Dancer Kayla Hamilton establishes new cultural organization
The dance performance maker, dancer, educator, and consultant Kayla Hamilton can’t seem to stop doing good for the community; she is getting recognition for her work on and off the stage. The Texas-born, Bronx-based Hamilton holds many accolades: a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, a 2023-2024 Pina Bausch Foundation Fellow, a 2024 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant recipient, a 2023-2024 Bronx Cultural Visions Fund recipient, and a 2024 BAM Resident Artist. Her dancing has been described as “an undercurrent of freedom that is palpable and intoxicating.” And now, Hamilton announced the establishment of Circle O, a new cultural organization created by and for Black disabled and other multiply marginalized creatives. Circle O is based in the Bronx and centers access as creative innovation, from process to outcome, operating in three different wings: performance, education, and consultation.
Hamilton responded to some questions about Circle O exclusively for AmNews.
AmNews: What drew you to forming Circle O?
Hamilton: Circle O is really about putting a container or umbrella around the things I’ve already been doing (performing, educating, consulting); now I can put them into one container and all these things can speak to and be with each other. It’s about having a holistic space to be working towards a dance world where Black disabled and other multiply marginalized creatives are central, and everybody is worthy of care.
AmNews: Why now?
Hamilton: I was fortunate enough to receive financial support and that support gave me the means and the audacity to dream larger and to dream outside of myself. I think it’s important that we name that: what resources can do for dreams.
AmNews: How did you land on these “Circle O Wings”: Performance, education and consultation?
Hamilton: These are the things I had already been doing for a certain amount of time and so these wings made sense. Sometimes we look at one thing [one methodology, or way of thinking] to be the answer, but there’s a collection of things that can come together to make it feel more complete or whole. Rather than tackling an idea or a challenge from only one direction, sometimes you need more. All facets of the work are creative endeavors, not just performance making. The teaching, for example, is also performance, is also creative, is also choreography.
AmNews: Does anything about this ambitious project scare you?
Hamilton: Of course. But the things that I’m afraid of are not me, the ideas I’m afraid of are not mine. For example, I’m clear that Circle O is about movement making and collectivizing, rather than it being only about me—but hopefully other people won’t get it twisted or misunderstand. It’s not about me, it’s about what we’re doing together. I know mess-ups will happen. I’m learning, I’m learning a lot, all the way around; what’s scary is that I must be in a practice of reminding myself of my own humanity while I’m also making space for other people’s humanity. To give myself what I’m trying to give others. So, it’s not fear, rather it’s awareness, or maybe it’s just reality. So, scare…no. I think I would call it more like: you dreamed up a thing, you named the thing, you made the thing, and now it’s time to do the thing. It’s about the doing. The reality of here it is, it’s go time.
AmNews: What are you most looking forward to in realizing with Circle O?
Hamilton: I’m most looking forward to being with other people and collaborating with people, meeting new people, connecting people.
The dance community has also come together to support Hamilton’s initiative. She has been presented and supported by BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance; Dance/NYC; Danspace Project; Gibney Dance; Jacob’s Pillow; New York Live Arts; NYC Department of Education; Performance Space New York; River to River Festival; The Shed; UCLA Disability Studies Inclusion Labs; and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Hamilton will offer the world premiere of “How to Bend Down/How to Pick it Up” (HTBD/HTPU) at The Shed, August 15-17. HTBD/HTPU is an immersive, community specific, multidisciplinary dance performance exploring lineages of Black disabled imagination and alternative world building. The work utilizes an elaborate multimedia design, multiple audio descriptions, ASL, a multi vantage-point performance space, and a performance structure that can reconfigure every night based on the performers’ changing needs. To find out more about Hamilton, the performance at The Shed, visit https://www.theshed.org/program/402-open-call-kayla-hamilton
And to find out more about Circle O visit https://www.circleo.org/
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