life - breath - soul
KIERSTEN BORKERT
Dancer & Choreographer in Soul
Company Outreach Team
Kiersten Borkert began her dance training under Lisa Collins-Vidnovic and Natalya Zeiger. Her professional dance training continued at Elon University where she pursued a B.F.A in Dance Performance and Choreography as well as a B.A. in Psychology. There, she performed in works by Jen Guy Metcalf, Renay Aumiller, Ming-Lung Yang, Jason Aryeh, and Lauren Kearns, the latter with whom she traveled to Italy to perform in dance festivals across Florence and Pompeii. In 2019, Kiersten had her choreography selected to be in the Elon Dance Program’s Dancing in the Landscape performance, where she re-staged her piece to be viewed in a site-specific setting. She is excited to continue her professional dance career while pursuing her master’s degree in Counseling.
A Note from the Artist:
I’ve always had a profound interest in the human experience. I am fascinated by the relationship between our thoughts and our environments, and how each of them acts on the other to form what we call reality. My choreography is a reflection of this relationship within the context of my dancers’ lives. The pieces I put on stage are the final products of an environment that I have methodically create during my rehearsal process. Depending on the concept of the piece, I might take actions to facilitate different emotions, thoughts on personal identity, or a certain perception of life in each rehearsal. Such actions could be the presentation of an image or visual aesthetic, or a quote that I want my dancers to embody. I believe that choreography should reflect the people who are performing it, and honor their individual stories as they relate to the central theme.
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If I can represent aspects of the human experience through art, I can enable viewers to turn inwards and understand their own experiences of being alive. In doing so, these viewers will become more compassionate not just toward themselves but toward others as well, which can only serve to create a more unified, empathetic world.