critical writing
thINKingDance — Decolonizing Dance Writing: Body Stories and the Bedrock of Dreams (august 2020)
“Within a racialized paradigm white bodies are endowed with power.”
San Francisco Dance Film Festival blog — Viewpoint on Deluxe (may 2020)
”We can’t talk about women choreographers without an intersectional lens that includes choreographers of color—all our liberations are inexorably bound together.”
In Dance — SPEAK: PoemAnthemSong (june 2017)
”A black body on stage is political, particularly if that body doesn’t entertain, jive, jump, wow, play victim or beast.”
LINES Ballet blog — Valuing Diversity in Art (january 2017)
”Come. Your black life, your brown life, your female life, your queer life, your ___ life matters deeply to me, to us.”
interviews
Dance Pulp — Posed and Answered with Maurya Kerr of tinypistol, by Kenna Tuski (2015)
Ballet to the People — Reconstructing Beauty: Maurya Kerr's tinypistol, by Leigh Donlan (2014)
"[The] more discomfort the audience feels, the better, because that usually means they're learning something new...[Kerr] wants people to think, to question their experiences..."
The San Francisco Examiner — Choreographer Maurya Kerr finds beauty in beast, by Andrea Pflaumer (2014)
"[Kerr] has created a body of stripped-down, sometimes disquieting work based on the concept of otherness and focusing on ways in which people feel as though they don’t fit in."
The San Francisco Appeal — Dance Flash: Creating Dance and Being Happy with Maurya Kerr, by Becca Klarin (2012)
Marin Independent Journal — Despite funding woes, WestWave dances on, by Zach Dubin (2012)
reviews
"By marketing her company as "anti-pretty" and titling her new work beast, Kerr gives herself and her audience the freedom to reject conventional notions of what dance ought to look like." Stance on Dance by Katie Gaydos (october 2014)
"One of the best solos came from former Alonzo King dancer Maurya Kerr. Billy Tate, a dramatically expressive solo, could be not more removed from what Kerr might have learned from King. Set on a very young dancer, Adam Peterson, this haunting little piece built a strong thrust with a circular trajectory that moved smoothly and securely from internal isolation through to turbulence to return to encapsulation. The spastic movement performed in silence relaxes as the boy heard mysterious - radio preachers? - voices but circled back to the beginning." DanceView by Rita Feliciano (Vol. 28, No. 4 Autumn, 2011)
previews
KQED Arts — Top Dance Picks at This Year's International Arts Festival by Rachel Howard (may 2015)
"tinypistol founder Maurya Kerr has emerged as a promising proponent of liquid-jointed postmodern ballet that marries virtuosic movement with an unfussy toughness."
SF Weekly — Breaking down Beauty by Laura Jaye Cramer (eptember 2014)
"Think dancers can't howl and growl with the best of them?"
San Francisco Chronicle, a Bay Area Arts and Entertainment pick (september 2014)
SF Weekly — Rock the Boat by Silke Tudor (august 2012)
"Kerr first grabbed our attention as a principal dancer for Alonzo King LINES Ballet. Through her own company, tinypistol, Kerr has condensed and distilled loose-limbed ferocity and fierce grace."
SF Gate — Last call for WestWave Dance Festival by Mary Ellen Hunt (august 2012)