Open Call: Kayla Hamilton
Tickets
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About this commission
In How to Bend Down/How to Pick it Up, Kayla Hamilton explores lineages of Black disabled imagination and alternative world-building through an immersive, community-specific, multidisciplinary dance performance.
The performance moves through three historical spaces—the cotton field, the Black church, and the freakshow/circus—where Black disability was hidden, deemed unproductive, reduced to spectacle, or asked to be prayed away. How to Bend Down/How to Pick it Up offers an archival exploration of these spaces and a reclaiming of agency, recentering the parts of the self that were discarded or suppressed in those settings while carrying forward the ancestral task of envisioning a future where every-body is free.
The production makes use of multiple audio descriptors and a performance structure that can reconfigure every night based on the performers’ changing needs.
Creative Team
Kayla Hamilton (she/her) is a Texas-born, Bronx-based performance maker, dancer, educator, and consultant. Hamilton is currently a Jerome Hill and Pina Bausch Fellow and a NEFA National Dance Production Project Grant recipient. Her past shows have been presented at Gibney, Performance Space New York, New York Live Arts, and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.
Hamilton codeveloped Crip Movement Lab with collaborator Elisabeth Motley—a pedagogical framework centering cross-disability movement practices for every-body, which they have taught in multiple dance centers and universities. She danced with the Bessie Award–winning collective skeleton architecture, and for Maria Bauman, Sydnie L. Mosley, and Gesel Mason.
Hamilton has developed/designed access-centered programming for the Mellon Foundation, Movement Research, and DanceNYC. She recently founded Circle O, a cultural organization uplifting BIPOC disabled creatives. In 2024 – 25 she will go on a national tour with both How to Bend Down/How to Pick It Up and Crip Movement Lab.
Location and dates
August 15 – 17
7:30 pm
The Shed’s Griffin Theater is located at 545 West 30th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. View The Shed on a map.
For information about accessibility and arriving at The Shed, visit our Accessibility page.
Accessibility
Seating
The Shed’s Griffin Theater has accessible seating. Please contact us in advance to discuss your needs and available options by emailing accessibility@theshed.org or calling (646) 455-3949.
Assistive Listening
Visitors may check out assistive listening devices at the entrance to the theater. A driver’s license will be held to check out the device.
Purchasing Tickets
The Shed’s online ticketing system includes the option to submit accommodation requests beyond the access points detailed here.
Contact Us
For questions or other requests, visit the Accessibility page, email accessibility@theshed.org, or call (646) 455-3494.
Thank you to our partners
Additional support for Open Call is provided by The Wescustogo Foundation and Jody and John Arnhold | Arnhold Foundation.
The creation of new work at The Shed is generously supported by the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Commissioning Fund and the Shed Commissioners. Major support for live productions at The Shed is provided by the Charina Endowment Fund, with additional support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
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