Mission

Kimberly Bartosik/daela is a diverse ensemble of performers and designers working under the artistic leadership of choreographer Kimberly Bartosik. Working collaboratively, we create emotionally riveting performance projects that are built upon the development of a virtuosic movement language and the creation of highly theatricalized environments. 

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Artist Statement

As an artist, educator, and writer, I am dedicated to the creation of viscerally provocative, ferociously intimate performance projects built upon the belief that artistic practice can deepen our understanding of the world around us. 

 

Through my work, I carve out a space for criticism and compassion while tenderly and violently etching away at some deeply distressing threads of our society.  Embracing the physical and emotional extremes of the performers, their bodies become vessels through which the audience is invited to think, feel, and reflect on their own place within their complicated existence. 

 

In recent projects and Community Engagement Practices, I have been building communities of diverse ages and abilities, with a focus on young, untrained performers. Through their participation, I offer a space of audience reflection, asking: How do we see and understand the world when we encounter a young person seeing it, unfiltered? And how do they act as reminders that we can never become immune to what they are seeing/witnessing?  I have also been inviting audience onstage in select circumstances. Their presence is not as performers, but as co-creators of a space where art and life meet and illuminate each other.

 

I am dedicated to ensuring that participants in my work represent a diversity of race, gender, age, and ability. Only through equitable and compassionate practices can we begin to build a better world off and onstage.

 

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