Kia S. Smith is a Chicago native and her early training included Hyde Park School of Dance, The Joel Hall Dance Center, ETA Creative Arts Foundation, StoryCatchers Theatre, and the American Dance Festival. She holds a BFA in Dance from Western Michigan University and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she was an Advanced Opportunity Program Fellow.
She is the Founder and Executive Artistic Director of the South Chicago Dance Theatre, the company’s Resident Choreographer and the founder of its signature programs South Chicago Dance Festival, the Choreographic Diplomacy Program, Choreographic Fellowship and Arts Administration Fellowship. As a freelance choreographer, Kia’s recent and upcoming commissions include Madison Ballet (2021), Chicago Repertory Ballet (2022), Houston Contemporary Dance Company (2023), Chicago Opera Theater (2022, 2023), Ruth Page Civic Ballet Training Company (2022), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2023), Giordano Dance Chicago (2023), Western Michigan University (2023) and a new evening length work Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley for South Chicago Dance Theatre premiering at the Auditorium Theater of Chicago. Kia S. Smith was recently named a Rising Star in 2023 by Chicago Magazine and Player of the Moment in the category of Dance for New City Magazine’s annual 50 Players List in 2023.
Additional collaborative and choreographic credits include; Nike, Chicago Opera Theatre, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, actor Jack Black, world renowned visual artists Manuel Mendive and Nick Cave, “Loving the Silent Tears” an original musical (director Vincent Patterson), the “Afterword” film (director Catherine Sullivan), saxophonist/composer Ernest Dawkins, South Shore Opera Company, Chicago Fringe Opera, HBO, the City of Chicago’s Night Out in the Parks Concert Series, String Quartet D-Composed Chicago, cellist Lilianna Zofia Wosko and Seoul, South Korea’s Choomna Art Center. Her work has been presented at Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival, Kennedy King College (Chicago, Illinois), Englewood Jazz Festival (Chicago, Illinois), Sons D’hiver Jazz Festival (Paris, France), Chicago Home Theatre Festival, the Jacob Caruthers Center for Inner City Studies (Chicago, Illinois), Young Auditorium (Whitewater, Wisconsin), the Logan Center for the Arts (Chicago, Illinois), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Harris Theater For Music and Dance, where SCDT is a Resident Company.
In 2018, she received the inaugural Young and Ambitious Entrepreneurship Award from the Metropolitan Board of the Chicago Urban League and was chosen by the New York City based Stage Director’s and Choreographers Foundation as a member of the national Observership class. In 2021, Kia received a 3Arts Make A Wave award and was an Ann & Weston Hicks Choreographic Fellow at the renowned Jacobs Pillow. She was a 2022 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Awardee and a participant in the Artist in Residence “AIR“ Program at the Cliff Dwellers Chicago. As a recipient of the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Individual Artist Grant Kia worked as a cultural ambassador for the city at Impulstanz Dance Festival in Vienna, Austria in the summer of 2016. She is a member of the International Association of Blacks in Dance where she received the Joan Myers Brown Artist Development Fund scholarship and was a 2018 invited panelist for “Women of Color Arts Leaders”.
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