Kelly Tsai is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist & performer based in Brooklyn, New York. She is currently working at the intersection of music, dance, photography, film, & technology.

In 2025, Kelly's "SKyGiRLS" photo series has been selected to be exhibited at Exposure Photography Festival's International Open Call at Contemporary Calgary, Canada and published in Create! Magazine Issue No. 49.

In 2024, Kelly's "SKyGiRLS" photo series was published in F-Stop Magazine, selected as a Lensculture Emerging Talent Award Editor's Pick, and exhibited at Satellite Art Fair in Brooklyn, NY. She premiered solo choreographic works as a pole dancer at Incredipole's 9th Anniversary Leather Party and as an experimental heels dancer at Folly's Haven at ArtX Gallery. She was a featured pole performer in Dey Phoenix's ensemble at Body & Pole. She also participated in Performance Space New York's Summer Studio creating new works in music and dance.

In 2023, her episodic television pilot was selected for development by the Athena Film Festival Writers’ Lab. Her poetry and sound design were commissioned for Hii Magazine’s “PUNK IN THE POST-APOCALYPSE” issue. Her “SKyGiRLS” photo series was also selected to exhibit at SUPERFINE! Art Fair (DC), Armstrong Gallery (CT), and Aqua Art Fair (Miami) and as a Curious Elixirs Curious Creators Grant Finalist (top 3% of over 1400 entries).

In 2022, Kelly was commissioned by Fotografiska x VICE to write and perform a series of original poems inspired by the “Andy Warhol: Photo Factory” exhibit. As a dancer, she performed as a vogue femme performer at the Socrates Sculpture Park and the Princess Grace Awards Gala and was selected for the GLUE x Trisk Workshop and NVA & Guests Workshop as a contemporary dancer.

In 2021, Kelly's dance works / films were presented by Abrons Arts Center, Asian American Writers' Workshop, and developed at Movement Research Center. Kelly also composed, performed, and produced the music / sonic narratives for these works. Her SKyGiRLS photo series (where she embodies intriguing women of the Chinese diaspora) was exhibited at Camera of the Month Club’s 2021 “The Personal is Political” group show.

She was also selected for 5th Wall Forum’s 2021 Immersive Storytelling Connectors program and NYU’s 2021 ITP Camp for interactive creative technology. Her poetry was featured at the 20th Anniversary of Lincoln Center’s La Casita and in a typography collaboration with artist Olga Mezhibovskaya and the School of Visual Arts.

In 2020, she was accepted into Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective to develop her first narrative feature screenplay, which was previously advanced to second round consideration for the Sundance Screenwriters' Lab.

In 2019, she was chosen for the Adidas Nitejogger #Beatmakers Lab for music production and released four instrumental tracks. Her award-winning animated film collaboration with Ryan Hartley Smith, “To Find Your Place in the World,” was projected on the Manhattan Bridge for the 2019 Light Year art exhibit. Her memoir-in-progress, The Invisible Word, won the 2017 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship - Nonfiction Literature and was nominated for the 2019 New York Community Trust Ellen Levine Prize.

Her work as a performance poet has been featured at over 700 venues worldwide including BAM, Fotografiska, Kennedy Center, LACMA, Lincoln Center, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Whitechapel Gallery London, NYC Summer Stage, multiple shows on HBO, numerous galas, and on lineups that also featured Drake and Erykah Badu. She’s been commissioned as a performance poet for commercial campaigns for Sony, Intel, and Laphroaig. Her work has been profiled by Forbes, NPR, New York Daily News, Huffington Post, NBC News, NY1, C-SPAN, and HBO.

Her work as an interdisciplinary theater artist has been developed and presented nationally and internationally via New York Live Arts, Brooklyn Museum, HERE, Ars Nova, BRIC, El Museo Del Barrio, Taipei Poetry Festival and more. Her short films have been screened and won awards at film fests in the US and abroad. In 2018, Kelly was featured as an actress on HBO’s Peabody Award-winning series, “Random Acts of Flyness.” She is a member of ASCAP and SAG-AFTRA.

Presenters & Venues (Selected Listing)

Artist Fellowships & Workshops

5th Wall Forum Connectors (VR/AR)
Athena Film Festival Writers’ Lab (Screenwriting)
Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective (Film)
Callaloo (Fiction)
Cave Canem (Poetry)
GLUE x Trisk (Dance)
NVA & Guests Workshop (Dance)
Kundiman (Poetry)
New York Foundation for the Arts (Non-Fiction Literature / Memoir)
NYU ITP Camp (VR/AR/New Media)
Rising Circle PlayRISE (Playwriting)
Voices of Our Nation Foundation (Poetry)

Artist Grants & Residencies

Asian American Arts Alliance
Asian Women’s Giving Circle
Hedgebrook
Illinois Arts Council
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
New York Foundation for the Arts
New York Live Arts Studio Series
Poets & Writers

Special Recognition

American Association of University Women's Woman of Distinction Award
Americorps Alums National Leader Award
Media that Matters Film Festival War & Peace Award
Finalist, Curious Elixirs Curious Creators Grant (Photo)
Finalist, Brooklyn Arts Exchange Artist-In-Residence
Finalist, Public Theater Emerging Writers Group
Finalist, Creative Capital
Finalist, New York Theater Workshop Fellowship
2nd Round, Sundance Screenwriters Lab
2nd Round, Hedgebrook Screenwriters Lab

Juror / Artistic Panels

apexart (Art)
Austin Film Festival (Film)
Brooklyn Arts Council (Theater)
Hedgebrook (Multi-Genre Literature)
Kundiman (Poetry)
Leeway Foundation (Multi-Genre Arts)
The Loft Literary Fellowship (Poetry)
The Rumpus (Fiction)
Maryland State Arts Council (Poetry)