Kara Komarnitsky

Flight

It is such an honor to be guest dancing in “The Winged” by Jose Limon and becoming a bird like I have always dreamed of. As a whole, this show is a celebration of the Utah landscape, a place that has always called me back and continues to define the path of my life. Over the past several months, I have been working to facilitate collaborations with Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Friends of the Great Salt Lake, Great Salt Lake Audubon, Utah Dine Bikeyah, and The Nature Conservancy so that you can connect with their amazing work when you come to the show. Join us and be inspired!

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Embrace

It was an honor to share the stage with so many amazing women in Fem Dance Company’s latest show. Specifically Brianna Bernhardt and Lily Farrar with whom I had the pleasure of learning “Unapologetic” by Nicholas Jolley-Harding. It was a satisfying challenge in synchronicity and grace.

Tenderness is an Exercise in Velocity

I had the great pleasure of working with Indigo Cook starting in October 2022 for the Interdisciplinary Arts Collective Performance Calendar. Our inspiration was a section of the Infrarealist Manifesto by Roberto Bolaño:

Tenderness as an exercise of velocity. Respiration and heat. Disparate experience, structures that devour themselves, crazy contradictions.

We started by creative movement prompts based on the text, then spent several hours moving in response to them. The result was a dance film balancing speed, texture, solo, and duet movement.

Watch the full dance film here

Returning Home

I had the opportunity recently to present a new work entitled “Returning Home” as part of the Illuminate Salt Lake Festival at the Salt Lake City Public Library.

Direction and Projection Design: Kara Komarnitsky
Performance and Movement Generation: Elizabeth Chaillé, Seryna Rogers, Severin Sargent-Catterton, Rachel Miller
Music: Seth Alexander, Michael Wall
Technical Advice: Nickolas Komarnitsky

“Returning Home” is an intermedia performance piece that addresses the importance of the Great Salt Lake ecosystem to migratory birds. Projections transform the space into a reimagination of the wetlands to provide multiple perspectives on the diversity and richness of the ecosystem. Dancers weave through the projected environment telling a story of flight, struggle, rebirth, and adaptation through the lens of a migratory bird returning to its birthplace on the shores of the Great Salt Lake and finding it drastically altered. Audience members can contribute to the performance by responding to vital questions: What qualities define a home? What sensations arise in times of extreme change and loss? What actions support renewal of lost spaces? Their responses will be integrated into the projection environment in real time to offer moments of reciprocity and reflection.

In between the performances audiences could enjoy an interactive projection installation and learn more about the birds that depend on the Great Salt Lake.

The questions below were posed to the audience during the performances and an interactive website gathered their responses and incorporated their answers into the projections. The word maps below are the results of all three of our audiences.

Dream Spark

I was very excited to join Myriad Dance Company this summer for a performance at Dreamscapes in the South Towne Mall. Together we built an immersive experience for audiences to experience the unique space and be inspired.

Stay review

I loved attending the Salt Lake Ballet Cooperative’s performance in Bountiful, my full review can be found here.

Traverse review

I recently have had the chance to write reviews for loveDANCEmore and reflect on art experiences in Salt Lake. The full review for the performance of Traverse can be found here.

Vexations

I was very honored to be a part of the Interdisciplinary Arts Collective performance of Vexations by Eric Satie. It was performed 8am July 1 to 10pm July 2, 2022 in the Sugar Space Arts Warehouse with Aaron D. Smith on the piano. I performed for a four hour and then two hour time period and genuinely found so much presence and peace in the repetition of sound and movement. This was an incredible extension of my experience with Vexations in the OSU Spring Concert in April but with the extension of performance time, I found a much deeper connection to how movement and sound define our sense of space.