Multi-hyphenate talent Raja Feather Kelly is a creative expert pushing the boundaries of performance. With pure expressionism and storytelling, his flare for the theatrics and dramatics are unmatched. Now running his own theater company, The Feath3r Theory, Kelly has grown from an ambitious teen growing up on the Jersey Shore to a successful artist paving his own path. In an industry historically unkind to Black and Queer creatives, Kelly and company are creating art, insight, and space for unique voices to flourish.
The impressive collective of The Feath3r Theory puts on performances that are a true sight to behold. It is groundbreaking theater that encourages diverse thought and shows you something you would never see elsewhere. Kelly is able to conjure equally intense and interesting themes into the company’s productions. Lilt, the company’s new digital magazine, shares “What we’re doing, when we’re doing it, who we’re doing it with and when you can do it with us,” for all things company-related.
Being unapologetically black and queer has been explored in several past works. Kelly also creates work to support various positive organizations, like the Princess Grace Foundation and Harkness Foundation for Dance. Using his platform for good, Kelly continues to lift others through a philanthropic heart.
Kelly proudly combines fashion, gallery exhibition, drag, stand-up comedy, minstrel show and stage-play into experiences audiences will never forget. It’s an amalgamation of his passions, an ever-growing list, all uniting to create art like no other.
To demonstrate more of Kelly’s role as a leader, The Feath3r Theory lists his uplifting philosophy. He promises to help folks understand the relevance of performance in their lives, to prioritize performance and “make mistakes in the playing field and discover recovery.”
As a teacher, Kelly writes on the site, “Class is a place where we temper our whole selves to be technically prepared, physically able and willfully ready for anything. All the world’s a stage, even the classroom.” He doesn’t fit people into certain roles or archetypes, but to build an “equipped dancer…with options to design their own understanding and contribution.”
Raja Feather Kelly grew up in Fort Hood, Texas, and moved to the sunny shores of Long Branch, N.J. He was enamored with his high school’s forensics team, a form of speech and debate, of which he won two national recognitions.
“I’ve always had a lot of pride in what I was able to learn growing up in New Jersey…I loved that I was able to do so many things.” Theater in high school with the Westwood Players proved to further ignite Kelly’s passion for the arts. “It’s made me a really eclectic artist… I sort of tie that back to very particular people in Long Branch like the late great teacher Vincent Borelli, and Kitty McNally, these were people who had such a great impact on my development.”
Our conversation turned to inspiration. If Kelly hears a great song in a store, “I’ll Shazam it. Like I will dance down the street and listen back to it in my notes app.” Then comes the creative connecting only Kelly can do. “What if there’s a combination of a ‘90s movie and reality TV, and the song I saved, and my process combines a lot of things.” A collage artist with a passion for uniting multiple different mediums, Kelly also attributes so much of his passion to the work of another artist.
Andy Warhol made a profound impact on the life and artistic energy Kelly found on his path. “I remember before college seeing [Warhol’s] photographs, which I, like many people, found to be peculiar and eye-catching. And for someone like me to have grown up on the Jersey Shore, to this day, I’m just not sure if we’re seeing a lot of Warhol around. Seeing these bohemian people, seeing these very peculiar artists, seeing drag queens, seeing beauty and sex and death and religion all combined in this very romantic and flashy way was something I had never seen before. And I was certainly drawn to it.
“As I began to do research on who this man was, I became more and more fascinated, probably because his life couldn’t have been so different from mine, but also I felt such a strong connection. And then I remember reading a quote that quite fascinated me. I have always had an obsession with television and movies. I just sort of am of that age as a person born in the ‘80s, experiencing the ‘90s. And so there was a quote that Andy Warhol said in one of his books, “In America, ever since the movies were invented, they tell you what to do and how to do it, how to look like you’re doing it.” And I feel like a part of my artistic pillar is wondering if that’s true or not, right? Like how do media and popular culture shape us?
“A central question in all of my work, no matter if it’s opera, theater, dance, choreography, or what have you, I’m thinking about, do we make culture, does culture make us, what has taught us to behave the way we do, what has taught us to love the way we do, what has taught us to experience the world in the way that we do. And Andy Warhol brought me to that fascination. And so studying him through all of my earlier work has brought me to finding my own voice now. And I think about him, in fact, like I’m sitting in my room now and there’s like four of his little portraits just staring back at me. And I find his interest in popular culture to be an interest in humanity. And that is something I stand behind quite firmly.”
Whether he’s basing performances off a book on the oral history of social dance through the ‘80s, studying pop culture, or choreographing a “Trisha Brown meets Michael Jackson” production, Kelly is creating art. He works to limit his doom scrolling, the negative habit of staying on social media too long, to live in the artistic world he’s helping bring to life.
Kelly is always ready to try expressing art through new mediums. Hot off of just writing his first play, there are many more ideas on the horizon. He explained, “I haven’t worked extensively in television. I haven’t created an opera myself, although I’ve worked on operas, and I haven’t created a ballet myself, although I’ve worked in ballet. And so yeah, I’m still exploring just like the endless possibilities of what it means to be an artist and what it is to take the ideas that I’m interested in and push them into new forms…And my process is a lot like that until I feel like I get an idea. And then I start focusing everything on one idea.”
One can find Raja Feather Kelly dancing down the street and planning new projects around the tri-state area. When it comes to music, Kelly dabbles in playlists both professional and personal. He listens to Steve Hackman’s Brahms X Radiohead, a dynamic remix of classical fused with indie rock. The Lempicka original cast recording’ is also on rotation. A true theater kid through and through!
Kelly now has a home in New Jersey and he’s a father! “I’ve only been back in New Jersey for two years, I’m still building my community here. So if there are other gay folks, other gay dads, other gay artists, or people who share interests, I’d love to connect with them.”
To support the ongoing work of Raja Feather Kelly and The Feath3r Theory, keep an eye out for upcoming productions. Sign up for their email list to stay up to date on everything from dance to Kelly’s globetrotting experiences. And consider seeing a show put on by his inclusive and wonderfully unique performances.
Kelly is someone you’ll regret not seeing perform. A generational talent who not only thinks outside the box, but kicks it to the curb. Normalcy is the only thing not allowed in his creative mind, and the world is so much brighter because of that.
