Photo by Cathryn Farnsworth

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Belly Laird is a trans, Japanese-American artist who sees dance as an intersection among physical storytelling, personal narrative, and embodied memory. Growing up in the Bay Area, California, Belly trained competitively at Melodic Remedy Dance Studio, with particular focus on ballet, contemporary, freestyle and Hip-Hop. In high school, Belly began exploring their choreographic practice as a platform for their markedly queer artistic visions.

Combining their growing passion for art, identity, and the body, Belly chose to pursue a BFA in dance at the University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance as a Simms/Mann Endowed Scholar, with a minor in LGBTQ studies. During their second year at USC Kaufman, Belly began being mentored by Kyle Abraham, who continues to support them in honing their performing and artistic practices. Belly has danced in world premieres by Spenser Theberge, Bret Easterling, and Ebony Haswell Frazier, and has performed repertory by Jiří Kylián, Martha Graham, and Shahar Binyamini. Beyond USC Kaufman, Belly studies performance art, costuming, and queer theory, channeling those influences into independent projects like BOCHA, an Asian-American dance film.

Belly’s work explores themes of queerness, transformation, and resilience, functioning equally as a performative practice and a rigorous exercise in vulnerability. They stretch the boundaries between artistic disciplines—working in mediums ranging from stage performance to visual art—while allowing their voice to take shape however it must. Belly plans to continue breaking down artistic and social boundaries as they pursue a multidisciplinary career as a choreographer, performer, and movement artist.