Kayla Harley

And so completes my run with Christmas Celebration 2015. It was both a coming home celebration as well as therapy for me as an artist and human being. I began my performance interest here at Evangel Cathedral at 8 years old after seeing the play just a year before. My mom leaned over to me while I had dazzle still welting up in my eyes and asked, "do you want to do that next year?", I nodded my head yes. My eye never parted from the stage. While in Pure Expressions, one of the number of dance ministries that belonged to my church, I found myself learning the foundational movements of Ballet doing pirouette turns on carpet floor, discovering that somehow I could do the splits naturally and that I had a high jumping hip that wouldn't quit when it came to playing the role of Diana Ross in Jesus Loves the Little Children. STOP. Jesus Loves You. my Jesus Loves You. think it oh ohverrrrr think it oh ohverrrr Throughout the years I continued to grow with the Christm...

Who am I? I am a whisper A pair of eyes A friend and sister A heart that loves big and hard I am a force, that moves and grows and asks senseless questions I am a spirit that propels this body of mine onward until the work is done. I am a loud laugh and a deep well of tears. I am an unknown being even to myself a self already made just waiting to be realized and soon actualized in space and time. I am a moment. A belly full of butterfly wing-tips. I am the quiet thoughts of your mind when our eyes or our bodies touch... I am a vessel of goodness, fighting hard to maintain that goodness, while being true to myself where ugliness at times get in the way.

There is a young lady by the name of, Chelsea Harrison. She is a Cincinnati, Ohio based actress, artist, playwright and co-producer Trained at the Duke Ellington School of Arts in Washington DC and a recent graduate of New York University, she premiered her written and produced play entitled Daughters of the Bayou. It is a retelling of three Louisiana  women, the unveiling of a dark family history that involves voodoo, the sacred teaching of herbalism, sex slavery and death. Concerned with the recent events of today, particularly the shootings in Charleston, South Carolina, Chelsea was inspired to write this play to bring Creole heritage to the forefront of our knowledge. She saw the folly in being ignorant to our own history so she created a world where we can experience the truth about ourselves as Americans although "...complex, multilayered and bursting with color", as written in the Director Statement. The play premièred at the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brookl...

No MIRRORS is a self-affirming statement that invites dancers to take ownership of their artistry, identity and their inherent sense of beauty.  As dancers we have grown accustomed to using a mirror as an integral part of our learning and development. The idea is that by seeing the body move in space with our own eyes we are able to measure the angles of right and wrong, according the to rules of technique. However we forget that the mirror is a two-dimensional surface that reflects the image that is shown; while the perception of what it is shown, lies within us. What do I mean by this? Take for example: a tendu a la seconde. Standing at a distance from the mirror, the foot appears to be pointed and detached from the standing leg 180 degrees from a frontal view. But the anatomy of the body is such that the foot would more likely be extending at a 120 to 160 degree angle on the point of the circle, which is the circumference of the body in space (three-dimensionality or 360 deg...