Kara Komarnitsky grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and received her BFA in Dance from Ohio State University in 2022, graduating summa cum laude with Arts Honors, Research Distinction, and minors in Environmental Science and Business. Over the past fifteen years she’s trained primarily in contemporary, floorwork, Cunningham and Limon techniques, improvisation, and composition; however, she also has experience in classical ballet, West African, Horton technique, hip hop, and musical theater. Other workshops she has participated in around the country include Gaga, Graham, Nikolais, and FoCo Technique. While at Ohio State University she performed in works by Daniel Roberts, Eddie Taketa, Susan Van Pelt Petry, Bebe Miller, Paul Taylor, and many others. Since graduation she has performed with Myriad Dance Company, the Interdisciplinary Arts Collective, Fem Dance Company, and Repertory Dance Theatre. Kara has also choregraphed new works for the Illuminate Salt Lake Festival, Repertory Dance Theatre’s LINK series, University of Alaska Anchorage’s dance program, and secondary schools throughout Utah. Most recently, she directed and premiered Lake Bodies with 801 Salon, Yardworks Presents, and Artists Climate Collective. She is a 500-hour level yoga teacher with Centered City Yoga and is also teaching at South Valley Creative Dance.
Awards and Recognition
- 2018: Sterling Scholar Award for the Salt Lake City Area
- 2020: Third Place in the Midwest Climate Summit’s Climate Stories Competition for Tales of the Deep (2017)
- 2022: Social Entropy (2018) selected for the Ohio Dance Festival Professional Concert
- 2022: Honorable Mention from the Ohio State University Denman Research Forum for Interconnect (2022)
- 2024: Snowmelt (2023) selected for Red Rock Dance Festival
- 2024: Featured choreographer for Wasatch Contemporary Dance Company’s Movers and Makers Festival — Show Me Yours and Mine
- 2025: Lake Bodies selected for Queer Spectra Arts Festival, Utah Dance Film Festival, and Equinox Mountain Film Festival
Artist Statement
I am an intermedia choreographer and contemporary dance performer living in the space in between techniques. As a mover I am invested in circular and continuous momentum, weight-sharing and partnering, and energetic and meaningful movement. My improvisation background informs my presence in any creative process or collaboration.
My creative process is centered in an ethic of body as ecosystem. I work to physicalize the relationships between the body and our embedded environment through site-specific, experiential research and improvisational workshops. I investigate complex group relationships that investigate the interconnected pulling, falling, resisting, and supporting forces at play in our own (human and non-human) communities, seeking to dissolve the skin boundary and engage our imaginations in more than human awareness. To challenge traditional notions of performance spaces I work with projections, film, sound, and interactive technology to create immersive performances, installations, and experiences, often in collaboration with artists of other mediums. I seek to use my voice to make visible the invisible forces that are the truth of how we experience 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.
My artistic lineage includes Nicholas Cendese, Norah Zuniga-Shaw, Natosha Washington, Alon Karniel, Eddie Taketa, and Abby Zbikowski. Significant influences include Octavia Butler, Jennifer Monson, David Abram, Jane Bennett, and adrienne marie brown.
Kara Komarnitsky 