Kieron Sargeant

Kieron Sargeant is a Trinidadian-born choreographer, dancer, researcher, percussionist, and aspiring visual artist. He received his MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from Florida State University and Bachelor of Arts in Dance Education with a Minor in Cultural Studies from the University of the West Indies.

Kieron’s movement research focuses on the deconstruction and reconstruction of African-Caribbean Dance practices, particularly that of African-Trinidadian dance adaptations which span the fields of concert dance, modern Caribbean dance, and contemporary Caribbean dance. KIeron is a highly sought-after movement lecturer and instructor. His classes are engaging, highly rhythmical, and steeped in the traditions and context of Afro-Caribbean dance with a contemporary twist.

Kieron’s academic research focuses on the African Diaspora and Caribbean dance history, culture, critical theory, and embodied aesthetics. His MFA thesis presented in spring 2019, “Choreographing Mourning,”explored the creative potential and limits of staging Spiritual Baptist ritual traditions of his home country, Trinidad, and Tobago. In his work, he questions the idea of taking a ritual practice from its sacred space to the concert dance stage. The work was drawn on concepts and ideas of representations of a spiritual journey that includes the ancestral lands of Caribbean working people, who historically hail from Africa, India, and China.

His creative research has offered him numerous opportunities to share ideas in choreography, both nationally and internationally. He has been the recipient of a Choreographic Fellows Award from the Nigerian Dance Guild, as well as past dance choreographer and director for the touring Universoul Circus, based in Atlanta. He has been chosen to present his current thesis research at the Preaching as Performance Conference, at the University of Calgary (Canada) and the NEPCA Dance and Popular Culture Conference, at Worcester State University (U.S.A.). At the College at Brockport, State University of New York, he was an Artist in Residence where he choreographed two commissioned works for the University. He also taught Master Classes and Workshops in Caribbean Folk Dance and History, at the University of Veracruz, (Mexico), Florida State University, Bowdoin College (Maine, U.S.A.), the Contemporary Choreographers Collective Dance Showcase (Coco) (Trinidad), the Arts Push Program (Tobago), the Edna Manley School of the Performing Arts (Jamaica) and the Dance Guild (Nigeria).

He recently completed training in Senegal (Africa), in Traditional African Dance (Technique Acogny) and African Contemporary Dance, under the supervision of Germaine Acogny. In addition, he successfully coordinated the first international audition for Florida State University’s, School of Dance, for recruitment of MFA and MA candidates, in Trinidad and Tobago, and recently was awarded a one-month Fellowship from UNESCO to South Africa.

Kieron has studied with International dance scholars like Jawole Willa Jo Zolla, Anjali Austin, Dr. Latoya Davis Graig, Gwen Williever, Dr. Hannah Schwadron, Millicent Johnnie, and Makeda Thomas. Kieron has been a docent for works by Charles O Anderson, Merce Cunningham, and Milka Djordjevich. I have recently completed his training at Ecole Des Sables in the Traditional African Dance, Technique Acogny and African Contemporary Dance in Senegal under the supervision of Germaine Acogny, Patrick Acogny, Raouf Tchakondo, Ise Verstegen, Alesandra Suetin and Aida Colemenro Diaz.