Projects
The DIY Guide to Life and Death
Do you need a little laugh and a little rest? Maybe you are wondering how to get along with others or survive the apocalypse? The DIY Guide to Life and Death is a dance theater presentation created by Kelly Silliman in collaboration with performing artists Sarah Boy, Samantha Grossman, Rachel Brimmer, Lexi Major Jameson, Jayme Winell, Gabbi Perry, and Ella Carlson. This performance is part of an ongoing series being presented in 2025 through 2028, and is an invitation for anyone looking for a little more creativity, conversation, community, and good cheer in their lives.
Miss Treated
Miss Treated is a solo dance theatre piece performed by Kelly Silliman and created in collaboration with Melissa Edwards that explores gender, power, and medical mistreatment. Based on the personal experiences of the collaborators and using gestural choreography and dark humor in the framework of a beauty pageant, the piece shines a light on the all-too-common experience of being misheard, misdiagnosed, and mistreated by professionals who are supposed to help. (2024)
Karen with a “K”
In Karen With a “K,” longtime collaborators Kelly Silliman and Cat Wagner take on the mythology of the “Karen” persona and its increasingly ubiquitous use as a social meme. “Karen” has become a commonplace, pejorative term for white women who seem entitled beyond reason and who may also weaponize their privilege within certain contexts. In this dance play, Silliman and Wagner utilize “iconic” Karen moments from the past few years as a way to examine how racism and misogyny intersect in contemporary culture. They believe humor can offer opportunities to build tolerance for the messiness and discomfort inherent in personal growth, and also that self-reflection must be matched by thoughtful action. (2022-2023)
the tinydance project
Conceived and directed by Kelly Silliman, the tinydance project was a professional performance ensemble that began with the question of what dance and performance art would look like without the high-tech resources currently available to us. Tinydance performances were presented outdoors in public spaces and collaborators sang their own accompaniment, all on a 4’ by 8’ or 8' round stage towed by bicycle to venues. For nearly ten years, the tinydance project presented multidisciplinary, movement-based performances with intricately woven and curated sound scores, taught open community classes, and were guest artists/artists in residence at several universities and independent schools. Major works during that time include this road that i call home, still we climb, and all we can do. Core collaborators included Jayme Winell, Nicole Kutcher, and Marie Brown, and early collaborators included Liv Fauver, Charnice Charmant, Cory Ellen Gatrall, Maureen Shea, and Crystal Gipe. A documentary following the company’s 2015-2016 season can be found here. (2012-2022)
Other projects
Stomping Grounds Dance Festival (2023-present), Producer and Choreographer: Created as a vehicle to support local dance artists and build community, Kelly produces the festival each year as part of her role at the Northampton Center for the Arts, and also sets a piece of original choreography on modern dance students and professionals. Past pieces have included Partly for All of Me (Party at Hawley), all you need is a little vision, and The DIY Guide to Space Travel, a section of The DIY Guide to Life and Death.
Privy (2015-2021), Co-director and Dramaturg: Privy is a solo dance theater piece created and performed by Deborah Goffe of Scapegoat Garden. Over the course of more than five years, Deborah presented Privy as part of a salon style event series in her home, where witnesses enjoyed food, performance, and conversation in deeply intentional community. The project culminated in early 2021 with an internet-mediated performance salon that tested the boundaries of home, body, performance, and proximity via Zoom, live graphics and filter creation, interactivity, and conversation. Privy was created by Deborah Goffe in collaboration with Kelly Silliman (co-director) and Ritz Ubides (technical director). André Zachary of Renegade Dance Group joined as a collaborator for the 2021 performance.
We’re All Bettys (2019), Performer and Collaborator: We’re All Bettys explored the relationships between gender and artificial intelligence. Following similar creative processes, choreographer Cat Wagner created two entirely different pieces : one for her advanced dance students at Stoneleigh-Burnham, an independent girls' school in Greenfield, MA, and one with her longtime collaborative partner, Kelly Silliman. The pieces combined the quotidian with the idiosyncratic and exhibited repetition and counterpoint with an obsessive, cerebral formalism.
In Formation (2019), Performer/Activator: Visual artist Tereza Swanda, in collaboration with glass artist Ingrid Pichler and sound artist Fletcher Boote, converted Emily’s conservatory at the Emily Dickinson Museum, taking the Dickinson poem “Nature is what we see” as the starting point for an installation with colored gels and painted paper sampling colors found in the landscape, and a soundscape that wordlessly references Emily Dickinson’s poetry. During Amherst Arts Night Plus in July and August, a dance piece was performed in the space by Kelly Silliman.
Valley Multigenerational Dance Project (2018): Choreographer/Co-Producer: Kelly Silliman collaborated with Noël Raley to produce the Valley Multigenerational Dance Project, an evening length dance work that featured seven dancers ages 11 to 73: Phoebe Silliman, Leilah Cohen, Jayme Winell, Noël Raley, Margaret Bowrys, Laura Pravitz, and Robin MacRostie. The project was created in response to the loss of longtime Valley dance company Dance Generators, and culminated in a weekend of performances that brought together community members to witness the piece and engage in conversation about the work itself as well as their relationships to ideas around age and art-making.
Rosie, Really. (2014-2015), Performer and Collaborator: Will the real Rosie Riveter please stand up? We are what we read, we are what we hear, we are what we see, but ultimately, we are what we consciously and unconsciously choose. We all have some image of Rosie in our minds, and there are many interpretations of her story. In Rosie, Really. Cat Wagner and Kelly Silliman danced and sang their way through a collective identity crisis. Set within the Real Rosie Radio Hour, and blending an antiquated media source with current events and pop culture memes, two women dressed as Rosie Riveter characters proposed a wide array of women's roles and representations in American popular culture.
Arts for the Earth (2014), Facilitator/Co-Producer: Kelly Silliman/the tinydance project facilitated a collaboration between Smith College student groups Engineers for a Sustainable World, Celebrations Dance Company, and The Smiffenpoofs (a cappella group) to present an interdisciplinary event series celebrating the arts and sustainability. Each event provided an opportunity for various campus communities to come together to witness performances and participate in presentations/discussions related to sustainability. The engineering students worked to design a lighter, more bikeable stage, and the dancers and vocalists created performances within the low-tech framework of the tinydance project. The resulting events brought together many students who would not otherwise have crossed paths.
All photos on this page by Kelly Silliman, with the following exceptions: Miss Treated photos by Hillary Lynn Photography, Karen with a K photo by Paul Bloomfield, tinydance photos by Tom Silliman, David Kutcher, and Joanna Walker, Stomping Grounds photo by Izidor Peterson, We’re All Bettys photo by Peter Raper, In Formation photo by Tereza Swanda, Rosie, Really. photo by Stephen Delas Heras.