Open Call: Kayla Hamilton
Tickets
Admission to Open Call events is free with a ticket reservation.
For sold out performances, an in-person wait list will be available 15 minutes before the show begins.
Learn more about accessibility for this production.
About this commission
In How to Bend Down/How to Pick It Up, Kayla Hamilton explores lineages of Black disabled imagination and alternative world-building through an immersive, community-specific, multidisciplinary dance performance.
The performance moves through three historical spaces—the cotton field, the Black church, and the freakshow/circus—where disability was hidden, deemed unproductive, reduced to spectacle, or asked to be prayed away. How to Bend Down/How to Pick It Up offers an archival exploration of these spaces and a reclaiming of agency, recentering the parts of the self that were discarded or suppressed in those settings while carrying forward the ancestral task of envisioning a future where every-body is free.
The production makes use of multiple audio descriptors and a performance structure that can reconfigure every night based on the performers’ changing needs.
Creative Team
![This is a headshot of Kayla Hamilton, who is a dark brown-skinned Black woman. She is posing in front of a blurred brick wall. She is wearing a long sleeve black & white striped shirt. She has light makeup and her gaze is towards us. Her black & golden highlighted dreads are down.] Photo by: Travis Magee](https://cdn.filepicker.io/api/file/cSroWw6RrqYcgYjIWcYk/convert?w=2048&compress=true&fit=max)
Kayla Hamilton (she/her) is a Texas-born, Bronx-based performance maker, dancer, educator, and consultant. Hamilton is currently a Jerome Hill and Pina Bausch Fellow and a NEFA National Dance Production Project Grant recipient. Her past shows have been presented at Gibney, Performance Space New York, New York Live Arts, and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.
Hamilton codeveloped Crip Movement Lab with collaborator Elisabeth Motley—a pedagogical framework centering cross-disability movement practices for every-body, which they have taught in multiple dance centers and universities. She danced with the Bessie Award–winning collective skeleton architecture, and for Maria Bauman, Sydnie L. Mosley, and Gesel Mason.
Hamilton has developed/designed access-centered programming for the Mellon Foundation, Movement Research, and DanceNYC. She recently founded Circle O, a cultural organization uplifting BIPOC disabled creatives. In 2024 – 25 she will go on a national tour with both How to Bend Down/How to Pick It Up and Crip Movement Lab.
Credits
Alex Poots, Artistic Director
Darren Biggart, Director of Civic Programs
Dejá Belardo, Assistant Curator, Civic Programs and Visual Arts
Daisy Peele, Open Call Producer (Associate Producer at The Shed)
Christal Ferreira, Program Manager, Civic Programs and Visual Arts
Ben Young, Production Manager
Special thanks to Public Assembly (Tamara McCaw, Maggie MacTiernan, and Annabel Thompson) and to former program team colleagues who facilitated the call for proposals and selection process for the third edition: Solana Chehtman, Sarah Khalid Dhobhany, Alessandra Gómez, and Andria Hickey.
Michael Ruiz-del-Vizo, Scenic Coordinator
DJ Potts, Sound Coordinator
Vittoria Orlando, Lighting Coordinator
Hao Bai, Video/Projection Coordinator
Cynthia Caridad, Stage Coordinator
Caren Celine Morris, Stage Coordinator
Ariana Michel, Stage Coordinator
A. Sef, Accessibility Consultant
Location and dates
August 15 – 17
7:30 pm
The Shed’s Griffin Theater is located at 545 West 30th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. View The Shed on a map.
For information about accessibility and arriving at The Shed, visit our Accessibility page.
Accessibility
About this Production
Each performance is a masked performance; If you are able wear a KN95 mask we ask that you please do so. The Shed will have surgical masks available upon request in The Doctoroff Lobby and outside The Griffin Theater on Level 6.
The venue is physically accessible with wheelchair seating available upon request. Every performance will include CART and ASL interpretation by Tolly Tillman, Alisa Besher, and J'da Damas. Audio description is integral to the entirety of the performance. Runtime will be approximately 75 minutes with no intermission. People are welcome to float in and out of the space as desired.
Audience participation is encouraged sporadically throughout the performance. Folks will have the option of participating through writing, typing on their phone, verbalizing, or imagining. Due to the creative experimental nature of this performance, there will be moments of cacophonous sounds; a quiet space is located on Level 8 if you need to take a break. Earplugs and fidgets will also be available at the box office.
Accessible restrooms are located on the same floor as the performance, including a gender-neutral, single-stall restroom.
We understand access is social/relational, there will be two access doulas present in the space to help facilitate access needs as they arise.
Purchasing Tickets
The Shed’s online ticketing system includes the option to submit accommodation requests beyond the access points detailed here.
Contact Us
For questions or other requests, visit the Accessibility page, email accessibility@theshed.org, or call (646) 455-3494.
Thank you to our partners
Additional support for Open Call is provided by The Wescustogo Foundation and Jody and John Arnhold | Arnhold Foundation.
The creation of new work at The Shed is generously supported by the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Commissioning Fund and the Shed Commissioners. Major support for live productions at The Shed is provided by the Charina Endowment Fund, with additional support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
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