About

Deborah Karp Dance Projects creates and performs relevant, experimental dance that is rooted in the sensing, thinking body and driven by a process of inquiry and exploration.

Formally founded in 2010 during production for an annual site-specific performance on a Brooklyn rooftop, DKDP has performed original work since 2003 in non-traditional and proscenium venues on both coasts of the United States. In the Bay, DKDP has been presented at TAC: Temescal Arts Center as an inaugural Artist-in-Residence, ODC’s Creative Work/Play Series, The Garage, East Bay SwapFest 2014, and 2nd Sundays Dance Salon and through self-production at the Joe Goode Annex. In 2015 DKDP produced Perform: Education, an evening of performance and discussion examining the intersection of art-making and art-teaching. New York performances of DKDP have been seen at Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, Green Space, The Bushwick Starr, and Whitewave/DUMBO Dance Festival. Previously to its official founding, Deborah Karp Dance Projects received grant awards from the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities to travel to Honduras and collaborate with company DanzAbra, and to create a site-specific evening of dance for professional and community dancers in the Josephine Butler Center, a community space housed in a historic Renaissance-Revival mansion in Washington D.C. DKDP has received funding from the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Dancers’ Group CA$H award, the Clorox Company Foundation, and numerous generous individuals. Deborah Karp Dance Projects is a fiscally sponsored project of Dancers’ Group.

Deborah Karp is a dance artist whose work spans choreography, performance, and dance education. Since relocating to the Bay Area after seven years as a Brooklyn-based dance artist, she has been a two-time Artist-in-Residence at TAC: Temescal Arts Center in Oakland, a member of the Resident Artists’ Workshop at The Garage, developed new work as part of ODC’s Creative Work Play/Series, a featured artist in West Wave 25, and presented her choreography at Joe Goode Annex and The Flight Deck. In New York, her choreography was produced by Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts and Green Space. In her role as a performer, Deborah was a seven-year member of the Nancy Meehan Dance Company and has performed the work of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Susan Rethorst, Megan Nicely/Dance, Leyya Tawil/DANCE ELIXIR and Rebecca Davis. As a dance educator, Deborah was on faculty with Luna Dance Institute, teaching in children in schools, families in the welfare system and children in their home studio. Deborah helped found the Dance Inclusion Class Pilot Project, in which students with and without disabilities came together to dance, be creative, build empathy and create community. Deborah has also taught with Jacob’s Pillow Curriculum in Motion® and San Francisco Ballet’s Dance In Schools and Communities program. Her writing has been published in the Bay Area’s In Dance and the National Dance Education Organization’s (NDEO) Behind the Curtain blog. Deborah has presented at the NDEO conference and the VSA-Kennedy Center Conference. She is the Artistic Director of Deborah Karp Dance Projects and was a member of the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards Committee for the 2014-2015 season. She is currently pursuing her Master’s in Education with a licensure in dance at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

photo credit Lynne Fried