Phyllis Akinyi (1987) is a Danish-Kenyan dance artist, choreographer and anthropologist who recently returned to Copenhagen after spending the last five years in Madrid. She investigates the ‘betwixt and between’ - more specifically the intersections between movement, culture, and identity, and has developed a dance practice combining contemporary dance with folkloric traditions. Educated within flamenco, with a background in contemporary dance and hip hop, and a degree in anthropology, Akinyi has an anthro-philosophical approach to the polycentric and polyrhythmic body in correlation with notions of identities caught in cultural ‘in betweens’ or ‘hyphenated identities’.

Akinyi is the artistic director of Compañía Afromenco - an emerging afro-flamenco dance company with four pieces created so far, as well as the curator and choreographer of Flamencópolis CPH - an experimental flamenco performance space in partnership with the municipality of Copenhagen and Dansehallerne, and is currently developing the Third Culture Kid Collective, a platform created for and by Scandinavian artists and scholars with lineage from non-Western countries. She is also the newly elected chairperson (2020) for Independent Choreographers Denmark (De Frie Koreografer).