Shayla-Vie Jenkins
Shayla-Vie Jenkins is a performer, teacher, and maker whose current research explores race, presence and liberation. She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Dance at University of the Arts. She earned a BFA from the Fordham/Ailey program under the mentorship of Denise Jefferson and Ana Marie Forsythe, and a Masters in Choreography and Performance at Smith College.
Shayla-Vie performed with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company from 2005–2016. During her tenure, the company received two ensemble New York Dance and Performance Awards for Chapel Chapter (2007) at Harlem Stage and for the “Outstanding Revival” of D-Man in The Waters (2013) at The Joyce Theater. She has restaged notable BTJAZ works at universities nationwide and continues to teach and mentor for the company. Shayla-Vie was featured as one of Dance Magazine’s “On the Rise” performers. Her extensive performance work includes projects with the Francesca Harper Project, Yaa Samar! Dance Theater, Yara Travieso, Ni'Ja Whitson, The Merce Cunningham Centennial Celebration (Night of 100 Solos), Yvonne Rainer, Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born, Moriah Evans, and David Gordon. Shayla-Vie has taught and set work at New York University, Duke University, the American Dance Festival, Yale Dance Lab, and the Five College Dance Department in Massachusetts. She has presented work in New York City at Harlem Stage, Joe’s Pub, Judson Church, Little Island, and New York University. Shayla-Vie’s most recent choreographic work On Buried Ground: remember them, commissioned by Philadelphia’s Christ Church Burial Ground, commemorates four Black individuals interred in their historic grounds.