Kayla Farrish/Decent Structure Arts is an emerging company combining filmmaking, photography, and dance. Farrish is a NY based emerging artist-of-color, dancer/director with a vision for intimate storytelling. Granted the Gertrude Shurr Award for excellence in modern dance and passionate dancing, she graduated summa cum laude from University of Arizona in 2013. Since then, she has received two choreographic commissions: Of Bones Dance/Hollye Bynum (2014) creating heart-felt physical solo work In Media Res, and from Houses on the Moon Theater Company (2016) collaborating with poet Lee Schwartz to discuss transgender experiences and issues. In 2015, she co-choreographed a dynamic duet “Gods and Accepting Darkness” with Nik Owens for Spark Dance Forum questioning what we do to feel control over our lives. She studied photography and film through internships with Yara Travesio working on her production of La Madea. She shadowed photographer and sculptor Benjamin Heller, took classes and workshops through Brooklyn Central and Gibney Dance’s Digital Technical Institute, and shared work with portrait photographer David Needleman. She created her first photograph series “Beloved Loveless” in Winter 2017 along with writings and dance improvisations. Live solo and film With Delicacy and Permanence premiered in May 2017 at B.A.A.D! (Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance) Boogie Down Series. In Summer 2017, she was selected to be a Chez Bushwick Artist in Residence where she created 5 short dance films and a cinematic photograph series. She premiered these films and cinematic photograph gallery in the Artist in Residence showcase and at Bushwick Open Studios in September 2017. The films were screened at the Triskelion Film Festival, Deconstructed: Dance Film Local Artist Program at Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Hollye Bynum/Of Bones Dance “Mouthfull” Program, Create: Art at Gallim Studios, and Women’s Work Festival in Detroit, Michigan. New explosive solo Wager discussing power premiered at the Pepatian’s Bronx Artists Now 2018 APAP Showcase. It was developed into visceral duet With grit, From Grace with collaborator Dominica Greene, and performed at Stuffed: Dinner and Dance at the Judson Church in February 2018 and at Arts On Site Performance Party in March 2018. Arts On Site’s performance included early stages of Farrish’s new solo Draft 1. Black Bodies Sonata 2017 film was transformed and expanded to a live performance duet with collaborator Nik Owens, and shown at Movement Research Spring Series in April 2018. Afterwards “Draft 2”, and improvisation from the Beloved Loveless Series was brought back to life for Create:Art Spring Series at Gallim. “Why I can’t hold strangers” live solo performance and film formed as the beginning of Farrish’s research on the power of feeling, and the ownership of the female experience, body, and sexuality. She premiered this solo at Danspace for the Food for Thought Series curated by Indah Walsh, and also at the Pepatian Meet and Greet the Artists as a recipient of the Dance Your Future: Artist and Mentor Collaborative Residency at BAAD! The research within this work will be developed in her first anticipated evening length work “Spectacle” premiering in November 2018 at BAAD!
In addition, she has continued working on portrait photography, creating self-portraiture and dance performance and rehearsal photography for Jasmine Hearn, Natalie Deryn Johnson, Danielle Russo, and Spencer James Wieldie.