David Vaughn, Dance Magazine
Mission
The New Arts Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1981, is dedicated to the creation and presentation of new work that reflects the artistic vision of director/choreographer Nancy Karp and her dance company, Nancy Karp + Dancers. Interdisciplinary collaboration is the key focus of the organization, and it commissions outstanding composers, visual artists, and designers to work with the company in the creation of new dances each season.
Artist Statement
I use abstraction to celebrate everyday life. Whether in an intimate solo, such as Sweet Bargain, which was inspired by fishmongers at Tokyo’s Tkuiji Fish Market, or in group works, such as Prima Materia, First Light and Arashi/Storm, I take life’s ordinary movements, strip them down to their essential components, and then combine them, recombine them, and elaborate on them. What emerges, from these “structural investigations,” are vocabularies of movement. My dances evolve, like language evolves, as those vocabularies are used and explored. The beauty and possibility hidden within simple actions and gestures is endlessly fascinating to me.
–Nancy Karp
History
Since forming Nancy Karp + Dancers in 1980, director Nancy Karp has choreographed more than 70 outstanding works for her company. She and company members have performed together in many distinguished venues, at home and abroad. These include The Washington Project for the Arts in Washington D.C., The Kitchen in New York, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle, the Fur Augen und Ohren and Sprachen der Kunste Festivals at the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin, Kyoto College of Art in Japan, and the Zagreb Experimental Theater Festival. Interdisciplinary collaboration is one of the company’s key focuses, and since its inception Ms. Karp has commissioned numerous composers, visual artists, and designers to work with her in the creation of new dances each season. Among these accomplished associates are Charles Amirkhanian, Alvin Curran, Paul Dresher, Ingram Marshall, Jay Cloidt, Sandra Woodall, Carol Law, Bill Fontana, Lutz Bacher, and Wolfram Erber.
