Caitlyn Swett

Dancer, Musician, and Managing and Development Director at the Culture Mill

Education:
Bachelor of Arts in Dance, UNC Charlotte (2013)

Hometown: Black Mountain, NC

At UNC Charlotte, Caitlyn Swett learned that a career in dance can have broad implications and applications. “While I am an active mover, maker, and performer in the communities that I exist, I also strive to live an integrated dance life in which everything I do relates to my career, degree, and creative practice,” she says.

While still a student at UNC Charlotte, Caitlyn co-founded Triptych Collective (Charlotte, 2010-14), an experimental dance/arts group that performed thematic, socially conscious original work for six seasons. Moving to Winston-Salem, she became an administrative assistant for Helen Simoneau Danse and was a co-founder and program coordinator of On Site/In Sight, an annual three-day dance festival that presents work by regional, national, and international artists in nonconventional performance spaces in downtown Winston-Salem. Other arts administrative posts include the Neighborhood Theatre in Charlotte and Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance in Asheville. Caitlyn now works at the Culture Mill, which is located in Saxapahaw, NC

Since 2016, Caitlyn has worked with Paideia, a group of noise musicians, sound makers, movers, and healing practitioners. Paideia’s seasonal and site-based works are rooted in improvisation and are driven by looping sounds and movements. In late 2018, she also began making music in a band called Streak of Tigers. A recent collaboration with Chris Yon and Taryn Griggs for their work a bird you must not miss, commissioned and presented by the American Dance Festival in 2022. As a sound artist, Caitlyn has created soundscapes for Culture Mill’s Eclipse, commissioned and presented by Carolina Performing Arts in 2022, among other projects as part of the Southern Futures at CPA initiative. 

Caitlyn still stays connected to the UNC Charlotte Department of Dance. “I adopted some very special mentors, both faculty and students, from the department. These people have shaped the way I view, learn, teach, and create dance.”

Learn more about Caitlyn here.

*Headshot by Jordan Howe