About Shayla-Vie
Shayla-Vie Jenkins is a Philadelphia-based performer, maker, educator, poetry lover, writer, and mama. She is grateful for her life in dance, having performed for a decade with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and in inspiring projects with renowned artists such as Faye Driscoll, Susan Marshall, Moriah Evans, David Gordon, Sage Ni’Ja Whitson, and Yara Travieso to name a few. Jenkins was an Assistant Professor in the School of Dance at the University of the Arts and is currently guest teaching at Bennington College.
Her creative research explores the intersection of Blackness and somatic presence, with her choreographic works embodying performance as a ritual act of mourning and catharsis. In 2023, she was awarded a Pew Center for Arts & Heritage grant for her site-specific work, On Buried Ground, which honors the lives of freed and enslaved congregants at Philadelphia’s historic Christ Church. The work premiered to a sold-out run at the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
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