Kara Komarntisky

Artist Statement

Kara Komarnitsky is an intermedia dance artist living, working, and teaching in Salt Lake City, UT. Her choreography approaches the complexity of human interconnection with the planet, seeking to make visible the invisible forces underneath our experience of the world and reveal connections that we cannot see with our eyes – envisioning and transforming our collective idea of where our bodies end and where they begin. While her primary medium is dance, Kara regularly uses projections, film, sound, and interactive technology to create immersive experiences that challenge traditional notions of performance. Her artistic process is centered in an ethic of body as ecosystem, investigating the interconnected pulling, falling, resisting, and supporting forces at play in our own (human and non-human) communities through collaborative exploration and improvisational workshops.

Critics have praised her choreography as “twisting, turning, and visually arresting— [it] spoke to something primal and human, an expert example of dance having the capacity to do things that words cannot,” (Fjord Magazine). Her piece Tales of the Deep (2018) won third place in the Midwest Climate Summit’s Climate Stories Competition and her BFA thesis, Interconnect (2022), received an Honorable Mention at the OSU Denman Research Forum. Most recently, the collaborative dance film Lake Bodies (2024) won an audience choice award at the Utah Dance Film Festival. Other places her work has been presented includes the Ohio Dance Festival Professional Concert, Illuminate Salt Lake Festival, Red Rock Dance Festival, Repertory Dance Theatre’s LINK series, and 801 Salon.