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Keyierra Collins headshot

Keyierra Collins

Dancer, Choreographer, Teacher

Keyierra Collins is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist with a focus on dance and performance. She is a 2025 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist and a 2020 3Arts Awardee. Internationally recognized, Collins’ work spans performance, choreography, creative writing, installation art, and even floral design.  

 

Collins graduated with a BA in Dance from Columbia College Chicago, where she trained under esteemed artists and scholars such as Onye Ozuzu, Dr. Raquel Monroe, and Darrell Jones. Her practice has been shaped by collaborations with numerous Chicago-based artists, including her formal work with Ayodele Drum & Dance, a West African Drum and Dance company under the artistic direction of Ayo T. Alston,with whom she also apprentice-taught. 

 

Her artistic journey has taken her to part of the world—such as France, Haiti, Nigeria, and Barbados—where she has trained, created work, and studied Afro-diasporic dance techniques, culture, and history. This exploration informs the ongoing development of her movement practice, which centers Afro-diasporic traditions as therapeutic tools for mental and physical well-being.  

In 2019, Collins co-founded the performance collective Take Some Leave Some (TSLS) with Atlanta-based artist and performance scholar Brianna Alexis Heath. TSLS creates interactive performances that reimagine "home" as a communal safe space and celebrate Black women’s stories as sources of resilience and experiential wisdom.  

 

Looking ahead, Collins is committed to developing an experimental therapeutic movement practice rooted in Afro-diasporic traditions, creating interdisciplinary installation performances, and continuing to collaborate with artists who share her vision of art as healing for Black people and as a form of resistance against oppressive systems. 

 

Keyierra Collins's Website
None The Shwang Out - TSLS 2023 photo by: Jovan Landry Apart of Links Hall's CO-Mission Curational Residency

Featured Artworks

  • Keyierra Collins artwork Take Rest Clara (you’ve been traveling through Heaven & Earth to meet me again & again) photo by: Julie Lucas, Location: The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago a part of Experiencing Time / Embodying Rhythm Symposium, The Dance Center of Columbia College, Chicago, IL. 2024
  • Keyierra Collins artwork Take Rest Clara (you’ve been traveling through Heaven & Earth to meet me again & again) photo by: Julie Lucas, Location: The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago a part of Experiencing Time / Embodying Rhythm Symposium, The Dance Center of Columbia College, Chicago, IL. 2024
  • dark skinned black woman face painted gold with gold flakes attached mouth wide open with a white and gold paper fan in her hand in a red suit standing next to another dark skinned black woman with a lavander suit on The Shwang Out: Take Some Leave Some photo by: Jovan Landry, Location Links Hall A part of Links Hall's 2023 CO-Misson Curational Residency
  • two dark skinned Black women squating down with their arms up in the air facing each other, one in a red suit and one in a lavendar suit, with their faces lightly painted gold, and flowers surrounding their feet The Shwang Out photo by: Jovan Landry, Location: Links Hall , a part of their curators residency 2023 a work by Take Some Leave Some, co founded by Brianna Alexis Heath and myself.
  • black dark skin woman wearing a long sleeve black body suit under a tulle dress in front of a brick background with blue strips of fabric hanging behind her. HIFMFA: iin the finding photo by: Jovan Landry, Location: Lawndale Pop-Up Shop, apart of Tectonic Black Summer Festival 2022 An excerpt from HIFMFA
  • Keyierra Collins artwork Tati's Buttah Joint: Take Some Leave Some photo by: Jovan Landry, Location: Block House Gallery A part of Links Hall's CO-Misson Curational Residency
  • black woman with blue hair and a pale green floral stiched romper wit her face looking down at her hands lifted to her face standing in between two paths of pink, purple, and white flowers How I Found My Feet Again photo by: Jovan Landry, Location: Columbia College Chicago Dance Center A part of Columbia College Dance Center 2022 Spark Plug comissioned programing
  • black dark skinned woman in dark green jumpsuit knealing down on a bed of pink, whit, and purple flowers, with a black camera on a tripod covered in green vines dancing in frontof a big screen projecting her image on the bach screen with purple lighting How I Found My Feet Again photo by: Jovan Landry, Location: Columbia College Chicago Dance Center A part of Columbia College Dance Center 2022 Spark Plug comissioned programing
  • a lavendar paper dressed faceless femme figure in front of a projected image of a black dark skinned woman wearing a white paper dress and head piece with a installation table in from of it Love Offering photo by: Jovan Landry, Location: Pullman Artspace Lofts apart of the Pullman Laboring Together performance series 2022 A work by my performance collective, Take Some Leave Some, cofounded by Brianna Alexis Heath and myself.
  • a dark skinned black woman in a green envelop thigh high dress and bare feet. On her head is a floral round flat top hat. behind her is a graphic purple flower and orange image, with a green leaf plant in the lower left corner. How I Found My Feet Again, a series of writings by Keyierra Collins photo and design: Keyierra Collins, Location: Pullman Chicago The first graphic image apart of my 6 part series with Performance Response Journal in response to my solo HIFHFA
  • a black dark skinned black woman wearing a pink paper top and floral pants surrounded by yellow flowers and text cut outs, in front of a dark green background, with the words NEW-phoric "i like these new blooms" NEW-phoric "i like these new blooms" image by: Keyierra Collins, published on Performance Response Journal a part of my published series on Performance Response Journal, in response to my solo How I Found My Feet Again, 2022
  • various people sitting in gold fabric colored seats facing a white wall with a video projection next to more people sitting on a greay couch with 3 picture of black women above them Tati's Buttah Joint: Take Some Leave Some photo by: Jovan Landry, Location: Block House Gallery A part of Links Hall's CO-Misson Curational Residency

Keyierra Collins has crowd-funded a project with 3AP

  • Take Some Leave Some

    by: Keyierra Collins
    • $6,235 raised of $5,000 goal
    • 0 Days 0:00:00 LEFT
      • 3Arts matched
      • 125% funded

    I am creating a collaborative, durational installation set inside a house on the South Side of Chicago that uses movement and performance to reflect on lessons learned and passed down to Black women. For one week in 2021, we will …

    Read more about Take Some Leave Some