2021 Princess Grace Honoraria
Nominated by: South Chicago Dance Theater
Crystal Michelle Perkins is a choreographer and performer from Augusta, GA who lives and creates in Ohio. She is a resident choreographer at Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC) where she spent nearly a decade touring abroad. She has performed the works of Donald Byrd and Dianne McIntyre and restaged masterworks by beloved African American choreographers. Her choreographic work has toured to Kazakhstan, Russia, Brazil, and across the United States. Her pieces explore identity through African American movement dialects and black feminist practice in contemporary dance. She has served on faculty for the American Dance Festival and was chosen for the new American Dance Residency at Ballet Memphis. She has been commissioned by Ballet Memphis, South Chicago Dance Theatre, Dublin Arts Council, and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. She was a member of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals’ inaugural class of Leadership Fellows and a recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence award. Crystal continues her choreographic work and research as an Assistant Professor of Dance at The Ohio State University (OSU) where she teaches auto ethnographic composition, dance repertory, and movement practice. She holds an MFA in Dance from OSU and a BFA in Dance Performance from Southern Methodist University.
