k. bradford
liberation
atlas
artist
artist
vision
Performer, poet, songwriter, director, inciting cultural innovation and radical re-imaginings through interdisciplinary public work – centering liberation across social, cultural and geographic lines.
A poetic strategist at work
on the page, stage, street
in communities, classrooms, public spaces
with organizations, movement leaders, cultural hubs
K.’s performance work offers unique assemblages where story & concept are conjured through experimental narratives and cross-genre structures.
A tectonic change maker
An alchemist in the realms of spectacle
A cultural guide in re-imagining systems, spaces, structures, and events to create decolonized, margins-to-the-center worlds.
artist
bio
K. Bradford (they&them) is a trans/queer cultural leader and white accomplice activator.
As an interdisciplinary artist, performer, writer, and cultural innovator, K.’s social practice has spawned visionary projects, programs and public works in Austin, Chicago and Los Angeles.
A curator of cross-genre, inter-community cultural space, K. incites experimental cross-pollination and collaborative co-creation. Believing in an intersectional present and future of a liberated atlas, K.’s practice conjures ecosystemic thinking and nonlinear structures, inviting communities to imagine and conjure from a cross-species, herd-hive vision.
K.’s performance art lineage is shaped by trainings and mentorships with Sharon Bridgforth and with Omi Osun’s Theatrical Jazz Aesthetic, Guillermo Gomez-Pena/ La Pocha Nostra, along with Tim Miller and Holly Hughes.
K. holds an MFA in Writing and in Art + Technology from CalArts. Hailing from New England originally, lives in Los Angeles where they are the Programs Director at Invertigo Dance Theatre.
offerings
POETIC STRATEGY
Organizational consulting, programs design, workshops, event production & more through liberation atlas practices and philosophy.
Imaginative solution building, mapping out systems change, and inventive program creation to develop or hone architectures of social thought, community relations, public engagement, organizational and leadership structures. Programmatic vision innovation and re-design from the inside out.
PERFORMANCE
Interdisciplinary solo works. Performance poetry. Qosmos post-drag shows. Live, interactive sound score performances. Collaborative queer/gender shows and installations. EcoArt community art labs. Performance lectures.
PUBLIC WORKS
Thematically curated interdisciplinary public art works. Large-scale multi-platform or one off performance, installations, and cultural events. Concepts and production. Or a series of small intimate workshops. Or one-off events. Programming curated in collaboration with leaders, communities, staff, groups, schools through liberation atlas strategy.
Thematically curated interdisciplinary public art works. Large-scale multi-platform or one off performance, installations, and cultural events. Concepts and production. Or a series of small intimate workshops. Or one-off events. Programming curated in collaboration with leaders, communities, staff, groups, schools through liberation atlas strategy.
RADICAL PEDAGOGY
Facilitation in unique models and methods of co-learning. Nonlinear, imaginative educational consulting, curriculum development, and school event/programs curation. Grounded in lineages of The Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Theatre of the Oppressed.
K. Bradford’s signature “live score” – a deck of cards on themes co-curated with collaborators dismantles traditional, hierarchical structures and opens inventive, disarming modes of learning, teaching, generating, connection.
ANTI-OPPRESSION
Anti-oppression trainings, consulting, and community building workshops grounded in anti-white supremacy work and uplifting, BIPOC, queer, trans, disabled communities. K. Bradford’s Liberation Atlas strategies focus on bringing margins to the center.
Concrete tools and takeaways offered for white ally/accomplice strategies and radical best practices for organizations and institutions.
PUBLIC SPEAKING
Performance lectures, interactive talks, facilitated public dialogues, intimate community workshops on liberation atlas philosophies, ecosystemic change methodologies, cultural themes from the artist’s work, or topics curated upon request. Long or short, formal or informal, a series or a one off.
new work/ in progress
Wild Glitch
Wild Glitch is a multidisciplinary one-person theatrical assemblage featuring an original song cycle, poetic score, and speculative post-drag, which explores how trans liberation carves out pathways for sustainability within apocalyptic times. A mythical guide, Glitch, calls upon our mutual aid during a futuristic archaeological dig in outer space where trans/nonbinary folks are cast as futuristic fossils of survival.
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With an autobiographical tale of gender expansion and post-dysphoria at its core, this bold yet vulnerable travelogue moves through over/underworlds filled with flying fish, living ampersands, and breathing mobius strips that blast society past its hegemonic, colonial systems. Through inventive interactivity, together we enter non-linear "trans time" to uncover the wisdom of trans lives and nonbinary ecosystems wherein lie dreams of a new future for society.
2023 WILD GLITCH
IN MOTION:
INCUBATOR STORYTELLING LAB & INTERACTIVE WORKS IN PROGRESS
PLAY
AUDIO
public works
The Qosmos Projects is a spirited, rigorous community performance practice exploring t the ever-expanding field of queer and gendered bodies, theory, and culture. Qosmos shows + texts + workshops investigate the concept of post-drag as a channel for mapping how trans liberation and nonnormative gender cultures are pushing the borders of human thought + existence. The Qosmos Projects is an umbrella for multi-generational writing, critical thought, performances, and LGBTQIA youth programming and mentorship
Qosmos
Walk the Walk is a dance theatre project led by K. Bradford in collaboration with trans, nonbinary, gender nonconforming artists that has offered collaborative, community-building workshops since 2021. With an Impact grant from the California Arts Council, Walk the Walk is now building an ensemble and going into production with a staged work slated for September of 2023.
Walk the Walk
One Mile is an arts + social justice program that works with Los Angeles communities to poetically re-imagine the problems of our times through innovative, immersive public art and education installations. Founded on the simple, enduring principle that if we all walk one mile in each other’s shoes the world will be a vastly more sustainable place for all. One Mile projects were co-created through public practice pedagogy internships with students in the Public Policy Institute at Santa Monica College.
One Mile
K. Bradford’s writing appears in the forms of lyric essays, poetry, text for performance, sound text, and song. As an interdisciplinary artist who works with sound and writes music, K.’s writing is created for the page, the stage, and sound spaces including live installations and digital platforms. Central to this work is an impulse to play and experiment with the borders of text as voice, as object, as a ritual, as community call and response.
Writing & Sound
contact
