WELÉLA MAR KINDRED
For over 3 decades artist, actress, creatve director, dancer and site-specific choreographer Weléla Mar Kindred - continues to inquire the global human experience by creating safe healing spaces, cinema, television, fashion, movement, wellness, digital media and public art.
THE LVMB COLLECTIVE
X
THE SILVER ROOM
A Collaboration
The Silver Room Chicago and LVMB are now partners! Assisting with creative direction, curatorial practices, design studios, and management - we are excited to embark on this journey with a fellow Black-owned business in fashion, communal safe spaces, and digital content.
Visit: The Silver Room
As seen in Forbes, New York Magazine and Wallpaper Magazine
L V M B
Say: L A M B
Artists make the worst slaves!
L V M B (pronounced L A M B)
Vison: It is important to create a nexus of inclusive projects which bridge the gap between creative landscapes of Black - owned arts & entertainment, commerce and the globalization of green health & wellness.
kneeling under a table of rain / secrets told / earth is learned / animals meditate / you knot my wet dress in ethiopia
KING / ECHO / DOGS / PROSTITUTES
Our Story
so the king died
the king's ghost / lightening laughed she sang of lust and rage begotten to the new dead age
their souls constituted / a freedom of dried fragrances / a language beaten into their shiva moons / sing me a song : break stones / battle one
Founded in 2009, L V M B (pronounced L A M B) began as a collective to promote the work of collaborating artists. As a global wellness (Löv Yoga), peace and negotiations advocate - The LVMB Collective intersects wellness + arts through collaborative projects including: danse films, cinema, digital media, Pod, beauty and fashion.
LVMB is also very passionate about creating more urban Black-owned farms, offering affordable fresh food for people + animals - while creating agricultural community workshops, farm jobs and apprenticeships.
L V M B
CHOREOGRAPHY
Performance pieces using movement are not just about dance, but how you feel while creating it. Skin to skin, body to body - each work, or experience we create is one of imagination, collaboration and a sense of surrender.
Each work has made an impact on our clients - every project we ensure details are seamless, all aspects are imaginative and handled in a timely manner. Whenever you work with L V M B you can be sure your project will be radical, profound and honest.
ART X CREATIVE DIRECTION
We are a collective of artists x directors x makers who embrace creativity. We practice organic flow, sometimes the project has narrative, sometimes the work doesn't have an end. We collab, we believe there is no bad idea. We're pretty proud of the journey thus far.
FEATURED COMMERCIAL
Fashion + Commercials
L V M B Choreography
One of our most recent works.
Please tap Balenciaga to view
{Password: Balenciaga}
Client: Matthew Rolston Studios
Director: Mei Dong
Choreographer: L V M B
CLIENTS
The Silver Room
Cannes Flim Festival
Le Tigre Yoga Paris
Sony Music
Acote + Cotelac Paris
Art Africa Journal
Contemporary Art of Ghana
Chale Wote Festival
ARTISTS
Past Collaborators:
Poet: Ladan Osman
Artist: Krista Franklin
Artist: Abdullah Khan
Guest dancers invited upon request.
PARTNERS
Studio partnership with LVMB
AGNC: Digital Brand Identity Creators
Websites + Animation + Digital Brand Identity Services
In Support: The James Baldwin Estate {New York}, Le Collectif James Baldwin de Paris.
Centre National de la Danse
Menagerie de Verre
Le Centquatre
Micadanses
Artistic Grant Support:
The International Association of Blacks in Dance
The Dance Resource Center
The Tides Foundation
Cover Photo: Genevieve Marie ©2020
STUDIO HOURS
By Appointment Only
Mon - Thur: 8am - 6pm
Fri: 8am - 2pm
Sat: Closed
Sun: 10a - 3p
GET IN TOUCH
Bookings, questions and special projects - please fill out form.
Weléla Mar Kindred
E:
OUR FOUNDER
W E L É L A
Formal Bio:
Definition: lamb noun /’lam/ : a young sheep : lamb of God : an innocent or gentle person
Examples of lamb : She’s as gentle as a lamb.
Synonyms of lamb : angel : dove : innocent
Antonym of lamb : wolf
L V M B: LVMB’s objective is to interrogate western identity and Afro-anthropology, the relationship between the physical and philosophical praxis of post-colonial metanarratives, digital and abstract. Set apart from the traditional danse company, Lamb is a collective founded by site-specific choreographer Weléla Mar Kindred and developed by a tribe of visionaries. Beyond danse, Lamb embraces human rights and body politics while fostering a social-sanctuary.
Ms. Kindred’s work probes into the hubris of the racialized body. As the founding creative director of
L V M B {pronounced L A M B} it is imperative that the collective explores spontaneous movement of humanity.
Born and raised in southern California, she was awarded the Dean's scholarship to study Film / Performance Art at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has also been awarded the Dance New Amsterdam Choreographer Lab Artist in Residence and Artceb Suriname Artist in Residence. She lived in Paris from 2009-2016 reconstructing and layering ideas of the body, surrender and fragmentation where her work was featured in the FRASQ Festival, Nuit Blanche and the Chale Wote Festival {Jamestown, Ghana}. Through site-specific performances and installations she received a NYU / Harvard Fellowship and the Tides Grant. Her writings have appeared in Art Africa Journal and Vivimus Magazine.
Performance Bio:
Weléla Mar Kindred was born (November 10, 1975) and raised in the southern California area. She began training as a dancer at the local YMCA in Santa Ana, California in 1980, and also became a part of a young theater group for children of color - The Lorraine Hansberry Players under the direction of Adelaine Hunter. Soon after she became a member of The Santa Monica Playhouse theater company in Santa Monica, California and Mrs. Hunter's adult touring company of artists of color from 1985-1989. While training in dance, she became a pre-professional ballet student at The St. Joseph Ballet Company under the direction of Beth Burns from 1986-1989.
From 2000-2003 she studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago - where she performed in Genet's "The Blacks," and was the VP of Nia - The Black Student's Arts Collective. Her two majors while at the Art Institute were performance art due to her love for Yoko Ono and film, because she studied photography since the age of 12 and Black cinema was a deep passion.
Later she moved to New York because she was signed to an agent before leaving Chicago - she chose to be based in Bed-Stuy. She also was studying and work at the world-renown Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. While dancing at Ailey, auditioning and working full-time in the West Village - with her art background she was commissioned by close friends to do collage work - and sold her first pieces in NYC. After moving to Rockaway Beach, Queens due to her love for nature and the beach, she continued to study at Ailey in Midtown and gig as a dancer/choreographer throughout New York.
As a world traveler, she then moved to Paris - the city of lights. She worked in theater throughout Ghana and Europe for 7 years and presently has representation in Paris.
Upon returning to the states in 2016 she was invited to South Africa by NYU - hand-picked by Deborah Willis and affiliated with Dr. Henry Louis Gates of Harvard to present her research and work based on Black Body Politics. As a NYU Fellow, this work later was featured in the South African arts and culture periodical - 'African Art Journal.'
Commercial, art-house or indie - collaborations are vital to Weléla and she is prepared to align to the highest level of creativity and global diverse storytelling.