about
BIO
Kate McAllister is a Detroit-based dance artist who grew up dancing at Juliart Dance Studio in Troy, Michigan where she is now a dance instructor. There she took classes primarily in ballet, jazz, lyrical, contemporary, tap, hip hop, and acrobatics. She chose to further her dance studies by pursuing a BFA in Dance at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Kate also has many interests outside of the performing arts, which is why she also chose to pursue a BS in Information Technology and a minor in Business Administration. During her time at Wayne State, she had the opportunity to perform choreographic works by Baye & Asa, Joshua Peugh, Brother(hood) Dance!, and Dual Rivet, along with several other faculty and student works. Kate also became a member of the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance’s Pilates Mentorship Program, with which she completed her Balanced Body Mat Pilates training.
Artist Statement
My work explores dreams, identity, and perception through movement that feels both intimate and unsettled. To me, dance is driven by emotion and a fierce passion for the unknown. It is a language I return to as a dancer, a performer, a teacher, a choreographer. Choreography begins in an improvisational space where intuition leads and structure follows, and that process, that is playful, rigorous, and curious, shapes everything I make.
I create scenes that feel familiar and strange at the same time. Recollections that arrive suddenly, movements that provoke inquiry, and visuals that shift as perspective changes. As a dancer and performer, I inhabit those moments, testing vulnerability and control, and as a teacher I invite others into the same risk. I want audience members to look inward, to leave with a private echo, a question that lingers, and the sense that something in them has been recognized but not resolved. My aim is not to answer but to open. To make space where memory, sensation, and imagination can meet and continue to move after the dance is over.