Kelly Tsai

An experimental heels solo exploring themes of sexuality, body, objectification, and control.

Presented at Folly's Haven, ArtX Gallery, NYC curated by choreographer Sophia Quezaire.

Choreography, Music, & Performance by Kelly Tsai.

For full video, click here.

A pole performance set to Jessy Lanza's "Pull My Hair Back."

Presented at Incredipole's The Leather Party Showcase.

Choreography & Performance by Kelly Tsai.

For full video, click here.

An excerpt from Kelly's poem "A Sweet Earthquake" published in Hii Magazine Issue No. 3 (print), along with full poem + sonic narrative that she produced for their audio-first interactive site.

Hii (edited and founded by One Thousand Birds, a leading design studio for audio) celebrates our human experience by exploring the use of sound in film+tv, music, art, the internet, and culture at large.

Hii is published and headquartered in NYC, with audio production studios in LA, Lisbon and Bogotá and distributed in stores across the UK, EU, and US.

A series of constructed persona portrait diptychs using digital photography and text to explore intriguing women of the Chinese diaspora.

For “SKyGiRLS” Artist Statement, click here.

For gallery, click here.

For exhibition history, click here.

The goal of the project is neither to highlight heroes nor historical figures, but rather to embody and reinterpret complicated Chinese women who never fit easily into categorization, expectation, or known precedents.

The inspiration for this series came during the pandemic as a means of seeking how wildly unique women of Chinese descent have navigated worlds that possessed no space for them to be their full autonomous selves.

A collaboration with interdisciplinary artist Olga Mezhibovskaya and her typography students at the School of Visual Arts. The typography students re-envisioned their favorite poems of Kelly’s for public space in a long scroll format as a reference to traditional Chinese scroll paintings.

For gallery, click here.

Artists: Dino, Hansol Park, Jane Mao, Jieui Kim, Phoebe Look, Yuwen Suo, WonJun Choi, Zitong Zheng, Kejun Zhang, Ruthann Xu, Ruotong, Xilu Cheng, Yiran Sun, Youer Zhao, Yue Zhu, Zedan Peng

A commissioned suite of eight poems inspired by the life and work of Andy Warhol and the poetry created during the Factory era by Gerald Malanga and John Giorno.

Presented at Fotografiska NYC at the closing of the “Andy Warhol: Photo Factory” exhibit.

Poems (Click on Title):

A Sweet Earthquake

Screen Test

Shape of the Angel

A site-specific contemporary dance.

Structured improvisation exploring relationship between inner and outer world, human and divine.

Presented at Abrons Arts Center.

Choreography, Music, & Performance by Kelly Tsai.

For full video, click on image.

A site-specific socially distanced contemporary dance.

Structured improvisation exploring the visceral nature of trust and relationship.

Presented at Abrons Arts Center, LES Dance Crawl.

Choreography, Music, & Performance by Kelly Tsai.

For full video, click on image.

A dance / music short film honoring the lives of the six women slain at Young's Asian Massage Parlor.

Presented at Asian American Writer's Workshop “Women Warriors,” AWGC Virtual Gala, BRIC Arts Media Artist Talk, and CreateART Dance Film Nights.

Film, Choreography, Music, & Performance by Kelly Tsai.

For full video, click on image.

A prototype for a VR retelling of Andy Weir's popular short story, "The Egg," exploring themes of life, death, reincarnation, and how they are connected.

Developed via 5th Wall Forum Connectors Program for creative technologists and immersive theater artists.

Creative Team: Jesse Carrey, Douglas Jay Goldstein, Stan Mathabane, Adam Rei Siegel, Mary Stewart-David, Kelly Tsai

For more info and demo video: https://theeggvr.carrd.co

A pandemic-era series of creative prompts to provide tools to transform forced isolation into meaningful self-reflection.

The original prompts were published on social media six times per week. The seventy-one prompts and an additional one hundred prompts were added to a freely distributed Google doc. For the Google doc, click here.

The visual design of the posts uses abstract fractals and colors from nature, grounding the desire to reunify with something larger. For gallery, click here.

For Kelly’s essay about #CreativeQuarantine and artistic process during the pandemic, click here.