CONTACT & BIO

Maya Odim is a poet and dancer who purposefully mounts performance works in spaces existing outside of occidental performance bounds. Maya works as an interdisciplinary artist exploring rhythms, patterns and qualities of speech through both the written word and a developing choreographic praxis.

Maya holds a BA in American Studies (Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT) and is an MFA Writing candidate at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Maya has been presented at Links Hall (Chicago, IL), Elastic Arts (Chicago, IL), DePaul Art Museum (Chicago, IL), Compound Yellow (Oak Park, IL), 99¢ Plus Gallery (NYC), Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT), and with Espiral Danza (Antigua & Guatemala City, Guatemala).

Maya’s work has also appeared in The Black Arts Quarterly (now the International Review of African American Art) a publication of Stanford University, and The Performance Response Journal. Maya’s self published chapbooks are called: Places Where We Can Imagine (2014), and Planets, Gourds and Traveling Staffs (2011). Currently Maya’s work explores the impacts of sociocultural experiences on performing & performance culture through learning, researching, teaching and performing, poetry and varying forms communal dance.