I am fascinated by the dancing body’s capacity for resilience, fluidity, and expansiveness. Anchored in gender studies, my choreographic work explores the relationship the body has with abstraction, identity, landscape (physical and emotional), and writing. The place of transition and shift that I live in as a nonbinary artist-human informs the framework of my choreographic practice. I explore the ways in which the body’s interior environment takes charge and boldly participates in the exterior space.
Through movement, I work with femininity as a complex entity and qualitative force, that remains shifting and fluid. Utilizing choreographic structures and scores, how can my work reveal a complex relationship of the internal/external body’s energetic and expressive potential?
My dances are episodic in choreographic structure, and progress with a non-linear narrative. They are highly physical, challenging endurance and ways of playing with dance ‘technique’. Recent projects have grappled with questions of identity, Queer wonder, 1980s MTV, and rock and roll history.
As methodologies for generating choreography, I work with physics concepts, structured improvisation scores, storytelling, and stark interruption. These methodologies are informed by a training history in classical, contemporary, and postmodern dance traditions.
About the Artist
Krissy Harris (they/them) is a dance artist and educator based in Maryland. They hold a MFA in Dance from the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, & Performance Studies, where their dance research branched out into Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies, Journalism studies, and Digital Interdisciplinary Art Practice. They have a passion for dance teaching to a broad range of experience levels and age populations. They have taught adult community classes at Dance Loft on 14, dance courses at the University of Maryland and Adelphi University, and within Montgomery County Public Schools. They are currently a Professional Lecturer at George Washington University, and choreographing for the McLean School's production of "The Addams Family" musical. Recent choreographic projects include Shift (commissioned work for Washington College Theatre & Dance Department), Frequency Machines (Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, MD) and Responsive Wild (Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, MD). Currently, Krissy is researching a new work, Building the Engine. Prior to traversing to Maryland, Krissy lived in Brooklyn, NY where they performed and collaborated with a variety of individual artists, shared their choreography at Movement Research, Gibney Dance, Triskelion Arts and Dixon Place.Artist's Statement
As a dance artist and a person, I am deeply committed to community building. Practices of inclusion and collaboration are essential to my work. I have a genuine passion for learning from different perspectives and connecting with peer artists of diverse backgrounds. I am excited to choreograph with and teach a broad range of experience levels, ages, and populations. For any choreographic project I take on, I am happy to offer the local community a class, workshop, lecture, open rehearsal, or related practice. In the spaces that I create within, I reflect on and grapple with the various forms of power I inherently hold coming into any dance space. I continually seek out ways to keep my process responsive to the shifting sociocultural frameworks that surround us.Booking
Open to all locations within Maryland.
Available upon request.