Performance Bio
KT Niehoff is Seattle based artist who makes events, dances, music, films, classes, spaces and fosters creative communities. Her formative training (ages 6-16) was as a choral singer with the Colorado Children’s Chorale under the direction of Duane Wolfe, singing regularly with the Denver Symphony and touring to Scotland, Ireland and the People’s Republic of China.
I am driven by the desire for a deeper connection between what I make and who comes into contact with it.
She holds a BFA from New York University TISCH School of the Arts Experimental Theater Wing and has studied with visionaries such as Richard Chislack, Lisa Sokolov, Daniel Lepkoff, Laurie DeVito, Lynn Simonson, Joy Kellman, Nina Martin and Katie Duck.
As a performer, KT was a member of the Pat Graney Company from 1992-1995 and the D-9 Dance Collective from 1992-1998. She has also had the great fortune to dance with such artists as Amii LeGendre, MAGPIE, Joy Kellman and Mark Haim.
In 1996 she began making her own dance dominant performances – immersive full-length works with an emphasis on original (often live) music. In 2007 her creative pursuits began focusing on audience/artist/ proximity, resulting in the majority of her work since then happening in non-traditional spaces. Her work has been presented throughout the U.S. and internationally in Japan, Ecuador, Germany and Canada.
She was featured in Dance Magazine’s “International Women in Dance” (’08) and on the covers of Dance Teacher Magazine (’12) and City Arts Seattle (’13).
In 2011 opened her own creative research space on Capitol Hill called 10 degrees.
“I am driven by the desire for a deeper connection between what I make and who comes into contact with it. I am an event maker, party planner, space builder, gift-giver and connection seeker. I have exchanged traditional stages for cabarets, bars, street corners, screens and letter writing. I have stretched time with performances scattered over seasons and films that last forever.
My works have had wildly different requirements, ranging from completely pedestrian to over the top spectacle. Yet each project has, in its own way, used duration (spanning months), proximity (the freedom to stand near, talk to and touch a dancer) and/or direct communication with audience (dances built on information garnered from the receiver) as a means to develop a deeper intimacy.
I want audiences that come into contact with my work to feel as if they own each project. I believe belonging and ownership can promote the most active, creative, inspired parts of us individually and as a society.”
