2024 “Last year’s premiere of Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley proved a perfect showcase for choreographer and director Kia Smith. The evening-length “dance opera” exemplified her choreographic voice—note-by-note precision, fluid torso movement, unexpected gesture, powerful unison” Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch for 2024
2024 “…Smith’s agenda is to create global-communal networks to help dancers and audiences connect with other cultures.” See Chicago Dance Review For Choreographic Diplomacy
2023 “…zanily choreographed by Kia S. Smith.” WTTW Review For Chicago Opera Theater
2023 “…Alternately exuberant, eccentric and deeply troubling, this “Memoir” suggested the emotional heat and beat so elemental to “that thing called jazz.” WTTW Review For Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley
2023 “…Smith’s first evening-length piece, “Memoirs…” is a tour de force and a sensory immersion into this artist’s creative well-springs. ” See Chicago Dance Review For Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley
2023 “Director Kia Smith’s star has risen at a phenomenal pace…” Chicago Tribune Preview For Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley
2023 “…the everywhere choreographer Kia Smith of South Chicago Dance Theatre.” Crains Chicago Business
2023 “…Kia Smith, executive artistic director of South Chicago Dance Theatre (SCDT) and current “It” girl on the Chicago dance scene” See Chicago Dance
2023 Remember their names. These rising stars in the arts, sports, politics, and more are bound for big things in Chicago—and beyond. Chicago Magazine
2023 Kia S. Smith named Player of the Moment for 2023 in the category of Dance by New City Magazine in the annual 50 Players List.
2023 “Meteoric is too mild a word for the rise of Kia Smith and South Chicago Dance Theatre. A fleet of rocket emojis seems more descriptive. Smith and SCDT are riding the momentum to their Auditorium Theatre debut in 2023 with a new piece by Smith, “Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley.” The prolific Smith has a stack of choreographic commissions for other companies this year as well—notably for Houston Contemporary in January and Giordano Dance Chicago in the spring.” New City Magazine
2022 “The colorful performance—choreographed by Kia S. Smith who founded the troupe in 2017—merged the 17th-century music with the 21st-century sensibilities of modern dance, with bends and angles and stretches rather than balletic leaps and spins, and it received a warm reception from the audience.” Third Coast Review
2022 “Kia Smith is a south side diplomat of dance.” Chicago Reader
2022 Dance Magazine: Building a dance career with SCDT’s Executive Artistic Director Kia S. Smith – Dance Magazine Feature June 2022
2022 Dance Magazine: “On the come up” Dance Magazine Feature May 2022
2022 “One way she hopes to make the company more experimental and distinctive is her development of what she calls “dance opera,” a kind of cross-disciplinary work that fuses movement, live sound and scenic and projection design into a “holistic performance experience.” Chicago Sun-Times
2021 “Notably, all these collaborators are Black women at the top of their games playing on fields that have long been dominated by white men.” New City Magazine
2021 “One of Smith’s strengths is her ability to match movement to music. The legato lines in Montgomery’s music had long, smooth movements to match, at times spiced up with jerky physical interjections as punctuation points. There was great quivering and lots of rapid movement to complement the baroque section, which featured “Winter” from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”. Hyde Park Herald
2021 “Kia Smith’s two new premieres, “I Too Sing America” and “Architect of a Dream,” nail down the flow and meter of the chosen works of language and speech, proving that these dancers and choreographer are, indeed, poets themselves.” See Chicago Dance
2021 New Premieres “I Too Sing America” and “Architect of a Dream” featured in Dance Magazine
2020 “With virtual South Chicago Dance Festival, Kia Smith is dancing cultural diplomacy.” See Chicago Dance
2020 “In only three seasons, Smith’s tireless efforts have resulted in remarkable growth for this company.” Chicago Tribune
2018 “What may not be immediately clear is that Smith is an exceptional leader with the patience, fortitude, and creativity that will encourage the growth of SCDT and enrich each of the communities it touches.” Dancermusic.com