Queer Dance
Artists-in-Residence
Spring 2025
Monday, February 10: Ballez with Katy Pyle
Beginner and mixed-level ballet class
4:00 - 6:00 PM
Friday, February 28: Contact Improvisation with Makisig Akin and Anya Cloud
Intermediate and advanced contact improvisation
12:00 - 1:50 PM
Monday, March 10: Vogue with Omari Wiles
Beginner and mixed-level vogue class
5:00 - 6:20 PM
All classes will take place at:
Ashamu Dance Studio
Students who wish to participate should arrive on time, expect to stay for the duration of the class, and wear clothes appropriate to move their body fully and comfortably.
Ballez students should wear cotton socks so that their feet can safely slide on the floor.
Email j_dellecave@brown.edu with questions or for more information.
This project has been made possible, in part, by the Brown Arts Institute.
Artist Bios
Katy Pyle is a genderqueer trans dancer and choreographer who founded Ballez in 2011 to explore their complicated relationship to the cishetero patriarchal form of ballet, and to make space for their own, and their communities’, presence within it. Pyle inserts the herstory and lineage of lesbian, queer and transgender people into the ballet canon through the creation of large-scale story ballets, open classes, and public engagement.
Ousmane Omari Wiles is an African American West African and Vogue dancer. Wiles is best known as, legendary Omari NiNa Oricci, founder of The House of Nina Oricci and Creative Director of LES BALLET AFRIK dance company. His choreography has been featured in Cats: The Jellicle Ball and with Janet Jackson, Beyoncé, John Legend, and Rashaad Newsome.
Makisig Akin is a Choreographer, Dancer, Artist Activist, transgender Filipino born and raised in the Philippines. Akin’s artistic work focuses on strengthening the recognition of intersectional identities, reconnecting with their ancestry, and decentralizing Western ideologies in dance making.
Anya Cloud works nationally and internationally within the contexts of Contact Improvisation, improvisation, experimental contemporary dance, and social somatics/Feldenkrais®. Through queer, feminist, and anti-racist perspectives Cloud’s research centers on activating new/old ecologies of moving, making, being, and relating in intersectional ways.