Photo by Cathryn Farnsworth

Mason Walker is a dancer, choreographer, and interdisciplinary artist from Reno, Nevada, pursuing a BFA in Dance at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. From 2016 to 2023, he trained in the competition and convention circuit, developing a foundation in jazz, contemporary, ballet, and commercial dance forms. These experiences shaped his ability to maintain his artistic voice across differing styles. At university, his practice has expanded into concert dance, social dance forms, improvisation, and interdisciplinary performance.

Walker seeks to navigate both concert and commercial dance realms, embracing the distinct opportunities each offers. Experiences ranging from appearing in the “Pumps” Snow Wife Music Video, assisting on tour with Velocity Dance Convention, and performing works by Jiří Kylián and Houston Thomas have affirmed his appreciation for hybridity.

Fascinated by the unseen dimensions of human experience, Walker explores spiritual, symbolic, and contemplative systems such as astrology, alchemy, philosophy, and mindfulness as frameworks for choreography. Through physical metaphors, movement qualities, and spatial relationships, he explores how personal transformation can inspire movement. His current work explores the tension between internal inhibition and external expression through a restrictive fabric garment, while his senior capstone draws on the alchemical stage of albedo to investigate reflection and self-discovery in embodied research.

Alongside aspirations to perform with a dance company and tour with musical artists, Walker’s creative interests span modeling, drawing, writing, fashion, video, and photography. Through performance and interdisciplinary creation, he seeks to build artistic worlds that make the intangible perceptible, inviting dancers and viewers to encounter new perspectives on their inner lives.