Image by Lumosco Photo

St. Louis dance company collaborates
with Slovak troupe here and abroad

By Sydney J. Norton

Since 2012, Karlovsky & Company Dance has enriched the St. Louis community through collaborations with dance companies from across the country and around the world. Well-regarded for expressive choreography that induces deep personal reflection, the St. Louis-based contemporary modern dance ensemble has been commissioned to appear in France, South Africa, New York City, the San Francisco-Bay area, Duluth, Tulsa and Minneapolis.

During March, KCD’s partner companies visit St. Louis to perform in its annual spring concert. This Friday, March 21^st, and Saturday, March 22^nd, Divadlo Štúdio Tanca, the foremost contemporary dance theater company in Slovakia, will join KCD to present the premiere of TAPESTRY. This collaborative dance theater program interweaves the two countries’ distinct cultural narratives and voices into a transformative yet unified vision.

“This powerful work of dance theater comes at a time of great change in Eastern Europe and the United States. It is particularly provocative and timely because our companies are performing together as our world is becoming more and more divided,” said Dawn Karlovsky, founder and artistic director of KCD. “The choreographic voices in TAPESTRY are impacted by our disparate cultural influences, from both past and present, and reveal a richness of expression that are distinct yet interconnected.” As part of their collaboration, KCD will perform in Slovakia this summer.

Dawn Karlovsky (Carly Vanderheyden Photography)

During this weekend’s concert, Karlovsky will debut her newest choreographed work, This Home, which was inspired by her own family’s migration from Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

“Two years ago, I was conducting family research and I visited Ulanka for the first time, the small village in Slovakia where my grandma was born,” said Karlovsky. “I was able to find her home, which is nestled in the foothills of the Tatra Mountains. This Home is an exploration of our human desire for a sense of place and belonging.”

Childhood home of Dawn’s grandmother in Ulanka, Slovakia. (Photo by Dawn Karlovsky)

View of Ulanka from cemetery. (Photo by Dawn Karlovsky)

Karlovsky’s Slovak forebearers were poor, which prompted some members of her family to migrate to the United States. Her great-grandfather was the first to leave, traveling on his own and settling in Chicago. He soon sent for his eldest daughter, Mary Daubnerova, who arrived by boat in 1913.

“My grandmother (Mary) was 14 at the time and she never saw her mother and siblings again,” Karlovsky said. “About two years after she arrived, her father was killed in a factory accident. He fell into a vat of acid.” Mary had to quit school and go to work, doing so as a domestic for a wealthy family. Some years later she met Jerry Karlovsky, the son of Czechs who had immigrated to the U.S. They married and remained in the Chicago area.

Dawn’s grandmother and grandfather on their wedding day in Chicago.

Feeling connected

“Knowing that my family came from Slovakia, I had a connection, a memory of a place that I’d never really known,” Karlovsky said. “It’s in my DNA, maybe just from the stories that were passed down. When I participated in a master class in Banská Bystrica, a city close to where my grandmother lived, I looked around and saw that many of the dancers had my features!” These associations are captured in This Home.

This Home (Video still: Zlatko Ćosić)

During her visit, Karlovsky filmed the landscape and surroundings of her grandmother’s home. She and St. Louis video artist Zlatko Ćosić worked together to create a filmic backdrop for the work. Bits of the Slovak language are also integrated into the piece, which is set to an original score by St. Louis experimental composers and performers Kalo Hoyle and Tory Starbuck.

This Home (Video still: Zlatko Ćosić)

It was at the same master class that Karlovsky met Zebastián Méndez Marίn, the artistic director of Divadlo Štúdio Tanca. He gave her a tour of the company’s theater and invited her to one of its performances. Soon after, they agreed on a collaboration. Regarding the partnership, Marίn said, “We have very different styles, as our companies and dancers are informed by the places where they live and the cultures around them. But there is a willingness to connect, to metamorphose into something beyond.”

Zebastián Méndez Marίn (Photo by Martin Dubovsky)

Blending

Divadlo will be performing two works at the Grandel. Somewhere, we begin again explores the longing for human connection in a world where people feel disconnected. Through raw and powerful movement, the dancers confront modern isolation, showing how simple acts of closeness, such as a touch or a hug, can bring comfort and understanding. Jack Strömberg, who choreographed the piece, trained in Stockholm in circus and theater arts, and later studied dance at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance. The piece is set to jazz tracks for bass and saxophone composed by the Salzburg-based music group Javentu.

Divadlo company members in performance. (Photo by Martin Dubovsky)

Medusa, choreographed by Malaysian dancer and Divadlo company member Cindy Ng, centers on a famous Greek myth about a beautiful priestess who transforms into a monstrous Gorgon. The dance explores the phenomenon of body dysmorphia, an excessive preoccupation with beauty and self-perceived flaws in one’s physical appearance, and how this condition is intertwined with unrealistic societal expectations. Performed by four dancers and set to a score by L’udomir Kútnick, Medusa challenges us to reflect on the question, How can we find inner acceptance and resilience in a world full of crooked mirrors? 

Medusa (Photo by Martin Dubovsky)

The KCD and Divadlo partnership comes at a particularly sensitive and significant time for artists as the governmental orientations of Slovakia and the United States have both shifted to the right. According to Marίn, “These are difficult times. We know that the Slovak government is becoming more and more influenced by authoritarian regimes. Our Ministry of Culture has started to cancel programs and change the composition of funding for the arts.” In the United States and Slovakia, and so many other countries, artists are feeling pressure to limit what they say and how they say it.

“These partnerships connect us with people from other parts of the world,” Karlovsky said. “They change us — and it is more than a passing encounter. We build long-lasting friendships and absorb creative impulses from artists with different cultural backgrounds into our work. This takes us beyond the local – and strengthens our resolve.”

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Sydney J. Norton is an independent scholar, translator and educator in St. Louis, Missouri. She earned a doctorate in German literature and cultural studies from the University of Minnesota. Her publications include books and articles on contemporary German art and literature, Weimar-era performing and visual arts, and the German abolitionist movement in the United States. (Editor’s Note: Sydney is also my wife.)