Shayla-Vie Jenkins is a performer, maker, educator, and writer with a passion for poetry. She has been a significant performer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company from 2005 to 2016, where she contributed to the creation and premiere of thirteen new works. Throughout her career, Jenkins has collaborated with notable artists including Bebe Miller, Faye Driscoll, and Susan Marshall, among others. In 2023, she was awarded the Pew Center Arts & Heritage Project Grant for her site-specific work 'Buried Ground,' which honors the lives of freed enslaved congregants at the historic Christ Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This project premiered at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in 2024. Jenkins is also a recipient of the 2025 Viola Farber Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She holds an M.F.A. in Choreography and Performance from Smith College and a B.F.A. from the Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. Program. As an assistant professor at the School of Dance at the University of the Arts, Jenkins is currently a faculty member of Bennington College's BFA Dance Lab and contributes to thINKingDANCE, a Philadelphia-based collective that produces a digital journal focusing on dance writing.