Enya-Kalia Jordan
BAX X CDI Arts & Social Justice Residency (2023-2025)

Enya-Kalia Jordan, PhD ABD, is a choreographer, researcher, scholar, and teaching artist from Brooklyn, New York. She received a BA in Arts & Letters Dance from Buffalo State University and MFA from Temple University in choreography and performance. In 2023. she was named an “Artistic Visionary,” honored as Temple University’s 30 under 30 distinguished Alumna. In 2023, she successfully completed qualifying examinations and was awarded doctoral candidacy at Texas Woman’s University for her research on cultural embodiment and black feminist choreographic perspectives. She also received the 2022-2023 Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Spouses Education Scholarship for high academic and leadership potential for her Ph.D. work and community activism. She is also proud to be the first-ever recipient of the Dr. Linda Caldwell Scholarship in Dance. She has presented her creative research five times at the National Dance Education Organization, twice at the Collegium of African Diasporic Dance at Duke University, three times at Dance for the Child International conferences, and the International Association of Blacks in Dance annual conference. Enya-Kalia has also presented work at the Decolonizing Tertiary Dance Education Conference hosted by Stockholm University and the Decolonizing Bodies: Biennial International Dance Conference hosted by the University of the West Indies. 

Enya-Kalia has performed with Buffalo State’s Dance Theatre Company, Kariamu & Company, Merián Soto, Kimmel Center’s Philadelphia Festival of the Arts, Camara Arts West African Dance Company, and currently dances with RACHEL:dancers. Enya-Kalia has performed and presented choreography at iconic venues such as Kun-Yung Lin’s Inhale Performance Series, Temple University’s Conwell Dance Theater, BAAD! Ass Women in Dance Festival, EstroGenius Festival, Bates Dance Festival, Klienhans Music Hall, United Nations Headquarters, and many more. Enya-Kalia also has been a teaching-artist with Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Dance Africa program and is thrilled to join BAX as guest artist faculty of Dance Performance Workshop III. She has also been a professor at the University of Virginia and SUNY Erie, as well as a guest lecturer at Rider University, SUNY Buffalo State, and Temple University.  

Enya-Kalia is the proud founder and artistic director of Enya Kalia Creations, a movement-based artistic collective established in 2016. She also co-directs Bashi Arts, with multidisciplinary dance artists Rachel Repinz and business strategist Airi Kholbach. This collaborative performance project centers on three goals: providing a platform for emerging artists, creating pre-professional opportunities for NYC students, and serving as an incubator for experimental Contemporary movement artists. Bashi Arts is home to two transdisciplinary performance companies, RACHEL:dancers (R:d) & Enya Kalia Creations (EKC). Enya-Kalia is so excited to be the resident artist for the BAX & CUNY Dance Initiative Arts & Social Justice Residency Program at Brooklyn College. Over the course of two years during this residency, she will be developing her practice-based dissertation research, in conjunction with Enya Kalia Creations and Bashi Arts. This research entitled ‘Ebonic Bodies in Motion: Discerning the Metaphysical Emergence of African American Vernacular Embodiment’ centers Black women in Brooklyn, their knowledge systems, and African American Vernacular English. Enya-Kalia will use this time to celebrate and cultivate dance performance that prioritizes Black women’s embodiment as expressed across the body, movement, sound, and aesthetic. 

Website: https://www.enyakaliacreations.org/