Aaliyah Christina

Born in Ruston, Louisiana and raised across Louisiana, Maryland, and Texas, Aaliyah Christina creates and supports performance work as an administrator, curator, movement artist, and writer. She makes dances and writes poetic stories about relationship/power dynamics, mental health, and Blackness as a resident on the South side of Chicago. She works as the Artist Programs Manager & Associate Curator at Links Hall, co-organizes with Performance Response Journal (PRJ), and collaborates with community organizations and fellow artists across the city of Chicago. Since 2015, she has collaborated with Chicago artists like Keyierra Collins, Ysayë Alma, Darling Shear, Wisdom Baty, Ayako Kato, and Dorian Sylvain to name a few. In 2021, Aaliyah received the 3Arts Make-A-Wave grant and as of 2023, she received the Illinois Arts Council Agency 2023 Artist Fellowship Finalist Award. In 2024, she was selected as a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist and a part of the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio Residency cohort. She created PRAISE MOTHER SQUAD to highlight the multifaceted possibilities of Black majorette dance and platform stories about mental health, reproductive rights, and queer/chosen family dynamics

She is currently interested in African American movement vernaculars, especially as they pertain to jubilation and spiritual veneration within communal spaces. Her movement practice includes Liturgical/praise dance, Black majorette styles, and improvisation that negotiates moments of irreverent play and personal questioning. She explores interpersonal relationships between Black femmes, their mothers, and their sociopolitical position in the African diaspora.