I Love Being in My Body: Dancer Kayla Hamilton Launches a Hub for Multiply Marginalized Creatives
“Circle O reimagines a (dance) world where Black Disabled and other multiply marginalized creatives are central, and every body is worthy of care.”
Featured work: How to Bend Down/How to Pick it Up
Artist, producer, educator and consultant Kayla Hamilton is passionate about creating spaces for “every body,” and, especially, safe and fertile spaces where Black Disabled and other multiply marginalized creatives can flourish. A Texas native who now resides in the Bronx, Kayla draws on and weaves together myriad identities and relationships in the manifestation of dance experiences; educational opportunities; and multimedia, multi-sector dialogue.
Hamilton is a Black, visually impaired artist; public school special education teacher; awarded dancer and dance educator; and community-builder and -connector. Among many honors, she is a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and Bronx Cultural Visions Fund recipient whose performances have been presented at the Whitney and New York Live Arts. She has participated in or co-created diverse expressive undertakings like Skeleton Architecture, Angela’s Pulse/Dancing While Black and the Crip Movement Lab.
Hamilton is also the founder of @circleo_org, a cultural hub for innovation in practices of art and access. Circle O launched in 2024 and has four wings: performance, education, consultation and community hub.
“In a world where there is no singular ‘right’ way to look, move or be, who might you become? What might we build together?” Hamilton asks within this collaborative endeavor. A few of the other questions Circle O looks to explore are:
What parts of ourselves do we conceal in order to belong?
Underneath all the titles, genres and identity formations, how do we carve out spaces to practice the simple but profound art of being ourselves, with others?
“Circle O” is named after the family circle of care and loving presence that held her grandfather, Oscar, as he neared the end of his life. This title choice highlights the importance of heritage and home to Hamilton.
“It’s a reminder to myself of who I am,” Hamilton says. And, she traces her passion for dance, in part, back to her uncle, Lawrence Hamilton, who was a tap dancer and singer on Broadway. Hamilton is also inspired by contemporary creatives like Alice Sheppard.
“I had never seen someone, a Black person, in the dance field name their disability so boldly,” Kayla told ARTNews in 2022, describing her first impressions of Sheppard. “I could see myself in her.”
Recently, Hamilton’s work, How to Bend Down/How to Pick it Up, which premiered at The Shed in NYC, received a New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project grant to support U.S. touring from 2024 to 2026.
More featured work:
Questions for the Artist:
1. What is art to you?
For me, art is anything and everything. It can also be nothing.
2. What did you make in the past, and why?
In the past, I’ve made dance, or dance theater. I still make those things. Why? I like creative problems that create other creative problems. I find that art and dance can interrogate things that often do not get interrogated. And I love to dance, I love being in my body.
3. What are you making now, and why?
I just premiered How to Bend Down/How to Pick It Up, my most ambitious work to date. So now I am getting myself reorganized. I am building clearer budgets so I can make more work. I am making new goals for Circle O. I am dreaming again. Why? For me, it’s nice to have something to move toward. Even if I miss it, I am headed toward something. I want to make sure I am moving from a grounded spot, and dreaming it part of that.
4. What are your hopes for the future?
My hopes — I still have access to breath, you still have access to breath, and we still have access to breath. When there is breath, there is possibility. I hope more people have access, exposure, and desire to be in their bodies, and to be with art and the ways they perceive art to be.
Artist Supplied Bio:
Kayla Hamilton is a Texas-born, Bronx-based performance maker, dancer, educator, and consultant. She is the founder of Circle O, a new cultural organization created by and for Black Disabled and other multiply marginalized creatives.
She is 2023–2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, A 2023–2024 Pina Bausch Foundation Fellow, a 2024 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant recipient, and a 2023–2024 Bronx Cultural Visions Fund recipient.
Her past performances have been presented at the Whitney Museum, Gibney, Performance Space NY, New York Live Arts, and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. As a dancer, Kayla Hamilton was part of the Bessie Award-winning ensemble Skeleton Architecture while also performing with MBDance/Maria Bauman, Sydnie L. Mosley/SLMDances, and Gesel Mason.
Hamilton has developed/designed access-centered programming for the Mellon Foundation, Movement Research, DanceNYC, and UCLA Dancing Disability Lab. She is the co-director of Angela’s Pulse/Dancing While Black with Marguerite Hemmings, Paloma McGregor, and Joya Powell. As an educator she co-developed ‘Crip Movement Lab’ with collaborator Elisabeth Motley; a pedagogical framework centering cross-disability movement practices which they have taught in multiple dance centers and universities around the country. She has also worked as a K-12 public school special education teacher in NYC for 12 years.
Find more of Kayla Hamilton’s work on her site and Instagram.
The Ask Artists interview series features all forms of creative expression.
