My artist statement
I am a community-driven person and I know that I thrive when I get to work with a group of people to accomplish a shared goal. It is my goal in life to be surrounded with other hard-working, driven, and passionate people who I know will push me to grow.
As an artist of many many media, I want to create a life for myself where I get to create art in many many forms.
I’m an artist and dancing is my medium. I’m an artist and lighting design is my medium. Crocheting is my medium. Writing, painting, journaling, and cooking are all my media.
The life I live is my medium, and I want to make a masterpiece.
All photos used with permission by Sean Openshaw Photography
Meet Kayden
Kayden Openshaw grew up in the small town of Flagstaff, Arizona where she found her passion for the proscenium stage doing musical theater at the age of 5. Throughout her theater career, she performed, choreographed, and assistant-directed with Flagstaff Youth Theater, Alpine Community Theater, and Flagstaff Arts and Music Entertainment. At age 11, she started training in ballet, jazz, hip hop, tap, and modern at Canyon Dance Academy (CDA). With CDA, she also performed with Velocity Dance Company under artistic director Cori Wall for 3 years. After graduating high school from Northland Preparatory Academy in 2022, she moved to Phoenix and began her college career at Scottsdale Community College (SCC) where she studies Dance Performance and Technology. At SCC she has the pleasure of dancing with Instinct Dancecorps.
In the short year that Kayden has lived in Phoenix, she has found endless opportunities to teach adult and children dance classes at Encore Dance Center and Studio 21. She has also done backup dancing for drag queen Taylor Rene Holly-Wood, shot a music video for Joamber Armijo in Los Angeles California, trained with the Travettes under artistic director Travon Schake, was a company member of CaZo Dance Theatre and Fusion Dance Ensemble, participated in numerous concept videos with various dancers, and performed in too many flashmobs to count.
Kayden is enthusiastic about giving back to the dance community and theater industry whether it be through helping backstage, cleaning dance floors, creating lighting designs, sewing costumes, or cleaning wigs. She feels that if she wants to continue to grow as a professional artist and educator she needs to support the industry she’s working in by giving back and showing support however she can.
Outside of dance, she is a theater technician at The Herberger Theater Center and Tempe Center for the Arts where she is excited to be starting a career that supports her passion for the proscenium stage. She has also garnered recognition for her creations in fiber art.
