Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Kennedy.
Hi Matt, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
What’s up? I started creating art when I was about 3 years old, I’m very grateful to have grown up in an environment that was rich in creativity. I entered the arts by expression through visual media, such as drawing, painting, and sculpture work (aka making some nightmare-inducing play-doh monsters as a 5-year-old). That bled into my middle school and high school years where I found an admiration for theatrical arts and dance. My family found my adoration for these practices bountiful, and I continued to pursue this artistic career in theatre and dance all the way up to/through the pandemic. The pandemic was occurring right around the time I was graduating college, I was in one of my last college productions that unfortunately got cancelled. As someone who self-produces a shit ton of work himself, I saw this as an opportunity to make stuff happen, and TikTok was almost too useful of a tool to make stuff happen. I had been trained in ballet, Jazz, and contemporary dance through high school and college, but TikTok, though the app may have inimical power, actually helped me dive into more realms of dance and reignited a passion that may have been doused by imminent circumstances. From that point, I began to take online classes almost religiously, choreograph for hours, create portfolios of work, and as studios slowly began to re-open, I sought a better understanding of the history and culture of many dance styles, primarily in the commercial, hip hop, funk, and street Jazz world. I became an instructor at a local studio in Austin looking forward to the opportunity to apply learned abilities to concepts. Though there may have been very little people at first in classes due to the pandemic, it was worth every moment getting to share art with one another and to hear feedback about what can be altered, artistic, pedagogically, etc. after tons of work, teaching, dancing, gigs, I wanted to reach the next step of my career by becoming a small fish in a big sea. I moved to New York and found a job at the exact place I wanted to train, Broadway Dance Center, from there I met so many friends, people I consider family, instructors who I now see as mentors. Trained every day, joined the hip hop team Royal Thieves led by Deshawn DaPrince, joined Kenichi Kasamatsu’s performance company “Akompany” started working and assisting alongside Neil Schwartz, Carlos Neto, Gina Menichino, did commercial work for Kendrick Lamar’s Big Steppers Tour, Louis The Child, and live performance work for Disney +, Carnival, Sybarite productions, Studio L New Jersey. I was doing a lot. And then I needed a break. I didn’t know I needed a break… but my body did. This past October, I was rehearsing with Royal Thieves for the World of Dance competition in Boston when suddenly I suffered a Cardiac Arrest; I had no pulse for at least 10 minutes. I was in a coma at the hospital for luckily 3 days and was in hospital/rehab care for about a month; I am extremely lucky and feel forever blessed to able to even write this and remember the amazing things I got to do and grateful that I got to do them. I’m currently in out-patient rehabilitation with an ICD (implantable cardioverter defibrillator) keeping me in check and slowly getting back to a normal life. As you can probably guess there was a huge part of me that get like this was the end of any artistic endeavor I could ever have pursued, dancing is still quite difficult, finding inspiration even more so, but I’ve learned so many things from this experience that have taught me such valuable lessons: It doesn’t matter the things you do but the joy that you share in doing them. The people you got to share it with, the moments you made. I’ve always lived life think I need to find the meaning of life under my definition, but that constantly put me in a mindset of stressing myself to the bone, never resting, never allowing myself to be satisfied with my achievements. I now allow myself to look back and wish I had breathed, I wish I didn’t drink so much coffee then, I wish I spent more time being a son and being a brother; I wish I had spent more time with my girlfriend. What’s amazing about me saying these things now is that I am doing these things cause when I think about it, I could’ve left this earth, and I could’ve been saying these things and knowing that I would never be able to achieve those things that matter the most. But now I can because I’ve been given a second chance to live, not try to find the meaning of life, but to live. I think that’s what art is about, to share what it feels like to live.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Definitely had difficulty learning to be vulnerable and what that meant, much throughout my life, being honest was hard for me, but I learned you can only be truly happy with yourself if you are honest with yourself and others.
Had a cardiac arrest, but I wrote about that in the story, that shit was rough.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a choreographer/dancer/director. I specialize in informed movement through style, primarily expressions of hip-hop music, r&b, indie, and sub-genres of those. I’m probably (unfortunately) most known for my TikTok presence, which is now hopefully non-existent, during the pandemic I amassed around almost 550,000 followers creating goofy dance concepts and posting regularly. I do credit TikTok for sparking joy and inspiration in me, but how ridiculous those times were. I am most proud of jumping on stage and freestyling to one of my favorite songs to kill time so that dancers had time to change their costumes, it’s one of greatest performances I have ever given in my life. I believe what sets me apart from others is how committed I get to things, like a simple dance combo in dance classes, I will make that dance a full staged performance by the end of class.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Stop being afraid to say hi. Everyone is human. Stop looking at people like they are gods when you are on the same tier, just express interest in learning what they have knowledge, they may learn something from you. We all go through hell, we all have good days, we all have to take showers.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Kenichi Kasamatsu
Dave Hawks
