About

My name is Kyrie Ellison, and I am a performance maker who utilizes the choreographic to create inclusive and safe spaces for audiences to explore and adventure with each other. Unafraid to don a sword or shoot a bow, I find freedom in the arcane arts just as I did when I was young pretending to be Robin Hood. My writing combines my childhood love of fairy tales and my adult obsession with self-help books, examining the ways in which humans triumph over difficulty.

The content that inspires me? Seeing women kick ass! But seriously, I get emotional watching female warriors on stage and screen. I think this stems from my love of fairy-tales- the Brother’s Grimm recorded many stories of women making the best of bad situations. That coupled with the stories my father would tell me about my Scottish ancestors, wherein strong women would lead rebellions, train as warriors and rule kingdoms. Their form did not dictate their destiny.

An Intimacy Advocate & aspiring Fight Master, I am no stranger to the vulnerability that emotionally heightened situations bring. In I’d Be All Alone, a piece I co-created with Amelia Bethel combining stage combat and burlesque, we dug into what it means to be a woman in the world of performance; comparing our two approaches to owning our feminine bodies and using them in the ways in which we feel empowered in otherwise inhibiting situations. 

For my undergraduate degree, I attended Russell Sage College in Troy, NY where I was given the opportunity to explore directing, choreographing and devising. While in school, I focused on physical work as a dance captain/co-choregrapher for musicals on campus. I also played many character roles in shows (mainly animals and men) cultivating my fearless approach to physical expression. It’s during this time I learned to devise movement with groups of non-movers daunted by the word “dance” by giving them subtle everyday tasks, like brushing hair or folding laundry, and then encouraging them to expand these movements beyond their inherent vocabulary. Basically, I tricked them into dancing.  

After relocating from New York City to New Hampshire, I’m excited to continue my training with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators & Theatrical Intimacy Education, as well as continuing to choreograph scenes of simulated violence for both stage and screen.