Kingston, Rupa

 

    

Hello everybody! My name is Rupa Kingston, and I am a fourth year transfer student double majoring in World Arts and Cultures and Anthropology. I am originally from Ukraine, but I moved here in 2007 when I was nine years old. I was also born into Krishna Consciousness (sometimes referred to as “The Hare Krishna Movement” or “Bhakti-Yoga”), which is a sect of Hinduism worshipping Lord Krishna, with core beliefs based in scripts from the Bhagavad Gita and others. My multicultural immigrant background made me very interested in the concept of culture and how it impacts and is impacted by religion, spirituality, environment, politics, geography, art, etc., hence why I chose to study these two fascinating subjects at UCLA in order to gain a broader and more comprehensive understanding of the world and my own identity. 

Additionally, I grew up as a professional dancer, and trained in a variety of styles including, ballet, hip-hop, contemporary, modern (specifically Horton), jazz, Bollywood, West African, and many more. In community college, I was a part of a dance company called Global Motion, which exposed me to even more styles from all over the world like Indonesian, Salsa, Flamenco, Jive, Bellydance, and more which inspired me to explore the concept of culture from an artistic lens as well. Recently, I started my own dance company, The Kingston Company, in order to showcase my choreographic concept video work and to collaborate with talented artists around the LA area. 

Quite honestly, I am unfortunately not very familiar with Chicanx art and artists. However, I hope that by taking this class I am able to broaden my understanding of this culture and to also distance myself from Eurocentric ideas of art and performance in order to expand my perception and preconceived notions of art. I hope to learn more about movements that intersected and inspired Chicanx art, and I am also interested to see if there will be discussions around performance art as well.