Shelby Green (they/them) is a New York based dance artist and provocateur who combines drag, mime, and clowning with Graham, Balanchine, and Gaga techniques to create a movement language all their own. Fusing old fashioned showmanship with a fresh aesthetic, Shelby’s work explores perception, contradiction, and façade, keeping the work both high concept and high camp. In their heightened world, absurdity is a vehicle for vulnerability, satire an invitation for dialogue, and laughter a Trojan horse unleashing questions of what we find funny and why.

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Shelby’s maximalist sensibility emerged in contrast to the structured, pragmatic environment that shaped their early world. They were raised in Cincinnati by a long line of accountants and attended the first Reform synagogue in the United States, a movement whose history is steeped in notions of conformity. Their work now wrestles with and reimagines that legacy through a Jewish and queer lens.

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Initially attending a small dance studio with limited resources, Shelby spent their summers exploring the dance world, attending intensives such as NYU Tisch and Interlochen, where they discovered a love for Graham Technique. Drawn by their Graham program, Shelby attended Southern Methodist University, where they were also exposed to Balanchine style ballet.

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Shelby studied abroad at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where they found art they truly resonated with for the first time. Post graduation, they moved to Tel Aviv and danced at Habima, the National Theater of Israel, and worked as a freelance commercial dancer, even appearing in a Eurovision music video. They frequently collaborated with choreographer Avichai Haham, whose directorial clarity and narrative strength made a lasting impact. The serious humor of choreographers Andrea Costanzo Martini and Noa Zuk also helped shape Shelby’s evolving artistic direction.

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Around the same time, Shelby began gravitating toward more alternative art forms, showing up to queer balls and voguing competitions that welcomed all in drag. Party curators began inviting them to create movement installations at underground events, where their embodied experimentation found a receptive, electric audience. When someone remarked that their work evoked clowning, Shelby immediately felt a connection, especially with the clown makeup, finding freedom in the stillness and exaggeration of that performative façade.

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After the tragedy of October 7 and the war that followed, Shelby shared in the global grief but also faced the need to restart their career from scratch. In the wake of this trauma, they felt permission to turn the dial up to 100 on their discarded ideas. In 2024, they moved to New York City with a desire to create and a sense of nothing to lose.

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In November 2024, Shelby founded their dance company, Yaroque, named for the Hebrew translation of their last name, Green, and evocative of the baroque aesthetic that often colors their work. Since then, they have presented pieces at PMT House of Dance, The Craft at The Wandering Barman, 7 Midnights at Arts on Site, Performance Party at Arts on Site, and Dance Studio Alliance at Arts on Site. They have also shown work at Anthology 33 at Court Square Theater, Fertile Ground at Green Space, Lucid Art Collective at 100 Grand Bill Young Studios, the Ohio Dance Festival, and Dance Parade NYC. A collaboration with Eight and Show at Dixon Place led to a sold out evening length performance at the Spark Theater Festival at The Chain Theatre. They are currently presenting work as part of The Study Series, a monthly choreography showing at Arts on Site.

 

Shelby is also the co founder of Finding Compassion, a dance festival where each piece partners with a charity that reflects the theme of the work. The festival ran virtually for three years and launched in person in 2025, where it was met with resounding enthusiasm.