Eva Karczag

Primary Focus: Freelance Dance Artist & Teacher
E-mail address: karczag.eva@gmail.com
Location: New York, NY, USA & Arnhem, Netherlands

Brief description of Current Primary Focus:

I am an independent dance artist. Since the early 1970s, I practice, teach, and advocate for explorative methods of dance making. My teaching spans the range of major colleges, studios and dance companies throughout the U.S., Europe and Australia, private practice and individual mentoring. My performance practice includes solo and collaborative work, and involves links across the arts.

Since the mid-1980s I have been on the faculty of Movement Research, NY. Between 1990-2002 I spent a period of sustained teaching on the faculty of the European Dance Development Center (EDDC), Arnhem, Netherlands.

I have been a member of leading groups in the field of experimental dance in the UK and Australia. Danced with the Trisha Brown Dance Company (NY, 1979-85) and still teach and reset pieces through the company education program. I continue to create work and perform.

Education and Certifications:

MFA (Dance Research Fellow), Bennington College, VT.

Certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, ACAT Teacher Training Program, NY, 1986

Background in Somatic Movement Education:

Taiji and various forms of Qigong with Gerda Geddes, T.K. Shih and others since 1973
Alexander Technique with Bill Williams, Marjorie Barstow, June Ekman, Aileen Crow, Remy Charlip, Barbara Kent and many others, since 1973
Kinetic Awareness with Elaine Summers, since 1976
Body-Mind Centering, with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Beth Goren, Genny Kapuler, and others since 1974
Iyengar Yoga, 1974-78
Shizuto Masunaga’s Zen Imagery Exercises since 1994.

Learning Experiences Related to Mabel Todd’s Educational Legacy:

I was introduced to Ideokinesis and Barbara Clark’s manuals through Mary O’Donnell Fulkerson in 1973, as an integral component of Anatomical Release classes she taught at Dartington College, Devon, UK. In 1975, when I moved to NY, I continued to follow my interest in this work, taking Release classes with Nancy Topf and studying Ideokinesis with André Bernard.

Professional activities, areas of research, or personal inquiry related to the goals of TBI:

My performing and teaching are both informed by dance improvisation and mindful body practices, forms which engender trust in the body’s innate capacity for ease, efficiency and integrated openness, and that activate its infinite potential for movement and imagination. The influence of Ideokinesis, particularly André’s teaching, is very present in all of my work.

My writings have been published in journals and online publications (e.g. Contact Quarterly, Writings on Dance, Corpusweb, Direction Magazine, Dance Theater Journal), and have been included in books on dance improvisation. I present lecture/performances in various contexts.

— Eva Karczag (2023)

Editor’s Note: In 2024, Eva Karczag composed an article on her life in dance for the conference “Origins, legacies and drifts,” Conservatorio Superior De Danza “María De Ávila,” Madrid, Spain. I found her essay to be a candid, compelling piece on her creative path and an informative description of dance as it was influenced by Somatics in the post-modern period. Please read on and then visit her website.

Dancing the Practice of Change – Karczag

https://www.alongthelines.net/eva-karczag