Kara Robertson is a Choreographer, Director, and Educator originally from Richmond, Virginia and current MFA Candidate at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Her Utah-based projects include restaging her works Shapeshifter and Out of Pocket on undergraduate students. Kara also served on faculty at the Utah Ballet Summer Intensive and at Tanner Dance. She was also a Rehearsal Assistant for Switzerland-based international choreographer Victor Rottier. Kara is currently crafting two projects for Utah presentations including her thesis concert work premiering October 30 at the Hayes Christensen Theater at the Marriott Center for Dance. This new work marries her backgrounds in both ballet and contemporary movement, featuring dancers from both the Ballet BFA and Modern BFA programs. She is also restaging her work Wave and Flight on Pennsylvania-based contemporary dance company LUNA for their 2025-2026 season.

Kara was awarded a 2024 Virginia Commission for the Arts Choreographic Fellowship, acknowledging her commitment to enriching Virginia communities through her choreographic work and education programs, accompanied by a $5,000 honorarium. She founded Karar Dance Company in 2016 and served as its Artistic Director and Choreographer during the company’s seven year lifespan, supporting the community of Richmond as a 501(c)3 nonprofit professional contemporary dance company, garnering support from funding institutions such as the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Kara was also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Mary Washington in the Department of Theatre in Dance in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Kara’s work has been presented throughout the United States including in Utah at the Movers + Makers intensive hosted by Wasatch Contemporary Dance, the Red Rock Dance Festival at Utah Tech University, the American Dance Guild Festival at the Ailey Citigroup Theater, and at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for the National American College Dance Association Festival. She has self-produced four concerts of her choreographic work for Karar Dance Company and was the 2019 Dogtown Presenter’s Series selected artist where she premiered her first evening length work Circadian, inspired by the photographic work of Fan Ho. Kara is the recipient of a residency presented by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Dance and Choreography and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation in 2022 that sparked the creation process for her work Shapeshifter.

Kara has served as a guest artist at Wasatch Contemporary Dance, Dogwood Dance Project, Virginia Commonwealth University, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, Texas, South East Dance Academy in Wilmington, North Carolina, Salem High School Visual and Performing Arts Academy, Henrico High School Center for the Arts, and Thomas Dale Specialty Center for the Arts in Richmond.

Kara and her work have received attention by Style Weekly, RVArt Review, RVA Magazine, CultureWorks Richmond, Virginia this Morning on Channel 6, VCU Alumni, and Broadway World. She has received multiple grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation to provide education and access to artists in the greater Richmond area.

Portfolio

I build kinetic landscapes where bodies carve space, collide, and linger in the fragile architecture of being. My work is grounded in the tension between strength and vulnerability. I am drawn to how movement can hold contradiction and paradox—precision and abandon, weight and lift, chaos and clarity.

Storytelling through abstraction is central to my choreographic approach. I use the body to explore and express emotional truths, honoring what it means to be human. The experiences I craft invite the audience to feel, offering space for personal interpretation and connection.

Music is a vital partner in my process—not merely something I hear, but something I feel, visualize, and respond to viscerally. Sound and movement exist in a symbiotic relationship, forming an emotional architecture from which choreography emerges.

My choreographic research draws from the shared roots and divergences of ballet and modern dance. I am committed to developing a contemporary movement language that equally values technical rigor and expressive depth. I work collaboratively with dancers, fostering curiosity, creativity, and honoring them as artists in their own right.