The KILL ONE Race

Artist Bios: The KILL ONE Race

Creative Team

Raja Feather Kelly
Choreographer/Director Raja Feather Kelly is the artistic director of the feath3r theory, the dance-theatre-media company that he founded in 2009. Raja is a Creative Associate at The Juilliard School, and has been awarded a Creative Capital Award (2019), a National Dance Project Production Grant (2019), a Breakout Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (2018), Dance Magazine's inaugural Harkness Promise Award (2018), the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography (2016), and is a three-time Princess Grace Award winner (2017, 2018, 2019) and two-time Lucille Lortel Award nominee (2019, 2020). In 2020 he was an Obie Award winner and Outer Critics Circle Award honoree for choreography for the Pulitzer-winning musical A Strange Loop. He was born in Fort Hood, Texas and holds a B.A. in Dance and English from Connecticut College.

Raja has been named as the 2019–2020 Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts and is an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. Raja has also been awarded a New York Dance Performance Bessie Award, a Bessie Schonberg Fellowship at The Yard, a DanceWEB Scholarship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Choreography Fellowship, a HERE Arts Fellowship, 2018 Creator-in-Residence at Kickstarter, and a Choreography Fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU. He has been granted a 2019–2021 National Dance Project Production Grant and was featured on the cover of the February 2020 issue of Dance Magazine. 

Over the past decade he has created fifteen evening-length works with his company the feath3r theory to critical acclaim. Most recently, UGLY (Black Queer Zoo) at The Bushwick Starr, and We May Never Dance Again® at The Invisible Dog in Brooklyn. Professionally, Raja has performed with Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group, David Dorfman Dance, Kyle Abraham|Abraham.In.Motion, and zoe | juniper. He has also managed a number of dance companies: Race Dance, Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, zoe | juniper, and Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group.

In 2020, Kelly made his directorial debut at New York City's Second Stage Theatre with We're Gonna Die. Since 2016, Raja has choreographed extensively for Off-Broadway theatre in New York City, most notably for Signature Theatre, Soho Rep, New York Theatre Workshop, and Playwrights Horizons. Kelly is the 2019 SDCF Joe A. Callaway Award finalist for outstanding choreography of A Strange Loop (Playwrights Horizons and winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and Fairview (Soho Rep, Berkeley Rep, TFANA and winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama). Frequent collaborators include: Lileana Blain-Cruz, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Sarah Benson, and Lila Neugebauer. Other theatre credits include choreography for Skittles Commercial: The Musical (Town Hall), The Chronicles of Cardigan and Khente (Soho Rep.), Everyday Afroplay (JACK), GURLS (Princeton University, Yale Repertory Theatre), Electric Lucifer (The Kitchen), Lempicka (Williamstown Theatre Festival), The House That Will Not Stand (New York Theatre Workshop), Fireflies (Atlantic Theatre Company), If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka (Playwrights Horizons, nominated for the 2019 Lucille Lortel Award and the 2019 Chita Rivera Award for Outstanding Choreography), The Good Swimmer (BAM), and Faust (Opera Omaha).

the feath3r theory 
the feath3r theory (TF3T) is a New York City based dance-theatre-media company that produces the work of Artistic Director and Choreographer Raja Feather Kelly. As a collaboration of dancers, actors, filmmakers, musicians, photographers, and designers, TF3T explores pop-culture and current cultural phenomena, building original performances that skillfully combine, deconstruct, and reimagine elements of dance, visual media, fashion, drag, standup, minstrelsy, and narrative theatre.

The mission of the feath3r theory (TF3T) is to democratize the American theatre, to broaden the space for unheard voices and repressed histories, to bring into the theatre those sometimes left out, and to use theatre to provoke much-needed public conversations. Our company is committed to addressing pressing social issues through dance, theatre, and media with an emphasis on LGBTQ themes. We do this by challenging our audience (and our creators) to collectively interrogate — and celebrate — the shared relationship to human empathy and personal ethics as expressed in (and distorted by) popular media. By unabashedly appropriating the structures, themes, and aesthetics of popular media the work of TF3T synthesizes into virtuosic, expansive, radical and surreal large scale pop-culture phenomena or an overwhelming, over-saturated ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ in which artists and audience alike experience their shared humanity.

Laura Snow (Media Producer, Lead Editor)
Laura Snow is a documentary filmmaker, media producer for New York City Ballet and video collaborator of the feath3r theory since 2012. Her latest dance-film collaboration with Kelly and TF3T, HYSTERIA, premiered at New York Live Arts in 2021. Laura has associate produced documentary series and films for PBS, VICE, Discovery and CNN, as well as the feature documentary, NEWTOWN (2016). Laura's solo directorial work includes the short documentaries LEAVE-TAKING (2016) and RETURN TO FORM (2021). 

Tuce Yasak (Lighting Design)
Tuce has been following light in NYC since 2008, creating over 100 site-specific light installations for performance in the US and abroad. Yasak received the 2018 and 2019 BESSIE Award for Outstanding Visual Design for her designs and has ongoing collaborations with Raja Feather Kelly | the feath3r theory, Contra Tiempo, Miguel Guitierrez, Ayesha Jordan & Charlotte Brathwaite, Daria Fain, Ni’Ja Whitson and Nia Whitherspoon, among many others. Light, movement and architecture intertwine in her work to support space-making and story-telling.

Kate Enman (Photography)
Born and based in Brooklyn, Kate is a photography artist. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Time Out New York, and Ain't Bad Magazine. Having studied and shot in Tel Aviv, Rome, and New York City, she is currently passionate about analog photography — particularly of the 35mm variety. Kate delights in documenting the world around her, while specializing in portraiture, dance and still-life. She has recently started her own studio in Bushwick with her many cats, and continues to look for ways to get work done in the bath.

You-Shin Chen (Set Design) 
You-Shin a New York-based scenic designer for performing arts from Taiwan. As a theater practitioner, she is committed to diversity and humanity. Recent theater credits include: UGLY (the feath3r theory & Bushwick Starr); Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie (ArsNova); Monsoon Season (AFO Theatre); The Night Alive (Inis Nua Theatre Company); Eclipsed (Berlind Theatre, PQ ‘19 USA); Messiah (LaMama, Stonewall 50); Rock-A-Bye (BalletX); The Hollower (New Light Theater Project). Associate scenic designer for Moby Dick (A.R.T., Des. Mimi Lien.). She is the recipient of the 2019 Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award at The Lilly Awards. youshinchen.com

Remy Kurs (Music Supervisor) 
Remy is a New York music director, orchestrator, and pianist. Most recently, he served as music supervisor and arranger for Raja Feather Kelly’s We’re Gonna Die (by Young Jean Lee) at Second Stage Theater. Remy is also the music supervisor for the Broadway-bound musical Lempicka (directed by Rachel Chavkin). On Broadway, Remy has conducted The Book of Mormon (also music director for the 1st National Tour), Moulin Rouge, and Be More Chill.

Sophie Maguire (Creative Architecture)
Sophie Maguire is an interdisciplinary artist and landscape architect. Her practice focuses on storytelling, intimacy in architecture, and landscape as theater. She has built projects and published work throughout Canada and the US. Sophie is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture, a designer at WHY Architecture, and continues to create performance work.

CJ Ferroni (Director of Photography)
CJ Ferroni is a NYC based cinematographer mainly focused on documentary and live performance. He has collaborated with the feath3r theory, New York City Ballet and several Broadway theaters, and has shot non-fiction features and series across your favorite streaming platforms. 

Brandi Holt (Company Management)
Brandi Holt is the company manager for the feath3r theory and executive assistant to Raja Feather Kelly. She holds a masters in arts and cultural management and has been working with the feath3r theory since 2019. Holt is also a professional illustrator and fashion designer. 

Colm Summers (Assistant to Director)
Colm is an Irish theater and opera director based in New York. He is a published playwright and essayist, and has assisted the Wooster Group, Milo Rau and Pan Pan. This is his second assisting role with TF3T. Next: Spiderlings (LAMDA, UK), Maria Irene Fornés Mud & Springtime (Lenfest Centre, NY).

Ilya Vidrin (Ethics Consultant)
Dr. Ilya Vidrin is a research-practitioner situated in performing arts, ethics, and interactive media. Born into a refugee family, Ilya grew up navigating nuances of cultural expectations, language barriers, and diverging political ideologies. A graduate of Harvard University, he is Theatre faculty at Northeastern University and directs the Partnering Lab.

Jessi Stegall (Ethics Consultant)
Jessi Stegall is a multimodalist with backgrounds in expressive therapy, ethics, and performing arts education. A graduate student in Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, she specializes in narrative ethics for artistic flourishing. Jessi is committed to responsible creativity that ignites social curiosity and civic Imagination.

Kevin Novinsky (Sound Engineeer) 
Kevin Novinsky is a New York City-based theatrical sound mixer and designer, including as the mixer on a variety of mainstage productions with Manhattan School of Music. He previously worked with Raja on the musical A Strange Loop, and is thrilled to be working with him again on The KILL ONE Race.

Cast

Chris Bell (Adam Castro aka AC)
Originally from San Antonio, Texas has a MFA and BS in dance and because he likes camping and the beach a BS in Geology. He currently makes work with Eryc Taylor Dance and is a frequent collaborator with (and former choreographic assistant to) Mark Dendy. He teaches (mostly kids) for ETD Outreach, Marquis Studios, TADA! Youth Theaters, and Marble Collegiate Church, where he is also the resident choreographer. His company @chrisbelldances has presented work in four out of five boroughs in NYC (including evening length works at Dixon Place and Gibney Dance Center), threestates, and Mexico.

Alexandra Giroux (Mina Wright)
Alexandria Giroux-Dorholt grew up in Arizona and attended New School for the Arts and Academics. She’s worked with Ashleigh Leite, Michou Szabo, and apprenticed for the Stephen Petronio Company. She's been with The Feath3r Theory since 2018. She is also a birth and death doula and Reiki Practitioner.

Amy Hoang (Rei Maren)
Amy Hoàng is a movement artist from Amarillo, TX. She is going on 10 years of dance since starting at the age of 14. Hoang graduated from The University of North Texas with a BFA in Dance Performance and Education. She performed at the American College Dance Association a total of 4 times and premiered an adjudicated work. Hoang trained, choreographed, and performed at the American Dance Festival in 2018. In July of 2019, she relocated to Brooklyn, NY to pursue dance professionally. Her current curiosity lies in modern, breaking, and house movements and how they come together.

Claire Gieringer (Jenna Pastel)
Claire Gieringer (she/they) is a Brooklyn-based dance/performance artist, writer, tarot reader, and sex witch. As a psychic channel, Claire experiences art making as a natural extension of their spiritual practice, utilizing dance/movement, voice, poetry, meditation, energy work and tarot reading as avenues for personal and collective reflection, storytelling, and healing. In their spare time, you can find Claire making semi-holy pilgrimages up mountains, saying thank you to mirrors, and sending prayers to the moon. 

Jamen Nanthakumar (Mandy Jacobs aka MJ)
Jamen Nanthakumar is a New York-based actor/writer. Recent credits: Half The Sky (Radio Play/5th Avenue Theatre), Mary Stuart (Pioneer Theatre Co.), Diana (La Jolla Playhouse), A Funny Thing...Forum (Pittsburgh Public). Pace University: BFA Musical Theatre.

Alexander Paris (Cosmo Griffin)
Alexander Paris is a playwright and performance artist (drag, comedy, fabulism) Recents: "The Black Beginning" - Legacy @ Ars Nova, The Lark's Beyond the Binary Writer's Group, Curation for La MaMa's "Squirts" Fave gigs: Jeremy O. Harris "the feels...(KMS)", Will Arbery "Wheelchair", River Ramirez "Pervert Everything" for more: @parishiltonals on IG

Fana Fraser (Monica Cummings)
Fana Fraser is an artist, performer, and full spectrum doula in training. A 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Dance and 2021-22 Performance AIRspace Resident at Abrons Arts Center, Fana was shortlisted for the 2020 BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize. She served as Rehearsal Director for Ailey II from 2016-20. 

Rio Sofia (Tommy San Diego)
Río Sofia is a visual artist, arts worker, and organizer. Her recent body of artwork explores forced feminization porn, a genre that fantasizes about experiencing gender transformation through coercion and loss of control. This project was spotlighted in Out Magazine's April and August 2019 print issues, and led her to present her work at institutions such as The New Museum, Princeton University, and Rutgers University. She is currently the Programs & Operations Director at Queer|Art, a New York City based organization serving LGBTQ+ artists across generations and disciplines.

and hosted By Marques Zat Played by Lucien Zayan 
Born in 1965 in Marseille (France) from Egyptian born parents, Lucien Zayan spent 25 years working for some of the most prestigious French cultural institutions among them Théâtre de l’Odéon - Théâtre de l’Europe (Paris), Festival International d’Art Lyrique (Aix-en-Provence), Theatre de la Criée (Marseille), Théâtre de la Madeleine (Paris). In 2009, he moved to Brooklyn and created The Invisible Dog Art Center. Since 2018, he is the executive chef at la Salle A Manger, a food-art related dinning room associated to the arts center. Zayan lives and works on Bergen street, Brooklyn. He recently became American citizen, and married his american lover in Gray (Maine). After loosing this french accent for a perfect American one, he decided to bring it back to look like more Catherine Deneuve than Liz Taylor.