Past Performing Arts | Interdisciplinary

Raja Feather Kelly

HYSTERIA

Live Q&A | June 2

Virtual

A hot pink image with Raja Feather Kelly in the center of the frame standing on a stage. Kelly is in a pink jacket and wig with arm outstretched. Kelly appears to be singing and behind Kelly are balloons and tinsel covered backdrop.

Take a wild trip through the pop culture landscape with a Warholian alien guide. Stay tuned after the presentation for a live Q&A with Kelly via Vimeo.

HYSTERIA, a performance installation work reconfigured for virtual presentation, finds award-winning director and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly continuing his ongoing study of pop culture and its displacement of queer Black subjectivity.

Picking up where his 2018 performance work UGLY (Black Queer Zoo) left off, Kelly resituates himself as a glamorous, extraterrestrial entity—both alien to the world and wholly consuming its pop cultural byproducts. HYSTERIA marks the collapse of fiction into fact, tracking the subsequent inner turmoil, confusion, and mania that the artist sets out to exorcise.

Kelly introduces the presentation live on June 2 starting at 5 PM EST and participates in a Q&A afterward; HYSTERIA remains on our site through June 18.

A hot pink image with Raja Feather Kelly in the center of the frame standing on a stage. Kelly is in a pink jacket and wig with arm outstretched. Kelly appears to be singing and behind Kelly are balloons and tinsel covered backdrop.

Raja Feather Kelly in HYSTERIA, photo: Kate Enman

A vertical image of a room in a pink tint. Raja Feather Kelly is seated and the wall behind them is covered in tinsel and balloons.

Raja Feather Kelly in HYSTERIA, photo: Kate Enman

A vertical image of a room in a pink tint. Raja Feather Kelly is seated and the wall behind them is covered in tinsel and balloons.

Raja Feather Kelly in HYSTERIA, photo: Kate Enman

A pink tinted image. Raja Father Kelly stands in the center of the frame. Behind Kelly is the word HYSTERIA in neon.

Raja Feather Kelly in HYSTERIA, photo: Kate Enman

A pink tinted image. Raja Father Kelly stands in the center of the frame. Behind Kelly is the word HYSTERIA in neon. To Kelly's right is a desk with a computer underneath it.

Raja Feather Kelly in HYSTERIA, photo: Kate Enman

More about the artist

Raja Feather Kelly chevron-down chevron-up

Raja Feather Kelly is the artistic director of New Brooklyn Theatre. In 2009, he founded the dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory. The two companies merged in 2018. Kelly was named the 2019–20 Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts and is an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. Other recent accolades include 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 and Harkness Foundation’s inaugural Harkness Promise Award (2018), and the Princess Grace Award (2017, 2018, 2019). He was born in Fort Hood, Texas, and holds a BA in dance and English from Connecticut College.

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
The Wexner Family
Greater Columbus Arts Council
Mary and C. Robert Kidder
L Brands Foundation
American Electric Power Foundation
The Columbus Foundation
Ohio Arts Council
Bill and Sheila Lambert
Adam Flatto
Huntington
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Nationwide Foundation
Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease
Arlene and Michael Weiss

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Carol and David Aronowitz
Michael and Paige Crane
Axium Plastics
Fenwick & West LLP
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams
KDC/ONE
M/I Homes
Ohio State Energy Partners
Regina Miracle International Ltd.
Washington Prime Group
Alene Candles
Lisa Barton
Fuel Transport
Russell and Joyce Gertmenian
Liza Kessler and Greg Henchel
Nancy Kramer
Matrix Psychological Services
Paramount Group, Inc.
Bruce and Joy Soll
Clark and Sandra Swanson
Business Furniture Installations
CASTO
E.C. Provini Co, Inc.
Garlock Printing & Converting
M-Engineering
New England Development
Our Country Home
Performance Team
Premier Candle Corporation
ProAmpac
Steiner + Associates
Textile Printing
Andrew and Amanda Wise

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Past Performing Arts

Raja Feather Kelly