k butterfly smith

After she took her first acting class, K Butterfly Smith realized that she would spend her life pursuing her dreams of being a storyteller through cinema, theatrical production and other creative art forms. A visionary, Butterfly has spent the past 25 years finding unique ways to produce, write, direct, act in, and edit her own creative work, showcasing not only her original work but the work of other artists from all walks of life. Her past work organizes community and reflects the various ways in which Black, IPOC, and women, experience the serendipitous moments of life. A proponent of alternative creative healing experiences, Butterfly combines a holistic approach to creativity and the connectedness to ALL.  

Having settled in Los Angeles for several years now, Butterfly focuses on how to be the change. She says,

“It is important to me to offer another alternative to the violent and fear-mongering films that are frequently released. How can we expect to live in a better world without evolving our thinking? I am confident that I can make this type of creative work that will entertain, educate and heal its audience.”

K Butterfly Smith, film school application (2017)

Silent film is one of her favorite genres, and a style that is on the rise again; Butterfly created Rita (2010, RaTheatre) . Rita is a short silent film I that details the serendipitous encounter of a woman and a man of color during hurricane Rita in 2005.  She wrote, directed and produced this film because she wanted to see people of color expressing love in a unique way. The film received several awards and accolades. In 2011 the short film screened at Our Images Arts and Film Festival at Rice University in Houston, TX. Rita is available to watch on YouTube. In 2015, she wrote, coproduced, edited, co-directed and costarred in a community-based web series, Makeda’s Nido.  Some of the elements she incorporated were magic, Sci-Fi, silence and improvisational dialogue. Through Makeda’s Nido she discovered her love of film editing.

From 2012 – 2016 K Butterfly Smith, co-founded NBHT, Inc. and Solfood Catering where she co-produce the Urban Raw Festival – a day-long event that educates the Little Rock community on the plant-based life style, local crafted food and goods, individual gifts and talents while also encouraging the people to live sustainably and experience handcrafted plant-based food prepared by her and current N.A.T.U.R.E. Center for Meditation founder, C. Marie Long. 2016 celebrated the festival’s fifth and final year.

In 2013, Butterfly received the Arkansas Arts Council Fellowship for her play, In a Year’s Time. The Arkansas Democrat Gazette nominated her and C. Marie Long as Women Entrepreneurs of 2015 for their work as owners of Solfood Catering, a fresh-causal, plant-based, culinary art.

Summer of 2016, she spent a summer in Venice, CA at Cornerstone Theater Company’s Summer Institute Residency program, working on, “Ghost Town”, an original play written by Juliette Carrillo.   

After her residency with Cornerstone Theater, Butterfly has made Los Angeles her home. She became Programming/Hospitality Assistant for the Ford Theatres, performed in several professional plays and film projects and directed one of her original plays in the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2018.

Focused on reclaiming a healthy relationship with her Self, Butterfly created a podcast, #BeingwithButterfly and is singing as Bleu PHOENIX under the label I AM SUNBODY. An advocate of alternative ways to tell stories that inspire healing and evolution, she continues to pursue her passion of creating and co-creating and establishing a place where creatives, like herself, can have full autonomy and ownership of their original work.