Coley Curry
Spring 2022 Studio/LAB Artist-In-Residence
Coley Curry is a Filipinx dance artist, storyteller, facilitator and filmmaker. Born in Chicago, IL and currently living in Arizona. In their movement they aim to create spaces for community, ritual, healing and taking ownership of personal history and cultural narratives. Coley has her MFA in dance from Arizona State University. She is a faculty member at Chandler Gilbert Community College. Additionally, she is the Associate Director for the Arizona Drive-In Dance Film Festival and a board member for Dansense. Her film work has been internationally recognized and awarded by the IASC. She has received grant funding and recognition from the Faculty Women’s Association at ASU, Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Tempe Arts Council.
What is at the core of your work?
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Themes of ritual, healing and liberation.
What do you believe your role is as an artist?
My role as an artist asks me to seek ways to embody liberation and co-create movements that remind us of the future world we so deeply deserve and desire.
To practice patience.
To revere contradictions.
To live inside of moments that feel expansive and absolutely alive.
What does your work look like, what elements styles, genres, artforms do you pull from?
My work brings in elements of storytelling and improvisation,
My work pulls from dreams, folktales, legends and the natural world.
My work looks like a collage. A polka dot dress, hung to look like the night sky. Handmade paper from a barangay in Batangas, cut into the shape of a salt and pepper shaker. A love letter translated into English, now lost, but not forgotten. A million eyes in the shape of a pineapple.
Ito. Iyan. Iyon.