Kristiana’s writing, organizing, and producing works to radically reimagine power structures. Her current work explores Afrofuturist drama as a catalyst for social change. A foundational premise of her pedagogy is that artists are the vanguard of revolution, and that it is the social duty of creatives to envision, imagine, rehearse, design, and embody our liberated future. Through science fiction, Afrofuturism, and speculative media, we create opportunities to rehearse the future together.
Kristiana Rae Colón is a poet, playwright, actor, educator, Cave Canem Fellow, and Executive Director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective. She recently debuted her first hip-hop one-act Lack on Lack in Victory Gardens Theater’s 2014 Ignition Festival of New Works. Her play Octagon is the winner of Arizona Theater Company’s 2014 National Latino Playwriting Award and Polarity Ensemble Theater’s Dionysos Festival of New Work. In February and March 2013, she toured the UK with her collection of poems promised instruments published by Northwestern University Press. In autumn 2012, she opened her one-woman show Cry Wolf in Chicago while her play but i cd only whisper had its world premiere in London at the Arcola Theater. Her play Tilikum received the 2019 Jeff Award for Best New Play. She also appeared on Season 5 of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. Kristiana has taught English, Humanities, and Creative Writing at North Park University, Chicago State University, Tribeca Flashpoint Academy, and Malcolm X College, as well as served as a teaching artist for a number of nonprofit arts organizations including Young Chicago Authors, Gallery 37, and the Poetry Center. She believes in the power of art as a catalyst for social progress.