Kayla Schiltgen

2025 Choreography FELLOW

Photo credit: Roosevelt Mansfield

Kayla Schiltgen is an interdisciplinary artist based in rural Two Harbors, Minnesota, blending dance, film, and improvisation to cope with and communicate her experience of time and place as a rural, neurodivergent person. Distinguished by her intimacy, honesty, and intentionality, she creates screendance, installation, and performance—often combining forms—that resonate outward, affirming both artist and audience. Her mostly solo practice is rooted in the Rural, where Kayla works across choreography, performance, cinematography, editing, and sound design with place as collaborator.

Kayla is an Upstream Artist Fellow, a recipient of multiple Minnesota State Arts Board and Arrowhead Regional Arts Council awards, and recognized as a creative rural leader in the Upper Midwest by Springboard for the Arts. Her work has been presented at the Walker Art Center; the International Meeting on Video-Dance and Video-Performance (Spain & France); North Dakota Environmental Rights Film Festival; InShadow Screendance Festival (Portugal); Duluth Superior Film Festival; DanceBARN Screendance Festival; Wolf Tree Film Festival (MI); Arena Dance’s CandyBox Festival; RAD Fest; The Lab at NorShor Theatre; and the Minnesota Fringe Festival, among others. She recently completed a seven-stop rural and Greater Minnesota tour of her work is this magic?.
www.kaylaschiltgen.com