About
KRISTALYN GILL, a North Carolina native, graduated from East Carolina University’s Honors College with dual degrees in Dance Performance (BFA) and Interpersonal/Organizational Communication (BS). She is a Renaissance woman, actively embracing the identities of dancer, choreographer, actor, slam poet, author, communication specialist, director, and educator. Above all else, she considers creativity as a conduit for an empathetic community, ignited curiosity, and earnest conversation.
Kristalyn is currently a performing artist with Yue Yin Dance Company and Soul Project Dance Company (Candace Brown). Her dance credits include New York Fashion Week, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Athletic Greens One, Fire Island Dance Festival, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Ferrari Theater (Italy), Teatro Comunale (Italy), the Harkness Mainstage Series at 92Y, the American Dance Guild's Performance Festival, Judson Church, Feud (FX), and Suspicion (Apple TV+) to name a few.
She has performed original work by Yue Yin, Joseph Hernandez, Akira Uchida, Kristen Céré, Candace Brown, Bo Park, Theresa Stone, Brian Golden, Mishay Petronelli, Menghan Lou, Mark Haim, Franco Nieto, Andrea Ward, Shaun Keylock, Hayden Frederick, Eric Delgado, and Cat Cogliandro. Additionally, Kristalyn holds immense gratitude for training under the direct leadership of artists such as Diana Matos (MOTUS the Company Member of the Month), Victor Quijada, Galen Hooks, Micaela Taylor, Andrea Miller, James Alonzo, Sekou, Glen Edgerton, Sidra Bell, Olivier Wevers, Cat Rendic, Jon Rua, and Candace Brown, and Sam Javier.
As a choreographer, her interdisciplinary choreographic works have toured nationally at Koresh Dance Company’s Come Together Festival (PA) and Chicago's Harmony Music and Dance Festival among other venues. Kristalyn has taught at facilities such as the Hub (London), NW Dance Project, BodyVox, and East Carolina University. She currently serves as a faculty member at Peridance Center and Broadway Dance Center as well as an instructor at Brickhouse NYC. Most recently, her evening-length immersive installation “LOOK AT ME” which explores the downfalls of human vanity. This work was granted full-funding as a 2023 New Work Grant Recipient through the Queens Arts Fund. Through this work, Kristalyn connected with the National Performing Arts Funding Exchange to become one of their featured art-makers in 2024.
As a writer, Kristalyn has authored four poetry books and was the 2021 Fall Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow. Her newest poetry collection Purification in Queens will be released by Fernwood Press December 17th, 2024. Her work lives in the intersection of reclaiming femininity and faith, described as "shape and movement viscerally across each page in the throes of grief, trauma, and triumph of girlhood (Maya Williams, Portland Poet Laureate)." Kristalyn’s poetry credits include the Bowery Poetry Club (feature), Inspired Word’s NYC Voices (feature), Arts on Site, Dancegeist, Port Veritas, Unfortunately I Love You, Isol:Art, Dead Dads Club, "While We Wait: A Tale of Fallen Fruit" by Soul Project Dance Company, and "B_TTERLAND" by SHINSA the Collective.
As a contracted communication specialist, Kristalyn has worked with organizations such as Yue Yin Dance Company, GALLIM Dance Company (Communications Coordinator), Soul Project Dance Company, BodyVox Dance Center, First Image (Interim Communications Director), and Smashworks Dance Collective.
Kristalyn is the Founder of Dive and Dine which provides creatives with a space for open discuss about identity and ingenuity. Although monthly gatherings are on hiatus, Dive and Dine offers an annual $500 grant cycle for artists known as the Plunge Development Grant. These funds are given to a maker who uses their work as a conduit for community conversation and exchange.
Photography by Benjamin Wheelwright, Jenna Maslechko, Paolo Verzani, and It Is Good Faith + Arts Festival.