Raja Feather Kelly ’09 receives prestigious dance residency

Award-winning dancer and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly ’09 has been chosen as the 2019-2020 Randjelovic/ Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist by the New York Live Arts organization.

The two-year-long program provides $390,000 for artists to develop projects they may not otherwise have the time and resources to pursue. Kelly, who serves as the artistic director of the New Brooklyn Theater and leads his dance company, The Feath3r Theory, will use the residency to work on an interpretation of the classic 1975 film, Dog Day Afternoon.

“Raja is simply unclassifiable, driven by discipline and something akin to a belligerent attack on the commonplace, the mild, the uncommitted,” New York Live Arts Artistic Director Bill T. Jones and Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong said in a statement to The New York Times.

“One leaves a performance of Raja’s infected by his curiosity, love of craft and just plain outrageousness. We look forward to this residency and we celebrate this singular artist.”

Read more about Kelly in The New York Times.