Kia, 2025
from the Portrait Project
KIA is the third film in our ongoing series The Portrait Project. In these portraits, my collaborator Jack Flame Sorokin and I look closely at working dancers during different stages of life and career in dual modes: movement and language. .
KIA profiles the young South Chicago dancemaker, Kia S. Smith, on the cusp of a premiere in which she crosses a dizzying threshold toward wider success and recognition. We’re with Kia in the theater during a week of rehearsals leading up to her big premiere, and later, as she reflects on her journey and what it means to be a choreographer.
In this film, we are privileged to witness that liminal moment in a dance artist’s life when things take off and professionalize. Kia speaks candidly about how her faith plays a crucial role, steadying her during the onrushing tides of early artistic development.
More from The Portrait Project
KIA S. SMITH is a Chicago native, trained intensely on scholarship at The Hyde Park School of Dance, The Joel Hall Dance Center, ETA Creative Arts Foundation, StoryCatchers Theatre, and received scholarships to attend the American Dance Festival in 2008 and 2009. She holds a BFA in Dance from Western Michigan University and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she was an Advanced Opportunity Program Fellow. Smith is the Founder and Executive Artistic Director of South Chicago Dance Theatre, the company’s Resident Choreographer and the founder of its signature core programs. In 2018, she received the inaugural Young and Ambitious Entrepreneurship Award from the Metropolitan Board of the Chicago Urban League and was chosen by the New York City based Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation as a member of the national Observership class. In 2021, Smith received a 3Arts Make A Wave award and was an Ann & Weston Hicks Choreographic Fellow at the renowned Jacobs Pillow. She was a 2022 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Awardee and a participant in the Artist in Residence “AIR” Program at the Cliff Dwellers Chicago. As a freelance choreographer, Smith’s recent and upcoming commissions include Madison Ballet (2021), Chicago Repertory Ballet (2022), Houston Contemporary Dance Company (2023), Chicago Opera Theater (2023), Ruth Page Civic Ballet Training Company (2022), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2023), Giordano Dance Chicago (2023) and Western Michigan University (2023). She was recently included in Chicago Magazine’s “Who’s Got Next” list and named Player of the Moment in the category of Dance for New City Magazine’s annual 50 Players List in 2023. She is grateful to God for giving her the energy, grace and the opportunity to be able to build community through the art of dance.