Xéetl'ee Katelyn Stiles is an artist, filmmaker, dancer, teacher, and scholar working in community-based research creation. She is Lingít of the Raven Moiety, Kaxatjaa Hít of the Kiks.ádi Clan in Sheet'ká [Sitka, Alaska], and a Kaagwaantaan granddaughter. She is an enrolled tribal member of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska as well as the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. Katelyn grew up on the Central Coast of California on Northern Chumash homelands, and lived in Berlin, Germany for several years where she specialized in video documentation of dance and "dance film." Her film work has been screened internationally in film festivals and she has danced professionally in different contexts. She received her BA in Art Practice with a minor in Dance/Performance Studies from UC Berkeley, and she holds an MA in Native American Studies from UC Davis. Katelyn is currently pursuing a PhD in Native American Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Performance and Practice. Her research crosses into critical Indigenous Studies, Improvisation and Performance Studies, and Feminist Science and Technology Studies. Katelyn's current collaborations center embodied practices and oral histories of Kiks.ádi Herring Ladies that enact deep relations to Herring relatives and interconnected ecosystems. As a Herring Protector and Herring lady herself, this film project is embedded in relationships and process-based realities of Indigenous Knowledge Systems.

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