Maria Silk (previously Silk Worm) is a San Francisco-based choreographer. Her artistic background includes over a decade of activity in Bay Area queer nightlife as a drag queen and DJ, complemented by formal training in physical theater, Butoh, contemporary dance, and improvisation. Silk’s work intertwines the glamour and spectacle of a drag show with the movement vocabulary of postmodern and experimental dance, typically working with research into queer and trans history and life as its subject matter. Conceptually, her work takes queer nightlife’s felt sense of collectivity as choreographic material, creating experiences that invite audiences into the world of the queer underground. 

Silk has shown work at local venues including the Berkeley Art Museum, the Cantor Center for the Arts, CounterPulse, Slash Art, and Southern Exposure as well as abroad at Fierce! Festival (Birmingham, UK) and Improspekcije (Zagreb, Croatia). She was also a 2017 danceWEB Scholar at the ImPulsTanz Festival. With Brittany Newell, she co-directed HUSH-HUSH, an event series programming experimental performance by local queer and trans artists, from 2017 to 2020.

She is known as a very good sport.

contact: miss.silk.worm [at] gmail [dot] com

photo by Robbie Sweeny

CV

PUBLICATIONS

“The Eyes of Others,” Open Space from SFMOMA, September 2021

“Lifetime Achievement,” untitled volume from Slash Art, June 2021

SELECTED PERFORMANCES

On the Floor, performance at CounterPulse (SF, 2025)

Viewing Pleasure, performance at Southern Exposure (SF, 2023), CounterPulse (SF, 2024), and Improspekcije (Zagreb, Croatia, 2024), 2023-2024

Lessons in Anatomy, performance at CounterPulse (SF, 2022)

The jaws of all are red with gore, performance at CounterPulse (SF, 2022)

Bottom Bride, performance at Fierce! Festival (Birmingham, UK), Pittsburgh Performance Art Festival, 2727 California Street (Berkeley), h0L0 (New York City), and National Queer Arts Festival (SF), 2018-2020

GEN, performance at Beauty Supply Arts (Oakland, 2019)

knowing me, performance at Clump TV (Berlin) and HIT Gallery (SF), 2019

crummy sheets, performance at Berkeley Art Museum (Berkeley, 2019)

Bad Acting, performance at Cantor Center for the Arts (Stanford) and SET (London), 2017

EXHIBITIONS

Don’t Ask Me, /room/ at Slash Art (SF), solo show of video work, May – August 2022

The Last Waltz, Delaplane (SF), group show, March 2022

PRESENTATIONS, LECTURES, SCREENINGS, AND WORKSHOPS

“Dancing in Tongues,” dance workshop, KH Fresh Festival, March 2023

“Don’t Ask Me: A Screening and Conversation between Silk Worm and hannah baer,” / (Slash), June 2022

Lifetime Achievement, The Stud (SF), screening, June 2021

“If You Shout ‘Brick!’,” performance lecture, Place Talks at the Prelinger Library, November 2019

“Bad Acting 101: A Workshop,” creative workshop, California College for the Arts, November 2017, 2018, and 2019

AS A PERFORMER IN OTHERS’ WORK

Bacchae Before by Hope Mohr and Maxe Crandall, Joe Goode Annex, September 2021

Colossus by Cornelius, CounterPulse, April 2021

Drag House by Cornelius, CounterPulse, May and June 2019

I’m Very Into You by Sara Lyons, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, November 2018

Out of Place, In Place by Futurefarmers, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, March 2018

GRANTS, HONORS, AWARDS, AND FELLOWSHIPS

Community Arts Grant, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Summer 2025

New & Experimental Works (NEW) Program Grant, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, 2025

Community Arts Grant, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Fall 2023

Production Support Grant, FACT/SF, Fall 2023

Dresher Ensemble Artist Residency, Paul Dresher Ensemble, July 2022

San Francisco Artist Grant, San Francisco Arts Commission, June 2022

CA$H Dance Grant, Dancers’ Group, June 2022

CA$H Creates Grant, Theatre Bay Area, June 2022

Artist Power Convenings Grant, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, December 2021

Individual Artist Commission Grant, San Francisco Arts Commission, June 2020

GENERATE Programme, British Council and Arts Council England, October 2019

Alternative Exposure Grant, Southern Exposure, December 2019

danceWEB Scholarship, ImpulsTanz International Dance Festival, July 2017

Cantor Scholarship, Cantor Center for the Arts, January – June 2017

SELECTED CURATORIAL EXPERIENCE

HUSH-HUSH, Co-Founder and Co-Curator, various venues, February 2017 to 2020

High Fantasy Memory Index (archival exhibition), Co-Curator, Tenderloin Museum, 2020

This, That, and the Third (group show), Curator, HIT Gallery, 2019

Sweet Nothings (artist talk series), Curator, 2019

EDUCATION

MA, Stanford University, Art History, 2017

BA, Stanford University, Theater and Performance Studies, 2017