HELANIUS J WILKINS
HELANIUS J. WILKINS, a native of Lafayette, Louisiana, is an award-winning choreographer, performance artist, innovator, and educator. He is Associate Chair & an Assistant Professor of Dance in the Department of Theatre & Dance at CU Boulder. His creative research and projects are rooted in the interconnections of American contemporary performance, cultural history, and identities of Black men. In his intermedia collaborations he works with artists from a wide range of disciplines, including film, video, and design. He lived in Washington, D.C. for eighteen (18) years and founded EDGEWORKS Dance Theater, an all-male dance company of predominantly Black men that existed for thirteen (13) years (2001 - 2014). His honors include the 2008 Pola Nirenska Award for Contemporary Achievement in Dance, DC’s highest honor given by the Washington Performing Arts Society; the 2002 and 2006 Kennedy Center Local Dance Commissioning Project Award; and multiple Metro DC Dance Awards. In addition to performing the works of nationally recognized choreographers including Robert Moses, Joy Kellman, and Kevin Wynn, he performed with Maida Withers’ Dance Construction Company (DC), and as a guest with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (MD). He has equally enjoyed, and continues to enjoy, creating, presenting, and receiving commissions for choreography throughout the United States and abroad. To date, he has choreographed and directed over 60 works, which includes two critically-acclaimed musical productions for Washington, DC’s Studio Theater – “Passing Strange” (2010) and “POP!” (2011). Foundations and organizations including New England Foundation for the Arts (National Dance Project), National Performance Network (NPN), the Boulder Office of Arts & Culture Public Arts Program, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts have supported his work. He is a member of the National Board of Directors of the American College Dance Association for the Northwest region, and was appointed in 2018 by Governor Jared Polis to the Colorado Council on Creative Industries. www.helaniusj.com.
Helanius's photos are made possible by Christopher Michael Carruth, ©2019.
Helanius's photos are made possible by Christopher Michael Carruth, ©2019.