Brandon Kazen-Maddox (they/them) is a Grandchild of Deaf Adults (GODA) and third-generation native signer of American Sign Language (ASL) who identifies as a Nonbinary, Black Indigenous Person of Color and a member of the LGBTQAI+ community. Brandon is an artist, choreographer, director, actor, acrobat, activist and ASL artist and performer. Brandon has also spent the last 10 years as a professional ASL interpreter. Brandon creates work with and for the Deaf and Disability communities, and highlights and empowers BIPOC and LGBTQAI+ artists, building bridges of collaboration and community among people of all backgrounds and abilities. In May 2019, Brandon graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with an MFA in Dance and New Technology. In the summer of 2020, Brandon co-founded Up Until Now Collective, an arts and media company that focuses on developing and producing radically inclusive inter-disciplinary work.
Up Until Now projects include SOUL(SIGNS): An ASL Playlist (a series of 10 ASL music videos for Broadstream Media, featuring iconic songs by Black women; featured in The New York Times, on ABC World News, and as the “Midnight Moment” in Times Square, appearing on 80+ screens every night at midnight in July, 2021); SOUL(SIGNS): OPERA, a series of Opera ASL videos commissioned by Boston Lyric Opera, and Pride video campaigns for Amazon Music and Global Citizen. Throughout 2021 and 2022, Brandon served as the lead consultant for providing ASL Services at The Shed, Little Island, Lincoln Center and the Park Avenue Armory, where they are bringing Deaf Directors of ASL into the inner workings of arts organizations and integrating both the Deaf perspective and Deaf performers onstage, on camera and behind the scenes.
Brandon’s work as an interpreter and activist has been profiled on CNN and they have appeared as a co-star on “The Good Fight” (Paramount +) and “High Maintenance” (HBO). Brandon was also a featured story-teller on the 100th episode of “Stories From The Stage” (PBS) and they were chosen as one of Gucci and Time For Change’s “22 for ‘22: Visions For a Feminist Future.” Brandon is the recipient of the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) National Dance Production Grant and an awardee of the 2022 cycle of the Creative Capital Award for the ASL Dance Theatre Reimagining of Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party.