Her starring role as Jesse Aarons in GCT’s Bridge to Terabithia paved the way for her admission into Booker T Washington HSPVA under the direction of Theater Coordinator Karon Cogdill.

There she studied Shakespeare, Greeks, Classic and Modern American playwrights, was a three year member of Mime Troupe, achieved a custom-built-for-her-and-her-special-abilities Dance Minor, won many awards for the school via acting, directing, writing, and dance, and collaborated in numerous ways over many years with the neighboring Dallas Theater Center.

For greater context DTC was originally founded by Paul Baker (Karon’s mentor, also founder of BTWHSPVA as an Arts Magnet) and the collaborations with the school were spearheaded by (at the time newly appointed) Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty.

Upon high school graduation, she moved to New York City to attend Pace University School of Performing Arts where the highly-competitive BFA Acting program bored her to the point of transferring into the newly-conceptualized BFA Commercial Dance Program.

While her time at Arts Magnet gave her a solid modern dance foundation, Pace’s BFA gave Kaylen necessary grounding in jazz and ballet technique.

Highlights from Pace included workshopping Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild’s first choreographic collaboration First Things First and being a part of the historic Kathryn Doby’s restaging of Bob Fosse’s Crunchy Granola Suite- both in 2016. The Fosse restaging was in collaboration with his estate and the process was heavily documented for their archives. While in University, she also studied with the contemporary concert greats of the moment - notably Alexandra Damiani, Laja Field, etc.

Following collegiate studies, she made a bit of a freelance career for herself before again … getting rather … b o r e d with what was being offered to her in the scene.

“In the freelance days, I enjoyed who I was working with but the work we were encouraged to create - either by commercial producers or public institutions - never seemed to reach the caliber or impetus I had dreamed for my work as a young artist.”

One gig she does put outside the b o r i n g category was the contemporary ballet Isadora telling the life story of Isadora Duncan. This World Premiere production starred Natalia Osipova as Isadora, was choreographed by Russian darling Vladimir Varnava, and toured from Segerstrom (CAL) to The Marinsky (RUS).

“Three Irreplaceable Life Moments From That Gig… ONE. 6x/wk company ballet classes with… the Russians… TWO. Strutting down the Red Square in daisy dukes and cowgirl boots… THREE. Being asked to teach Natalia the contemporary phrase work she missed while rehearsing in London”

Since 2020, she has fully committed to forming her own identity as an artist so that she may fully use her wide array of technical/artistic skills in the creation of her art.

She hopes her work can help people learn that feeling really big things doesn’t have to be the end of the world, and it can actually turn your world brighter depending on what you do with the passion of those great feelings.

For the betterment of herself and others around her, she dances, she sings, she writes, she spreads joy, she wears lots of jewelry, she rollerblades on pink skates by the river, she wakes up excited every morning that God has given her another day to live- and she’s given herself a great big J O B- to have a beautiful day, everyday (:

Written 2025.05.24