KIZUNA DANCE

With more than 18 years of Japanese language study, Cameron McKinney created Kizuna Dance with the mission of using contemporary floorwork to create dance works for those who want to connect, and for those who feel we are all already connected, using both the similarities and divergences – linguistic, historical, aesthetic – between the American and Japanese cultures as primary drivers.
 

He was selected as a 2019-20 U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission Creative Artist Fellow to collaborate with renowned Japanese choreographer Toru Shimazaki and present work in showcases in Japan. He has been a Choreography Fellow at The School at Jacob’s Pillow, an Alvin Ailey Foundation New Directions Choreography Lab Fellow, a Hearst Choreographer-in-Residence at Princeton University, and an Asian Cultural Council Individual Grantee.

 

His work has been supported through grants from the MidAtlantic Arts Foundation, New York City Artists Corps, the Rader Young Artists Foundation, DanceNYC, and Brooklyn Arts Council. His recent projects include HIDDEN BLISS, a dance and film collaboration with filmmaker Cayla Mae Simpson that premiered in Leicester, UK for Serendipity UK's Black Digital Dance Revolution; MOONTIDES, an evening-length commission from Swarthmore College that featured live taiko drummers; and numerous college commissions. 

 

Through Kizuna Dance, Cameron has also presented work and taught in twenty states and in Mexico, France, and the UK, as well as in Japan at the U.S. Ambassador's Residence and at Morishita Studios. His commissions include The Ailey School, Princeton University, twice from the Joffrey Ballet School, three times by Serendipity UK, Marymount Manhattan College, Montclair University, Brigham Young University, San Jose State University, Slippery Rock University, The Dance Gallery Festival, Indiana University, and Bates College, among numerous others. He is currently on faculty at Montclair University and NYU Tisch, and his teaching credits include Adjunct & Visiting Lecturer positions at Princeton University, Bard College, and Queensborough Community College. He has taught on faculty at Gibney Dance since 2016, and has taught for festivals nationally and internationally.

 

He is currently building Nagare Technique, a training module that blends streetdance styles, butoh, and contemporary floorwork. In 2023, his first formal paper on the construction of Nagare Technique, titled The Physicalization of Rebellion, will be published by Serendipity UK in October 2023.

 

In 2021, he launched the inaugural Open Intensive, a week of day-long intensives made entirely free for all participants, featuring high-quality dance education provided by the company artists of Kizuna Dance. Each year, the intensive provides around 100 students with completely free dancing training in New York City.