Katerina & Jay, photo by Katerina Belmatch and Jay Beardsley
Katerina & Jay are multimedia performance artists based in NYC. The two artists work at the intersection of aesthetic and abstraction to create experimental kinetic portraits. Katerina (she/they) is a Russian American artist based in New York City. After receiving a BFA in dance from SUNY Purchase College, she is exploring the relationship between video media, dance performance, and costume. Jay (they/them) is a white, agender multimedia and dance artist based in Brooklyn. They are a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s BFA Dance and Choreography program, and now collaborate with various artists across NYC through visual media, performance, and sound design. Both artists currently work with the dance project GREYZONE, founded by Lindy Fines.
Together Katerina & Jay use performance, visual art, and sound design to analyze underground digital cultures and post-modern environments. Their work centers ethereal images that invoke mythology, Y2K aesthetics, and nightlife cultures. By putting these themes in conversation with each other through performance, they enact reflection on the state of young adulthood, spirituality, and art as it exists today. Physically, they are invested in shape-oriented, evolving movement that contains surprising transitions and flinging bursts of energy. A large part of their process is multimodal, with Katerina invested in costume design and Jay in visual media and graphic design. The goal of all of their expressions is to manifest nonhuman environments that are reminiscent of post 2000’s digital spaces through performance and media.
Katerina and Jay have been collaborating since January 2022. Their early performance credits include angel mode produced at BAD DANCE at The Woods (Ridgewood) and an improvisation installation produced at The Christening held by The Locker Room NYC, in Flatbush, Brooklyn. The most recent iteration of angel mode was performed at MOMENTA hosted at The Woods (Ridgewood) and included pianist James W-L as a sound collaborator.
angel mode, by artist duo Katrina & Jay, synthesizes movement, media projection, objects, and costume design to play with abstractions of human and nonhuman forms. The work will be performed with live music accompaniment.
My creative history with New Dance Alliance goes a way long. Since my friend, Chivas Sandage brought me to New Dance Alliance to rehearse in early 90’s, the place has become a part of my creative life. The long time existence of the studio and Performance Mix Festival are vital to the artists who seek and explore deep into their process. Whenever I step into the studio, it’s a new space with a lot of memories. I lie down on the floor, listen to my body, and I dance. It is valuable. The time in the space nurtures my practice and artistic vision. Karen’s vision of Lift-Off residency, feedback sessions, providing peer to peer connections are more significant than ever. It has been helping us to get through 2020 and we are going into 2021.
– Nami Yamamoto
New Dance Alliance
182 Duane Street
New York, NY 10013
All venues are wheelchair accessible.
