Phyllis Akinyi
Phyllis Akinyi is a Danish-Kenyan dancer, choreographer, performance artist, and dance researcher. She works within the realm of flamenco and has spent many years researching and highlighting its African and diasporic expressions. Her artistic practice centers a continuous investigation of the ‘betwixt and between’ - researching entanglements of movement, culture, and identity, from an anthropological lens of bodies caught in cultural ‘in-betweens’.
Akinyi plays with stretching the (imagined) limitations of flamenco, both in time, space, sound and movement, often taking flamenco on a journey away from the traditional stage and into a site-specific and/or durational performance frame - a frame she calls Spatial Listening, where flamenco meets performance art, Africanist Spirituality, and sonic movement.
Her work is presented on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean in various forms; performance, teaching, lectures, and lab sessions, and her interdisciplinary approach has lead her to wear many hats - currently including; artistic director of Diasporic Dimensions - a dance/performance association, co-editor of the anthology trilogy ‘Afro-Nordic Perspectives on Performance’, and artist council for Copenhagen based artist residency HAUT.
Akinyi lives between Madrid and Copenhagen.
Website will undergo a larger transformation in January 2024.
For more info about my work, please contact me directly.
Dance magazine feature
Decolonizing Flamenco Through Exploring Black Influences
Written by Dr. Brenda Dixon-Gottschild for Dance Magazine (USA)
May 2022, Print and online
Current works
FREE CARMEN
Black box performance by Swaantje Gieske (DE)
Premiere November 16th - 19th 2023 at Lichthof Theater in Hamburg, Germany
Flamencura
8 short solos, investigating flamenco stereotypes in juxtaposition to its overlooked voices.
Curated by Julienne Doko (FR/DK) for Close Encounters: Embodied Journeys. Produced by Dansehallerne (DK) and presented at contemporary arts museum Den Frie Udstillingsbygning.
Copenhagen, June 2023
CompasCompositionConversation
Performance created and performed in collaboration with Jossette Reilly and Afra Rubino for EarEye Festival, curated by Alma Söderberg (SE)
Swedish tour: September and October 2023
HAVETS SKUM (OCEAN FOAM)
90 minutes interactive dance performance for middle school children
Commissioned by KORA/Dansehallerne
Danish tour 2022/23 and 2023/24
Søren Meisner for KORA
Recent Works
S/PACE
(performance)
Performing at the opening of Oscar Murillo’s exhibition A Storm is Brewing in Paradise
During Venice Biennale
Invited by Savvy Contemporary Berlin
September 17th 2022, Venice, Italy
FLAMENCO LAB
February 14th - 25th 2022, teaching 2nd year BA students at UNIARTS Stockholm (DOCH)
February 21st - 25th 2022 @ Cullberg Balletten, Stockholm
February 14th - 18th 2022 @ Danscentrum, Stockholm
December 6th - 10th 2021 @ Dansehallerne, Copenhagen
Flamenco y Exoticismo
Talk and workshop as part of Bailar, Recordar, Resistir
Collaboration with Ana Folguera, Curated by Claudia Claremi and Christian Fernández Mirón
for Centro de cultura contemporánea Conde Duque
January 22nd 2022 @ Conde Duque, Madrid
Flamenco, Embodied Spirituality, & the African Diaspora
As part of Camille A. Brown’s series; Social Dance for Social Change
Curated by Dr. Brenda Dixon-Gottschild
December 2021 (online)
8TH BIENNIAL NEW PERSPECTIVES IN FLAMENCO HISTORY AND RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM
in conjunction with the 34th Annual Festival Flamenco Albuquerque
Panelist on two panels (digitally)
1) Taking our place at the table: Where do Black Artists fit in Flamenco?
2) Decolonizing my Flamenco: Invoking the Ancestors
July 13th - 17th 2021
G.R.I.E.F
A durational exploration of exhaustion of self and of sound, where flamenco transforms into trance and the body bursts with emotions.
Dentro de mi pecho
tengo yo un dolor
pa mientras viva, mare, en este mundo
no sosiego yo.
Yellow Fish Festival in Brooklyn, New York. May 10th - 16th 2021
Photo by Olga Rabetskaya
Black Feminism and Culture in the Nordics: Who gets to be heard
Panel discussion, April 12th 2021, arranged by Nordic Culture Point
Featuring Deise Nunes (NO/BR), Judith Kiros (SE), Monica Gathuo (FI) and Phyllis Akinyi (DK)
Moderated by Jasmine Kelekay (FI)
Artist talk
in conversation with curator Rana San as part of Yellow Fish Festival
March 7th 2021