Cameron Childs
Philadelphia-born dancer, choreographer, and writer Cameron Childs creates work at the intersection of architecture and Black embodiment, tracing spatial memory and resilience.
Biography
Childs was born and raised in West Philadelphia and began training for a professional dance career at the age of fourteen. His early training spanned tap, jazz, hip-hop, ballet, modern, and other contemporary forms, under the guidance of renowned Philadelphia artists including Gwendolyn Bye, Kim Bears-Bailey, Elisa Clark, Michael Sheridan, and Gary Jeter.
Childs has performed in works by Ronald K. Brown, Mark Morris, Robert Battle, Faustin Linyekula, and others whose choreographic legacies continue to shape his understanding of performance and practice. He received his Master of Fine Arts in Dance from The University of the Arts in the summer of 2021 and has recently been involved in the Ann & Weston Hicks Choreographic Fellowship Program as a dancer.
As both a dancer and maker, Childs’ creative work moves between choreography, writing, and research. His choreographic works include Poverty’s Paradise – The Allegory Of (2018) and Pathogenic Agent (2021), the latter of which also developed into his first published book of the same name.
Childs’ current research theorizes architecture and its entanglements with the body—examining architectural scarring, the centering and decentering of the body in relation to “buildings,” and the lived experiences of those housed within state-run shelters and temporary dwellings. His work interrogates lineages of architectural trauma while searching for modes of self-discovery and collective presence across the terrains of Blackness. His most recent investigations trace patterns of spatial discrimination in Philadelphia, using public housing development maps as a choreographic and critical tool.
Childs has served as the Program Coordinator for Bennington's BFA in Dance Lab and the Low-Residency MFA in Dance program since Fall 2024 and is a visiting faculty member in the BFA in Dance Lab for the 2024-2025 academic year.