Karlovsky & Company Dance

Karlovsky & Company Dance was established as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization in 2012 by its Founder and Artistic Director, Dawn Karlovsky. From 2004 through 2012, the company operated as Dawn Karlovsky & Dancers. The company is led by founder and artistic director, Dawn Karlovsky, a 2015 Artist Fellow of The Regional Arts Commission. Karlovsky teaches Modern Dance and the Alexander Technique in the Department of Dance at Webster University in St. Louis, and faculty in the Somatics Certificate Program at Washington University.

Since the inception of the company, the choreographic work of Karlovsky & Company Dance has been commissioned internationally with tours to France and South Africa, and nationally presenting in New York City, Minneapolis and Duluth MN, Tulsa, and San Francisco-Bay Area. Karlovsky & Company Dance aspires to connect with audiences through the art of dance, and to provide an experience for the viewer that evokes personal reflection.

The work of Karlovsky & Company Dance extends beyond the region with a long history of presenting site-specific community performances, concert work, and residencies nationwide and internationally. Karlovsky & Company Dance engages performing artists by promoting collaboration and creating opportunities for artists to cultivate and extend their own personal, artistic ambitions.

The purpose of the programs offered by Karlovsky & Company Dance is to provide year-round performance and education opportunities in the St. Louis community to connect to our community and to enrich the cultural climate. We present our main-stage SEASON CONCERT in the springtime with original choreography by artistic director, Dawn Karlovsky, and featured guest artists. The main-stage concert is a major production of evening-length work that involves in-depth thematic research resulting in collaboration and integration of contemporary dance-theater, live music, spoken word, visual art and dance on camera.

This 2023-24 year marks our 11the season!  We recently presented the premiere of STORYSCAPES - an evening-length work of contemporary dance-theater involving choreography by artistic director, Dawn Karlovsky, with original composition and live performance with St. Louis musicians Kalo Hoye and Tory Starbuck, narration by Alyssa Ward, and video collaboration with filmmaker, Zlatko Ćosić.  The themes reflected in this work explore how socio-cultural informed ideas and attitudes shape and impact lives. 

We offer our COMMUNITY PERFORMANCE PROGRAMS that include INTRANSIT, a walk, bike, drive-by migratory performance of site-specific dance accompanied with live music in the Grand Center Arts District in St. Louis in the fall.  In the summertime, we present DINE ON DANCE, the annual production of free lunchtime performances of contemporary and site-related dance  in outdoor venues showcasing a variety of St. Louis choreographers and collaborations with other local dance companies.  As in all of our productions, audiences can enjoy the interactions between dance and live music. These are free, public performances.

Other performance programs include, PLAYFUL PAIRINGS and PLAYFUL PAIRINGS: BITE SIZE (for children ages 4 and up). Since 2017, these immersive events takes the audience on a sensory-guided journey of site-specific dance paired with live music and culinary treats that are created to match the qualities of movement, music, theme, and space.

We address community education through our programs, ABOUT DANCE and SUMMER SOMATICS SERIES. ABOUT DANCE is a community education program offered to older adult populations and children. Through these lecture/performances, we present various topics regarding dance as an art form to audiences who often have limited ability to attend concerts or limited exposure to the art form of dance. This is an exciting program for our company as we are committed to the expansion and exposure of contemporary modern dance in our community through intelligent discourse and engaging live performance. Through our SUMMER SOMATICS SERIES, we provide a series of weekly somatic movement classes with the aim to serve dancers and non-dancers alike to discover new practices for deepening movement awareness, enhancing performance skills, addressing self-care needs, and injury prevention.

Karlovsky & Company Dance is committed to connecting with the community and offering educational outreach programs that helps to serve our community and build more receptive and informed audiences. The performance work by Karlovsky & Company Dance brings depth and diversity to contemporary dance in St. Louis with an aim to make dance more accessible and to invigorate the artistic climate of our city.

The company believes that the arts play an integral and vital role in our human existence and contributes to the cultivation of a healthy, evolving cultural future. Karlovsky & Company Dance is in residence at the Grandel Theatre in St. Louis, MO with support by the Kranzberg Arts Foundation.