KARLEY WASAFF

Karley Wasaff
Movement Artist
& Educator

Kinetics with Karley is a non-for-profit dance company with
a mission to stand up and shape change through movement.
All donations are tax-deductible

Artist Bio

Karley Wasaff is a non-binary pansexual movement-artist based in NYC. Karley began a nonprofit-dance-organization, Kinetics with Karley, to utilize their privilege to stand up and shape change through movement. Karley’s current choreography incorporates compositional-improvisation-scores to evoke the spontaneity of genuine un-adulterated human interaction. Karley received the 2022 Social Justice Fellowship from TheField.org and named a Brooklyn Arts Exchange Emerge NYC 2023 Artist. Karley premiered, 'XWHY,' at Christie’s New York, and coined their first performing art soloist. Karley has toured with ESTIA Creative Home, RAD Fest, Love Moves, SMUSH Gallery, Kun-Yang Lin, and Greenspace, and Guilty Pleasures Cabaret. Karley has been in residency with the Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), USM, Alpha Omega Dance, and The Floor. Karley holds a BFA in performance and choreography from USM and MFA in dance from Hollins University.

*click images for more movement stills

Photographer:John Christou Email(book/purchaseprints):habaneroholic@gmail.com

Artist Statement

What is at risk/what do I desire? I start my process here to reveal the histories our bodies carry. These questions are intrinsic in context to queerness. When a queer-person states what they desire that puts them at risk of potential scrutiny and displacement of individuality. Recent queer-culture promotes individuality in response to being ‘othered.’ Self-proclaimed individuality has created a queer-communal-longing of inclusivity.

I create to move forward together and honor individual identities, strengthening the collective by nurturing the individual, in honor of queer-culture. My new work embodies communal becoming through the joy of individuality.

I create structured-improvisational-scores that are choreographed works in rehearsals and deviated from in performance. This brought radical awareness to my identity: gender binary and choreography is to structure as gender-non-conforming and chance is to deviation. This concept diverges in meaning and upholds multiplicity of freedom within a community structure. Chance is now a tool I use to facilitate genuine impulsive human interaction.

My new process nurture’s the desire of self-exploration as a tool to expand upon the context of cultural community. The game of chance then inspires the continuation of personal desire to understand one another on a deeper level, placing risk in genuine human-connection.