Raja Feather Kelly Named New York Live Arts 2019-2020 Randjelovi/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist

New York Live Arts, under the artistic leadership of world renowned choreographer, National Medal of Arts, MacArthur "Genius" Award and Kennedy Center Honors recipient Bill T. Jones and Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong, announced Raja Feather Kelly as the 2019-20 Randjelovi/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist (RCA). The award is one of the most substantial awards for a choreographer in the United States and a significant vehicle for midcareer artists.

The RCA receives two years of full-time salary, healthcare benefits, administrative support, dedicated office space, studio time, commissioning funds to develop a new work, a technical theater residency and a fully-produced world premiere. Since the creation of the program in 2011, Randjelovi?/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artists have been Yasuko Yokoshi, Kyle Abraham (MacArthur Genius Fellow 2013), Okwui Okpokwasili (MacArthur Genius Fellow 2018), and RoseAnne Spradlin, whose critically acclaimed premiere of "Y" opened Live Arts' 2018-2019 season.

"If there were such a word for feeling honored, seen, heard, respected, scared, excited, hopeful and humbled all at the same time, I would use it right now," expressed Kelly, "to be chosen for such an esteemed award such as the New York Live Arts Randjelovi?/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist seemed impossible to me until now. My company of performers and collaborators have persevered through the unimaginable - though we dissect popular culture, we do not make popular work. To have this comprehensive support, at this time, from New York Live Arts makes us beyond grateful and excited to continue using our creations to celebrate and interrogate identity, genre, empathy and ethics."

As the fifth RCA, Kelly will work with his company, The Feath3r Theory (created in 2009), to create and present a new work to premiere at Live Arts in the spring of 2020. A New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award winner and two-time Princess Grace Award recipient, Kelly also received a Breakout Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation and the inaugural Dance Magazine Harkness Promise Award in 2018. Over the past decade Kelly has created thirteen evening-length premieres and six short-format works, as well as choreographed extensively for Off-Broadway theater in New York City since 2016, most notably for Signature Theatre and Soho Rep. He has performed in the work of Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group, Keely Garfield, Kota Yamazaki, David Dorfman Dance, Kyle Abraham|A.I.M, among others, and has also managed a number of dance companies, including Kyle Abraham/A.I.M, zoe | juniper, and Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group.

"We at New York Live Arts are extremely excited that Raja Feather Kelly will be our next Randjelovi?/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist. This unique artist with a deep and penetrating understanding of the intersection of Pop Culture, the classical arts and art-making as political activism, is emerging as a true leader at a time when young makers have processed and are now just beginning to produce the works that will define our fractious era," commented Jones and Wong, "Raja is simply unclassifiable, driven by discipline and something akin to a belligerent attack on the commonplace, the mild, the uncommitted. 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."

Since its inception, the Randjelovi?/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist program has received lead support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and has been named for lead donors Jon Stryker and New York Live Arts board vice-chair Slobodan Randjelovi?.The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation continues to be instrumental in one of Live Arts' signature programs for artist development, and its ongoing support is vital to the continuation of the program.

Located in the heart of Chelsea in New York City, New York Live Arts produces and presents dance, music and theater performances in its 20,000 square-foot home, which includes a 184-seat theater and two 1,200 square-foot studios. New York Live Arts offers an extensive range of participatory programs for adults and young people and supports the continuing professional development of performing artists. New York Live Arts serves as home base for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and is the company's sole producer, providing support and the environment to originate innovative and challenging new work for the Company and New York's creative community.

Support is provided by Con Edison, Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Alice Lawrence Foundation, Samuel M. Levy Family Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Metropolitan Capital Bancorp, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, National Performance Network, New England Foundation for the Arts, New York Community Trust, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Scherman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and Theatre Development Fund.

New York Live Arts is supported by public funds from Humanities New York, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with City Council with special thanks to Council Member Corey Johnson, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.