Based in Boston, MA, Michayla Kelly (she/her) is an artist and analyst, navigating her twenties and the arts field with a lens of social justice.
She is the Company Manger and an artist with VLA DANCE, an emerging contemporary dance company with the mission of creating pathways to Freedom for people of all identities through contemporary dance.
She is also the Research & Special Projects Lead for Dance Data Project®, a non profit organization which uses metrics-based analysis to advocate for gender equity in the dance field.
As a performer, Michayla has worked with companies and artists including Boston Lyric Opera, José Mateo Ballet Theatre, Odyssey Opera, Pantos Project Dance, Pat Catterson, and VLA Dance.
As an educator, Michayla has taught both dance and mathematics, teaching at Franklin School for the Performing Arts, Reaching Heart School of Ballet, and Hibernian Hall with VLA DANCE, and serving as the Interim Center Director at Mathnasium of Dedham.
She has also worked for the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education as an independently contracted data analyst.
Michayla holds a BA in Dance and Mathematics from Goucher College, where she graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with honors in each major. While at Goucher, she spent a semester studying dance at Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo, Italy, and performed works by esteemed dance artists including Elizabeth Lowe Ahearn, Diane Coburn Bruning, Iyun Ashani Harrison, Adam Hougland, Ronen Koresh, Gabrielle Lamb, Jessica Lang, Meredith Rainey, Iquail Shaheed, Ken Skresz, and more. She was the recipient of The Friends of Goucher Dance Prize for Outstanding Achievement in the Major, The Fine and Performing Arts Scholarship for Dance, The Ruth Baird Prize for Scholarship, Sportsmanship and Athleticism, The Marian M. Torrey Prize in Mathematics, The Pearl Davis Leavitt Award for Mathematics, and The Margaret Guccione Prize for her paper "The Fundamental Shared Essence of Dance and Mathematics.”
She is passionate about delving deeply into projects, being involved with works that promote ethical arts practices, patterns, puzzles, and finding specificity in the most abstract of thoughts.
