About Kendra

Kendra Portier is a NYC-based artist –  a maker, teacher, and performer. Born at home in Ohio, she has taught and performed across the globe in numerous dance programs, universities, and festivals, such as Bates Dance Festival (ME) and Gibney Dance Center (NY), and in the work of Lisa Race/Race Dance, Sara Hook, Nicole Wolcott Dance, Vanessa Justice Dance, and a nine-year tenure with David Dorfman Dance. Her work has been supported and presented by Gowanus Arts + Production (NY), New York University’s Tisch Dance, Arts for the People (NJ), CRAWL Artist at Gowanus Loft (NY), Dixon Place (NY), and Dance New Amsterdam’s Splice Commission (NY). She is the recipient of a Caroline H. Newhouse Scholarship (NY), Mary Elizabeth Hamstrong Award (IL), Bates Dance Festival’s Emerging Choreographer Award (ME), and, most recently, the Wanda M. Nettl Prize for Choreography (IL). Currently, Kendra is the Artist in Residence at the University of Maryland and is developing the first installments of her research on Color into a live-performance, Burnish (#038), and printed document, Magenta: A Phenomenological Field Guide to Color and Choreography. Kendra holds a BFA from the Ohio State University and an MFA from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, more information can be found at kendraportier.com.