Live Artery
New York Live Arts proudly announces Raja Feather Kelly as the 2027 Live Artery Festival Guest Curator!
The Live Arts 2019-2020 Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist returns to Live Arts to curate our celebrated festival in partnership with Artistic Director Bill T. Jones! Keep scrolling to learn more and see the full announcement here.
“Our field is in a moment where artists and organizations are coming together and collaborating in new ways that will forge new frontiers. My relationship with New York Live Arts and Bill T. Jones has been ever evolving and this new engagement is thrilling and unique,” said Kelly. “To be a guest curator at this leading organization is an incredible and serious responsibility of building community. I am excited by getting the art and artists in front of audiences and simultaneously getting audiences behind the ART!”
Raja Feather Kelly has been awarded a Creative Capital Award (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). He was born in Fort Hood, Texas and holds a B.A. in Dance and Poetry from Connecticut College and completed a certificate at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. In 2009 he started his dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory with whom he has premiered eighteen evening-length works, and in 2019 he choreographed the Broadway Pulitzer Prize-winning, Tony Award-winning Broadway musical A Strange Loop.
Dates for the 2027 Live Artery Festival will go public as part of Live Arts’s 2026-2027 Season Announcement in June. Details of Kelly’s lineup will be announced later this fall.
Portrait of Kelly by Alex Kikis
Live Artery 2026
The dynamic Live Artery festival is one of NYC’s most attended dance-specific platforms during the annual presenter conference season, featuring resident commissioned artists and curated guests. The festival will host events in Live Arts’ theater, studio, and lobby, as well as co-present productions offsite. As the annual start to the spring season, the platform encourages commissions, tours and the building of long-term artist/presenter relationships. Live Artery 2026 supports 28 lead artists!
We are proud to co-present with our partners Triskelion Arts, Danspace Project, The Chocolate Factory Theater, L’Alliance New York, Pick Up Performance Co, Sweat Variant Studio, and Under the Radar.
Please see this season’s Live Artery programming below.
Live Artery is supported, in part, by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and by Partners for New Performance member John Robinson.
Live Artery is part of JanArtsNYC, celebrating 13 years of partnership in 2026.
Every January in New York City, more than 45,000 performing arts leaders, artists, and enthusiasts from across the globe converge for JanArtsNYC. A partnership among independent multidisciplinary festivals, indispensable industry convenings, and international marketplaces, JanArtsNYC is one of the largest and most influential gatherings of its kind. #JanArtsNYC
Promotional support provided by the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.
THIS YEAR’S PROGRAMMING INCLUDES:
