a position he has held since her tenure with Destiny's Child. He has also choreographed videos, routines and live performances for other artists including R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, TLC, En Vogue, Kelly Rowland, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, Fifth Harmony, Destiny's Child, Little Mix, Toni Braxton and Usher.
Justin Peck is an American choreographer, director, and dancer associated with New York City Ballet, of which he was appointed Resident Choreographer in July 2014, being the second person in the history of the institution to hold this title. A two-time Tony Award for Best Choreography recipient, he won in 2018 for the revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel and in 2024 for the Sufjan Stevens original dance musical, Illinoise. On film, Peck choreographed the dance sequences for Steven Spielberg musical adaptation West Side Story (2021) and Bradley Cooper's biographical drama Maestro (2023).
Emma Portner is a Canadian professional dancer and choreographer.
Fred Norbert Kelly was an American choreographer, dancer, actor and director.
{{cite web}}
: |author=
has generic name (help)