Shayla-Vie Jenkins

Shayla-Vie Jenkins is a performer, teacher, and maker whose current research explores the potentiality of the dancing body to enrich discourse on race, sexuality, memory, and history. She received her B.F.A. from the Fordham/Ailey program under the mentorship of Denise Jefferson and Ana Marie Forsythe. She spent the past two years at Smith College as an M.F.A. teaching fellow where she created a new solo, A Hieroglyphics of the Flesh, exploring the forgotten lineage and inherited traumas of her matrilineal line.

Shayla-Vie spent a decade (2005-2015) performing with the internationally touring Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. During her tenure, the company received two ensemble New York Dance and Performance Awards (The Bessies) 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 taught numerous masterclasses and workshops for the company and also serves as a répétiteur, restaging some of Bill T. Jones’s most notable works. She was featured as one of Dance Magazine’s “On the Rise” performers (2008). Shayla-Vie has also performed and collaborated with numerous artists including Yaa Samar! Dance Theater, Francesca Harper, Daniel Beatty, Alicia Hall-Moran, Grisha Coleman, Yanira Castro, Rebecca Lazier, Bebe Miller, and Yara Travieso. She has presented her own work in New York City at Harlem Stage, Joe’s Pub, Judson Church, and New York University. Shayla-Vie teaches at The American Dance Festival and NYU’s Summer Dance Intensive. She is currently working on projects with Ni’Ja Whitson and Susan Marshall.