About Raja Feather Kelly

New York, NY

Raja Feather Kelly (CBA ’19) was born in Fort Hood, Texas, and is the first and only choreographer to dedicate the entirety of his company’s work to the development of popular culture over the last thirty years. He is the creator of The Warhol Series, including Andy Warhol’s DRELLA (I Love You Faye Driscoll), Andy Warhol’s 15: Color Me, Warhol, and Andy Warhol’s TROPICO, and Another Fucking Warhol Production, all of which have been performed to critical acclaim. Kelly has worked throughout the United States and abroad (Austria, Germany, Australia, United Kingdom, and France) in search of the connections between popular culture and humanity and their integration into experiential dance-theater. Off-Broadway credits include choreography for Brenden Jacobs-Jenkins, Lila Neugabauer, Susan-Lori Parks, Lilieana Blain-Cruz, Daaimah Mubashshir, Sarah Benson, Jackie Sibles-Drury, Whitney White, and Rachel Chavkin. Honors include a 2018-19 Carthorse Fellowship at the Buran Theatre, a 2017 Princess Grace Award for a Fellowship in Choreography, a 2017 Bessie Schoenberg Fellowship at the Yard on Martha’s Vineyard, the 2016 Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography, and was a 2016 NYFA Choreography Fellow. He received his B.A. with honors in Dance and English from Connecticut College.

The Warhol Series

Since 2013, Raja Feather Kelly | the feath3r theory has been working on a series of dance-theatre works that challenge audiences to interrogate and celebrate their shared relationship to human empathy and personal ethics as expressed in (and distorted by) popular media. In 2019, the work will continue its research of popular culture’s role in shaping public sympathies with a vaudeville-cabaret-ballet called WEDNESDAY based on the untold story of Sydney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon and a postmodern ballet that brings to life Walt Disney’s 1940’s release of Fantasia.

Gallery

Headshot of Raja Feather Kelly. Photo by Kate Enman.

Photo by Kate Enman.

Headshot of Raja Feather Kelly. Photo by Kate Enman.