ABOUT

Kristel Jelinek Brown, MA, CHSE (she/hers) is an actor, director, intimacy choreographer, and community-based arts and sexuality educator, interested in working to educate and engage a variety of diverse age groups and communities through the performing arts. Her artistic career has spanned the spectrum from commercial theatrical performance to community-based arts activism and education. Kristel has worked with people of all ages, abilities, and identities in the North Denver-Boulder metro and NYC-metro areas, including community centers, nursing homes, classrooms, traditional arts’ spaces, non-profits, libraries, schools, community-based organizations, music festivals, and Broadway audiences.

Her work has been seen at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Metropolitan State University, The Northglenn Youth Theatre, The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Crested Butte Music Festival, The Bayview Music Festival, Mackintosh Academy, Brooklyn’s Spellbound Theatre, The CAT Youth Theatre (NYC), and Parlando School of Musical Arts, where she served as Director of Voice and Theatrical Education until 2019. Kristel is a co-founder and member of Dandelion Arts Collective, a woman-owned, Denver-based nonprofit organization that promotes and advances health equity through community-based performing arts practices.

Kristel holds a BFA in Theater Performance from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a masters degree in Applied Theater from The City University of New York (CUNY), and is a Certified Holistic Sexuality Educator through ISEE. Additionally, she holds a graduate certificate in Disability Studies from CUNY and has studied intimacy choreography with Theatrical Intimacy Education (TIE). She is passionate about arts access for all and the reinvention of art-making & arts spaces as radical, inclusive, and democratic. Kristel is a mama to two humans, one tiny dog, and resides with her family in Lafayette, Colorado. 

Read the feature in Boulder Weekly about some of Kristel’s devising in the Denver/Boulder area

Positionality & Artistic Statement

I am a white-presenting, cisgendered woman with Mexican, German, and other European ancestry, who is able-bodied and neurotypical.

I work with communities of all ages, abilities, ethnicities, identities, but particularly teens and young adults in arts/third spaces, immigrant communities, adults and young people living with IDD, queer spaces, and mutual aid organizations.

I recognize that my world view and positionality have afforded me privilege and safety that others both nationally and globally do not experience. I believe in the strength of community and humbly hope to contribute in the spirit of co-learning and cultural humility. I consciously work to collaborate in partnership with the humans I serve.

“Kristel does such a great job making each of our participants feel supported and comfortable with their various support needs and skill levels. She reminds them to do what feels good for their body and encourages them to try new things.”

Jessamyn • Imagine! Colorado Direct Support Provider