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, Soul Project Dance Company (Candace Brown), and SHINSA the Collective (Bo Park). Her dance credits include Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Fire Island Dance Festival, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Ferrari Theater (Padua, 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 in original works by Yue Yin, Joseph Hernandez, Menghan Lou, Akira Uchida, Kristen Céré, Theresa Stone, Brian Golden, Candace Brown, 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), Victor Quijada, Galen Hooks, Micaela Taylor, Andrea Miller, Sekou, Glen Edgerton, Sidra Bell, Olivier Wevers, Cat Rendic, Jon Rua, and Candace Brown.
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 as well as an instructor at Broadway Dance Center and Brickhouse NYC. Most recently, her evening-length immersive installation “LOOK AT ME” which explores the downfalls of human vanity was granted full-funding from the Queens Arts Fund as a 2023 New Work Grant Recipient.
As a writer, Kristalyn has authored three poetry books and was the 2021 Fall Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow. Her newest poetry collection Purification in Queens will be published by Fernwood Press in Fall 2023. 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 (Communications Assistant), GALLIM Dance Company (Communications Coordinator), Soul Project Dance Company (Candace Brown), BodyVox (Audience Services Associate), First Image (Interim Communications Director), Smashworks Dance Collective (Marketing Intern), and ECU Dance Program (Undergraduate Marketing Director).
Kristalyn is the Founder of Dive and Dine (see page above) which provides creatives with a space for open discuss about identity and ingenuity. Dive and Dine also 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.