21 days left until DanceWeekend! Our countdown to DanceWeekend’22 continues with KINAJ! KINAJ will be presenting a film during DanceWeekend’s virtual dance film screen happening Friday July 15 at 7pm. Register for the pay what you can event HERE.
IG: kinaj.co
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself/your company?
KINAJ is a cross-genre dance collective created and led by Kin Nguien and AJ Velasco. Founded in 2020, KINAJ’s mission is to bridge gaps between various art disciplines such as dance, film, photography and music through the art of collaboration and knowledge exchange. KINAJ strives to grow and become an organization that will provide valuable platforms for young artists to learn and exchange skills within multiple art disciplines. We hope to contribute to the development of our community by creating opportunities for collaboration, skill-sharing, public engagement and art production.
What will you be sharing at DanceWeekend’22?
We will be sharing our dance film that we produced in collaboration with Jeegar Thakker and Brandon Gordon
How has the pandemic shifted your work as a professional dance artist?
KINAJ originally started as a cross-genre performance duo, incorporating street style dances such as hip-hop, house, popping, and partnering techniques from modern, contemporary, and improvisation. However, due to the pandemic and inability to perform live, KINAJ has pivoted to become a creative duo currently focusing on dance film production. Since 2020, KINAJ has produced 15 dance film projects in collaboration with Toronto-based film directors, movement artists, singers and photographers.
What interests you about film as a medium and how does if differ from a live performance?
We love using film as an outlet for story telling and bringing the audience closer to our story. Film is different from live performance in the way we can build stories through not only dance and movement but also camera direction, acting, set design and many more.
In 1 or 2 sentences, what does dance mean to you?
Dance for KINAJ is collaboration, experimentation and creation. 🙂
Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann and Curtis Alvaro