About KHILA.

Aquilah Ohemeng, artistically known as “KHILA” is an emerging multidimensional artist with a creative background that expands beyond movement into other disciplines such as vocal performance, filmmaking, creative direction, and more.

Growing up in Philadelphia, Aquilah trained at Philadanco’s Youth Ensemble and has studied under such renowned artists as Rennie Harris, Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M Dance Company, members of Koresh Dance Company and Phresh Select (from “America’s Best Dance Crew” Season 1) and more. Her movement aesthetic fuses her formal training in Ballet, Hip-Hop and Jazz, to name a few, with improvisational exploration to produce versatile, interdisciplinary art. As a Spelman College graduate, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Dance Performance and Choreography and a Minor in Spanish. During her undergraduate career, Aquilah served as a three-year dance veteran and featured student choreographer of Spelman Dance Theatre. In 2019, she was one of few selected to perform at Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine for a residency in conjunction with the Zanele Muholi: Sonymama Namayama, Hail the Dark Lioness exhibition space. Additionally, she served as Dance Captain and Student Assistant Choreographer for “The Georgia Incarceration Performance Project Presents: By Our Hands.” It was the first of its kind as a cross-institutional endeavor between Spelman College, the University of Georgia, and other collaborators who developed a devised performance utilizing archival research (material and embodied) based on Georgia’s history of incarceration and convict labor (GAIPP).

As a dance educator, her creative processes and pedagogical practices are purposefully rooted in galvanizing the minds of aspiring creatives and encouraging them to be global change agents through the following vehicles: movement, scholarship, and leadership. She has taught a range of diverse and transgenerational groups dance technique and theory at institutions that include Syracuse University (currently as an adjunct dance professor), Spelman College and within the Atlanta University Center (conducted masterclasses and workshops). Additionally, she has developed dance curricula to teach students from the KIPP Strive Academy in Atlanta to the First Presbyterian Church of Germantown Freedom School in Philadelphia, among others. Her multicultural background has fostered a passion for education and community service. Recently, Aquilah served as an Artistic Director and Instructor who organized a nationwide virtual dance event for movement artists as a way to combat arts’ inaccessibility due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

She has been the recipient of various awards and scholarships ranging from dance performance to musicianship that include being a five-time recipient of the Tonya Dorsey and New Vision Scholarship. She is a proud member of Delta Phi Delta Dance Fraternity Inc and Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society. Her latest film, The Flowers that Grew from Our Tears, has received acclaim within the arts community for being transformative and thought-provoking (spelman.edu). Previous drafts and excerpts of this experimental work have been commissioned at HEREatfter’s HomeTraining exhibition, presented at Spelman College Research Day, and installed at The Movement Lab in Atlanta, Georgia.