about

   

 

Coco Karol 

is an international dancer, teacher, and artist based in New York. She began her career as a classical dancer with The Boston Ballet, and now makes cross-disciplinary performance works that draw inspiration from many dance and visual art forms including ballet, butoh, and somatic practices. She holds a BFA in Dance from Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA from Hollins University. 

As a dancer, Karol has had the privilege of performing for Misnomer Dance Theater, Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance Company, and Christopher Williams, as well as being a part of projects by Bill Young, Jose Navas, and Steven Petronio. Karol has created work with musicians including Bjork, Koh Ohtera, Sean Ali, Lacy Rose, Alaina Ferris, Daniel Carter, Minna Choi / MAGIK*MAGIK, Amanda Palmer, Zoe Keating and her husband Sxip Shirey. 

Karol's collaborations with visual artists include, photographer - Steven Sebring, sculptor- Eve Laroche-Joubert, architect- Marcos Zotes, stereoscopic artist- Gerald Marks, videographer- Azmi Mert Erdem, painter- C. Finley, designer- Louda Larrain, multidisciplinary artist - SWOON/ Caledonia Curry, and sculptor/ photographer - Benjamin Heller. 

Her work has been shown internationally at the Sydney Opera House and NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center, as well as across New York at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, National Sawdust, BAX, Ibeam, Spectrum, D.U.M.B.O Under the Bridge Arts Festival, Triskelion, Galapagos, Death By Audio, and curated by AUNTS. 

Karol often uses local communities in her choreography. She has facilitated socially engaged workshop-to-performance events called Movement Before Dialog in San Francisco, CA to musicians of the Magik*Magik Orchestra; in Istanbul, Turkey, concerned with movement/ social movement, in Roanoke, VA and New York, NY, investigating non-verbal communication and gestures of care with hospice workers/ caregivers.

Karol's methodologies and pedagogy is concerned with embodied inquiry, or how we might use dance as a form of ethnography. To that end, she interviews people with movement in a self-developed process she created called a movement interview with the idea that the body is an archive of memory that may be accessed through movement and dialog.  She has done movement interviews with artists, activists, changemakers, radical elders, and choir members to create the librettos for the immersive, community-inclusive performances of The Gauntlet, an ongoing collaboration with composer, Sxip Shirey.  

Karol is a dedicated maker, educator and mother. Her creations are often art as social practice. She is inspired to make socially engaged performances that connect people and communities. All her art is informed by her work in hospice, her studies in improvisation, butoh, authentic movement, and meditation.

Karol started Red Sole Productions, LLC,  a small production company for dance-based media, in 2011. In 2016 she was fiscally sponsored through New York Live Arts. She is curently fiscally sponsored by The Feild and Temenos Center for the Arts. 

 

Read coco's full artist statement here.

 

      

Curriculum Vitae

Coco Karol

coco@findingcoco.net

findingcoco.net

+16175122379

 

Education

Hollins University/ Frankfurt Conservatory of Music & Performance, MFA in Dance 2015 

Tisch School of the Art, BFA in Dance 2005

 

Choreography

We Don't Need the Sea to Drown (2023- ongoing) Initial developments at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, to premiere at National Sawdust (2025)

Love always, (2024) - Every Woman Bienial Performance with Priya Darshini, Max ZT and the artist's childern age 4 and 3months

Headspace (2022) Music video for Sharon Van Etten, choreography and performance

The Gauntlet: Faraway Together (2021) - Virtual performance Collaboration with Sxip Shirey, NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center

Amelia Found (2020) - Collaboration Sxip Shirey for National Sawdust Digital Discovery Festival

CICADA (2019) - Performer in stop motion video by SWOON/ Caledonia Curry   

The Gauntlet: Rockefeller Center (2019) - in collaboration with Sxip Shirey

Drowning in the Sound (2019) - Music video for Amanda Palmer, Directed by Michael Pope

Mother Tree Prayer (2019) - Collaboration with Sxip Shirey, National Sawdust, NY

Piece for Thelonious (2019) - Collaboration with Sxip Shirey, National Sawdust, NY

Fragments/ Miracle (2019) - Every Woman Biennial, La Mama Galleria 

Fragments/ Miracle (2018) - C. Finley Solo painting exhibition at TOTH Gallery. 

Movement Interview with Baby Dee (2018) - as a performance lecture for Radical Elders Seminar hosted by Karmenlara Ely and Norwegian Theater Academy, Norway 

The Gauntlet (2018) Cleveland Museum of Art a??Solsticea?? performance with Sxip Shirey

These Hands I Thought Were Mine (2018) NY, New School Glass Box Theater, Women Between Arts, collaboration with Michaela Davies (AUS) 

Frog & Scorpion (2018) NY collaboration with painter Johnathan Adolphe

BODY (2018) NY, Irondale Theater, commissioned choreography for Choral Chameleon 

Latency (2017/18), National Sawdust, 2018 - an immersive choir Gauntlet, an elegy to David Bowie, and a nocturne for Amelia Earhart in collaboration with Sxip Shirey

MOTHER (2017) music video for Amanda Palmer and Jherek Bishoff featuring Zoe Keating 

besides (2016) - for the DAMN GOOD SERIES at Triskelion Arts, music by Lacy Rose

beheld (2016) - for the DAMN GOOD SERIES at Triskelion Arts, music by Sxip Shirey

The Gauntlet: The Highline (2016) - with Sxip Shirey for "Make Music New York" 

Inverted Cathedral (2016/17), sculpture/dance collaboration with Benjamin Heller 

Desert Project (2016) GK Arts Center, commission by Sugar Vendil/ Nouveau Classical 

(Ad)dressing the Body, (ongoing) with Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith 

Empty Bed - music video for Rhys Tivey (2016) Director: Clay Haskell

Atropos (2015) music/dance collaboration with Mara Mayer and Marilu Donovan. Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Performance du Jour. Created with Brooklyn Contemporary Chorus and independent vocalists.

Eternal Youth Here (2015) collaboration with C. Finley, NY, Live music by Christopher Lancaster.

Overtakelessness (2015) VA, workshop/ performance with Carilion Hospice Volunteers. Sponsored by Hollins University

In/And (2014) NY, Pulltime Studio, dance/ stereoscopic collaboration with Gerald Marks

Masks (2014) Carnegie Hall, Composer, Oliver Knusson, dance/flute duet, performed with Luna Cholong Kang, costume design by Louda Larrain 

Four-quarters AND Nude Descending Staircase (2013)(2013) - Collaboration with Steven Sebring for Revolution at 69th Regiment Armory, NYC

Rafamagnua (2012) Hallgramskirkja Church, Iceland, Site-specific work with Marcos Zotes/UNSTABLE SPACE

Topography Project (2012) - Body mapping dance for camera work in collaboration with Joseph Victorine, Marcos Zotes, Azmi Mert Erdem, and Luke Gutgsell. Music by Sun Lux, Edited by Jon Kasbe 

PLUMS/ THIS IS JUST TO SAY (2012) Symphony Space NY, dance/ upright bass/ soprano, performers: Coco Karol, Luke Gutgsell, Lisa Dowling, and Megan Schubert; Music: Inhyun Kim 

RIPPED, (2012) video for book Ripped, by Shelly Dickson Carr. Director: Coco Karol DP: Joseph Victorine, Red Sole Productions

When Insight Comes in a Dream (2011) Symphony Space NY, music: Inhyun Kim, performers: Iktus Quartet and Coco Karol 

AUNTS, I Believe In You (2008); MARKET (2009)

Curation/ The Petri Space (2006-2010) a performance space built/curated by Coco Karol

The Wash Closet (2007), Launch Movement, Sharon Van Etten, and Gangis, Liz Raga, Clay McBride 

Wanderlust (2007) - for Bjork, Role: dancer, Directors: Encyclopedia Pictura, Ghost Robot Productions

Hinterland (2009) Jennifer Gonzales and Coco Karol

Forrest on Forrest (2009) Carmiel Banasky, Brittian Ashford, Nadirah Zakariah, Katheryn Love, James Andrews, Cesar Arredondo, Kelly Savage, Brian George, Chloe Douglas 

Beautiful Decay Magazine, (2008) Spring Issue, Man vs. Machine. 

 

Teaching: 

 

Embodied Inquiry Labratory - facilitation of group led labratory investigating the phenomenology of parenting/ wayfinding/ ecology of perception in movement, NYC (2024)

Norwegian Theater Academy - Morning training dance and MUNZ FLOOR training (June 2023)

Norwegian Theater Academy/ Ostfold University College - Virtual Morning Dance Class Workshop (April, 2021)

Ohio University - BA Embodied Inquiry and Movement Workshop (April, 2021)

Bard College, NY - Socially Engaged Theater Making (Fall Semester, 2021)

Movement Before Dialogue/ Embodied Inquiry VirtualWorkshop (2021) - NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center

Embodied Inquiry Labratory- facilitation of group led labratory investigating collective dreaming practices/ memory/ citizenship, NYC (2020)

Norwegian Theater Academy/ Ostfold University College - MA workshop Material Strategies(2019)

Norwegian Theater Academy/ Ostfold University College - Morning Dance Class Workshop (2018)

Norwegian Theater Academy/ Ostfold University College - Co-teaching with Sxip Shirey workshop to create The Gauntlet: Sound of Fredrikstad (2016)

Winona University, MN- BA workshop -The performance of Personhood from Louis XIV to Facebook (2016)

Past creative movement/ improvisational inquiry at Body Actualized, Sacred Arts Research Foundation/The Ark, Otion Front Studios, Brooklyn Studios for Dance

Embodied Inquiry: HOME & Koslieg (2016) Norwegian Theater Academy 

Gestures of Care (2016) Garrison Institute, New York - for The Third Buddhist Contemplative Care Symposium with New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care

Gestures of Care, Virginia (2015), NY (April-June, 2016): investigating non-verbal communication, touch, and stories with hospice volunteers and caregivers.

RUDEMovement (2015) Otion Front Studios, Brooklyn, NY

Breaking the Habit of Time (2016) Otion Front Studios, Brooklyn, NY 

Precious Trash (2015) Otion Front Studios, Brooklyn, NY

Playmind Practice (2014), The Ark, Sacred Arts Research Foundation, NY

Third Ear, (2013) sound, dance, relational body practices for MagikMagik* Orchestra, San Francisco 

Soapbox Workshops, NY (2013), Istanbul (2015): Social Movement and Performative Protest 

Yoga/ Qi Gong:

Greenhouse Holistic (2011-2017)

Lucent Yoga (2016-17)

 

Concert Dance/ Company Work:

Misnomer Dance Theater, Chris Elam (2005-2012)

Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance (2004-2009)

Bill Young/ Christy O'Harris, White Space Project (2012)

Christopher Williams, The Golden Legend, Dance Theater Workshop (2009)

Jose Navas, Montreal (2005)

 

Awards

Fellowship (2013-16) Hollins University 

Marble House Project Residency (2016)