Incubator Series - Raja Feather Kelly
Company:
Raja Feather Kelly
Targeted to emerging choreographers and professional dancers, participants will work directly with artistic director Raja Feather Kelly and company members of the feath3r theory to workshop new ideas and understand how our influences inform our creative process.
THE FEATH3R THEORY is a thought-provoking dance theater company. In collaboration with dancers, actors, filmmakers, musicians, photographers, lighting and graphic designers, TF3T exploits and excavates popular culture into humane and affecting dance-theater experiences that seek to popularize courage and empathy. TF3T was founded in 2009, when Artistic Director, Raja Feather Kelly, Premiered FANMAIL, a movement solo dedicated to his interest and infatuation with the life and work of Andy Warhol. New York Theater Review describes Kelly’s Warhol-inspired productions as “too viscerally engaging to turn away from” and Kelly himself as “a mad scientist of an artist.” TF3T has since been featured in The Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, OUT.COM, Culturebot, chosen multiple times as a Critics’ and Editor’s Pick for Time Out New York, Flavorpill and The New York Times.
The premise:
You enter a room. You sit at a long, wooden (or maybe marble) conference table. You’re here for conversation. A portrait of the artist with their hand raised. (Your question here.) Nicole Krauss (American Fiction Writer) answers first. She explains, “having begun to feel, people’s desire to feel grew. They wanted to feel more, feel deeper, despite how much it sometimes hurt. People became addicted to feeling. They struggled to uncover new emotions. It’s possible that this is how art was born.” (Your question here.) Chris Martin (Brooklyn Based Visual Artist) responds, “Art is the finger pointing to the moon—if we are lucky the finger disappears.” (Your question here.) Raja Feather Kelly (Host) thinks out loud “It’s Not ‘What’, but ‘How’. (Your question here.) Stanford Meisner (American actor and acting teacher), slams his hands on the table; everyone looks to him and he says, “It is all honest reactions to imaginary situations”. Everyone nods in agreement. You’re sitting next to Andy Warhol. He gestures for you to lean in closer. He whispers , “It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.” Everyone but you and the host exit. (Your question here.)
raja feather kelly dancing with zoe I juniper; Photo © Christopher Duggan
