Meet Kenneth Walker: Ballet teacher/choreographer, Arts Manager

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kenneth Walker and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kenneth, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I was born in Long Beach and raised in the South Bay (Los Angeles County not the Bay area). I think my upbringing for sure influenced the way I approach selecting music for new work. The type of music I choose for my works hopefully reflects the diversity of music I was exposed to, growing up. Growing up in two cultures (my mother is Mexican and my father Caucasian) allowed me to access even more styles of music and art than I might have been otherwise. I think this has been a benefit to my art. I can produce an evening of work and the audience is going to get a more rounded program. I’m sure the style of work I create is a reflection of growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles in addition to the works I watched and participated in growing up. Even in the suburbs of Los Angeles, this city allows cultures and arts to cross-pollinate at a scale that is hard to match. The ballet studio I “grew up” in were early adopters in using modern dance to round out our education and since I was a late starter in ballet my participation as a performer started as in more modern works much quicker than my performances as a ballet dancer. I also grew up in a time when the dominant ballet company in town wasn’t a company in town. The Joffrey Ballet was our ‘resident’ ballet company. The diversity of their repertoire I didn’t grasp at the time. Now I understand how multi-faceted an artist you needed to be to dance in that company and how much I wanted to be that type of dancer.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I consider myself first to be a contemporary ballet choreographer. Interwoven with that is all the all things I do in the art. I’m also a ballet teacher (of multiple levels), an arts manager, an entrepreneur, and everything else that comes with running a small arts organization (marketer, grant writer, you name it). I’m proud of the work I do as a ballet teacher. One of my happiest moments was when a student said to me, “Thank you for helping me not hate ballet.” That means a lot because I don’t just teach ballet dancers. I teach at-risk students, I teach adults, and I teach people that are required to take ballet for their major. At one point in the lives of many of these students, they came to a point where they decided that ballet wasn’t for them and the fact that I can reach at least some of them and show them that they have a right to the art form is something I’m very proud of. I get excited every time I work with my company dancers. Every time I get hired to work with a new group of people that want me (little old me from the South Bay) to teach or choreograph, every time that student gets the thing we’re working on, every time that curtain goes up, I get excited. I’m proud of the work we’ve done to create the company, Kenneth Walker Dance Project. This contemporary ballet company is based in the same part of town I started in and is gaining fans and notoriety with each show. I don’t think the road to success is easy for anyone. Sure, there are people in every industry that have doors open much more easily for them than others and some people seemingly fail upward but people in the industry know who they are. You don’t stay successful unless you put in the work. For most of us, you don’t get successful without it either. I didn’t get as far as I wanted to as a dancer. The reasons behind that are probably myriad. I started late and wasn’t blessed with the most stereotypical dancer body. I’m sure more than one director will say I didn’t work hard enough and more than one will say they saw me in the studio before anyone else was there. This is partially why I think part of success is situational . There are definitely opportunities and avenues that weren’t taken that could have changed the trajectory of my career. I want the world to know we’re affecting ballet from this tiny part of the West Coast. We’re working with the plurality of this great city creating dances and striving to make sure our flavor of contemporary ballet is diverse as our eclectic tastes and as broad as the communities we serve.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If one of my best friends was in town what we would do depends on the friend and the time of year. If it’s summer time we’re going to see a movie in the park and take the bus to the Hollywood Bowl. If it’s the spring time or fall (and they are remotely outdoorsy) we’re going for a hike. There are some great hikes all over Los Angeles and Orange County. Hikes that end at waterfalls, hikes on roads to nowhere, hikes with views of the ocean or the city. LA doesn’t have the same food tradition as some other cities, but it still has amazing food. Sushi, tacos, hamburgers, vegetarian, Mongolian. I’m pretty sure any craving you have can be satisfied here. The Korean taco was born here. We have some great food festivals including the night market scene. If you don’t find us there you might find us at one of the great micro-breweries in town. And of course we have to hit the beach. The manner in which we do it will depend on the friend. My outdoorsy friends we’re probably paddle boarding or walking along the strand. My other friends, we’re enjoying those beautiful sunsets somewhere looking over the water.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
So many people to shoutout to! Deborah Jorritsma and Chico Community Ballet for being an early and often proponent of my work. Diane Lauridsen and Lauridsen Ballet for being my first and most stable ballet home. Doris Ressl for hiring me to affect so many artists of color on the collegiate level. Phip and Chip Fuller for giving me the chance to make my first dance and giving me a place to dance among lots of boys/men. My family for trusting that having a career in the arts was going to be ok. All the true artists and administrators that took time to talk to me and answer my questions. The real deal people are never to busy or inaccessible to share their knowledge. All the dancers past and present that have allowed me to create work with them. There are many more people that I would love to mention but won’t due to space and their desires to be anonymous . As you can tell, I believe it takes a village to make an artist.

Website: www.kennethwalkerdanceproject.org
Instagram: @kw_dance_project
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenneth-walker-7b081438
Twitter: @kwdp
Facebook: www.facebook.com/KennethWalkerDanceProject
Youtube: www.youtube.com/kwdp

Image Credits
Images courtesy of Souheil Michael Khoury