WKcollective | Wanjiru Kamuyu || associate company
Paris | France

WKcollective creates immersive, visceral experiences through the medium of contemporary dance. Project-based works weave stories and express the universal experience.
Collaboration across artistic disciplines opens discourse and intrigue through the power of poetic expression in vocal and physical movement.
Founded by choreographer Wanjiru Kamuyu in 2009, WKcollective attracts multidisciplinary artists of diverse cultural backgrounds to the creative canvas.
Drawing upon these art forms to stimulate fresh, innovative, vulnerable, raw, graphic art to generate personal and social reflection through a transformative celebration with dance.
Wanjiru Kamuyu, born in Nairobi/Kenya, obtained a Master of Fine Arts at Temple University (Philadelphia, USA). Based in Paris since 2007, she started her career in New York with such notable dance companies as Urban Bush Women and Molissa Fenley and Company. As a dancer, she developed a rich and diverse background that fostered her choreographic development and teaching.
Between New York and Paris, on international stages, she has worked with contemporary choreographers including Jawole Willa Jo Zollar/Urban Bush Women, Bill T. Jones, Irène Tassembedo, Robyn Orlin, Nathalie Pubellier, Anne Collod, Stefanie Batten Bland, Bartabas, Dean Moss and more. Wanjiru collaborated with Jérôme Savary (À la recherche de Joséphine), Bill T. Jones (Broadway show FELA!) as well as the film director Christian Faure (Fais danser la poussière) and visual artist Jean-Paul Goude. She was in the original cast of the Paris Production of Julie Taymor’s Broadway show, The Lion King.
She has created three major works since 2017 (two solos and a trio) plus adaptations for alternative spaces, young audiences, as well as for the hearing and visually impaired. These pieces have been internationally acclaimed in the USA, France, Italy, Ireland, Taiwan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Burundi South Africa, Rwanda, and Mozambique. Her works have been developed in residencies in France, the USA (on a Villa Albertine Residency), and in Ireland. Additionally, in 2020 Kamuyu created her first dance film, La visite, directed by Tommy Pascal. The film was commissioned by the Etablissement public du Palais de la Porte Dorée, in partnership with Théâtre de la Ville-Paris. The film has been distributed in France, the Netherlands, Cote D’Ivoire, Burundi, Mali and the US.
Kamuyu has also worked as a choreographer with director Jérôme Savary and has developed projects for refugees with New World Theatre (USA) and Euroculture (a project for 65 young artists and 11 refugees from Sudan, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan). She has been commissioned by directors Hassane Kassi Kouyaté (Burkina Faso), Jean-François Auguste (France) and several universities in the USA (Mills College, Stephens College, Wayne State University, University of Michigan) and dance company InkBoat (USA). She has also served as artistic consultant for choreographer Bintou Dembele’s (France) work, Z.H.
Kamuyu teaches master classes and choreography workshops in Europe, North America, Asia and in Africa.
Kamuyu’s company, WKcollective, is an associate company with the creative agency camin aktion (Montpellier). Since the end of the 2023/24 season, Wanjiru Kamuyu has been the associate artist at the National Choreographic Center, CCN Nantes. As a 2023 artist in residence with the Villa Albertine, Kamuyu continues to receive their support in the touring her work in the US. She is also a Live Feed Artist with New York Live Arts for seasons 2023/24 and 2024/25. From 2020/21 through 2023/24, she was associate artist with L’Onde Théâtre Centre d’Art, Scène Conventionnée d’Intérêt National – Art et Création pour la Danse (Vélizy, France).
Photo © Mathieu Waddell