ELEVATE CHICAGO DANCE 2022
LAB ARTIST 2022
Kia S. Smith is a Chicago native and holds a BFA from Western Michigan University and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is a Choreography Fellow at Jacob’s Pillow and a 2021 3 Arts Make A Wave Awardee. Kia creates work for repertory dance companies, Ballet companies, opera, music ensembles, universities, museums, and she is the founder of South Chicago Dance Theatre. Her current research interests include African American social dances, jazz music and culture, improvisation and blurring the perceived lines between contemporary dance, opera and theater.
Kia is pivoting from being a choreographer of solely concert dance to a performance-maker of her own form of dance theatre – activating movement, opera, video, text and scenic design to create large scale experiences that stimulate the senses for performer and observer. As auto-ethnographic research, she explores the African American social dances that trained her body as a child, and it is through this embodied experience that she ascertains the subject matter for her work. Current investigations include concepts of grief, empathy, compassion, and faith.
Photo caption(s) and credit(s): Kia S. Smith, by Michelle Reid/MReid Photography