THE FEATH3R THEORY 

About our Mission

the feath3r theory (TF3T) is a New York City based dance-theatre-media company that produces the work of Artistic Director and Choreographer Raja Feather Kelly. As a collaboration of dancers, actors, filmmakers, musicians, photographers, and designers, our mission to broaden the space for unheard voices and repressed histories, to bring into the theatre those sometimes left out, and to use theatre to provoke much-needed public conversations. the feath3r theory does this by challenging its audience and its creators to collectively interrogate - and celebrate - its shared relationship to human empathy and personal ethics as expressed in and distorted by popular media. By unabashedly appropriating the structures, themes, and aesthetics of reality television, celebrity culture, social media and the internet, the work of TF3T synthesizes dance, visual media, fashion, drag, standup, minstrelsy, and narrative theatre into virtuosic, expansive, radical and surreal large scale pop-culture phenomena or an overwhelming, over-saturated ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ in which artists and audience alike experience their shared humanity. We are committed to addressing pressing social issues through Dance, Theatre, and Media with an emphasis on LGBTQ themes.

Company History

the feath3r theory (TF3T) was founded in 2009 when Artistic Director Raja Feather Kelly premiered a movement solo dedicated to his interest and infatuation with the life and work of Andy Warhol, titled FANMAIL. The number 3 in TF3T speaks to the equal importance of dance-theatre-media in the work. The main pillar of Andy Warhol’s philosophy that gives impetus for Raja is the quotes “It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.”

Influenced by his research into the life and ideas of Andy Warhol, Kelly expanded his company of dancers and designers to self-produce TF3T’s first evening length production ANDY WARHOL’S DRELLA (I love you Faye Driscoll) to a sold-out audience at The Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn in 2013 and back by popular demand six months later. So began TF3T’s The Warhol Series – an ongoing collection of performances, events, and media campaigns that deconstruct and reimagine Kelly’s obsessions with Andy Warhol and the development of popular culture over the past 30 years. Catching the attention of the New York Times, Hyperallergic, Brooklyn Paper, and Time Out New York, The Warhol Series includes: DRELLA, COLOR ME, WARHOL (Dixon Place - 2015), Another 37 Reasons to Cry (JACK – 2015), TROPICO (Danspace Project – 2016), and ANOTHER FUCKING WARHOL PRODUCTION (The Kitchen, American Dance Festival – 2017/2018). The ensemble has been awarded a 2018-2020 HERE Arts Fellowship, a 2018-19 Carthorse Fellowship at the Buran Theatre, and the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography, and a Princess Grace Award for Choreography (2017).