Related Features
IMPRESSIONS: Kinetic Light in “The Next TiMes” at New York Live Arts
IMPRESSIONS: Wanjiru Kamuyu's "Fragmented Shadows" at New York Live Arts
DAY IN THE LIFE OF DANCE: Kimberly Bartosik's “bLUr” at New York Live Arts
By Sarah Cecilia Bukowski
View Profile |
More From This Author
Published on September 24, 2025
Cast of "bLUr." Photo: Maria Baranova
Co-presented by New York Live Arts & L'Alliance New York's Crossing The Line Festival
Choreography & Direction by Kimberly Bartosik
Performed by Burr Johnson, Joanna Kotze, Ashley Merker, Jacoby Pruitt, Donovan Reed
Design by Roderick Murray
Lighting Design Assistants River Bartosik-Murray and Ari Barash
Original composition by Sivan Jacobovitz
Costume Design by Harriet Jung
Creative Producer Caitlin Scranton @ The Blanket
October 2 - 4, 2025
Tickets & information
Choreographer Kimberly Bartosik’s latest work, bLUr, has been a long time in the making. It’s her first fully-produced commission since March 2020, and she says, “It’s been worth the wait.”
I spoke with the choreographer about her vision, process, and intention with the work, which will premiere at New York Live Arts from October 2 to 4 as part of L’Alliance New York’s Crossing the Line Festival.
Bartosik’s process began with a three-week solo residency in the spring of 2023, where she intended to develop some ideas from her writing. She instead found herself processing unexpectedly intense energies that poured unbidden from her body.
“This was not the plan, to make this piece,” she reflects, “but it was so clear from the beginning — this is what’s there.”
On returning to New York, she offered these physical ideas and material to collaborators with a clarity of purpose that took on its own life in each body. In-process showings at Live Artery and Bates Dance Festival, among others, have allowed Bartosik to gauge how audiences receive the work’s content (and also gave me a peek through video). Two and a half years on, the work has deepened and evolved, yet its central ideas remain: “By sticking to the core and letting the performers inhabit this intense material and personalize it for themselves,” she reflects, “I’m just stepping back and directing.”
“Intense” barely grazes the depth of physical and emotional investment the work requires. In a series of scenes that unfold over 45 minutes, the five performers physicalize unfiltered states of distress and desire, trauma and rescue, caring and erotic tenderness. Bartosik is clear that “it’s not an abstract piece, but there are a lot of ways into the content,” and while the seed of the work stems from her own personal experiences, she encourages audiences to find their own stories in the work.
bLUr is thus also highly particular to its cast. Bartosik’s longtime performing collaborators Burr Johnson and Joanna Kotze are joined by newer performers Donovan Reed and Jacoby Pruitt, and Ashley Merker, who most recently touches the work, following its development with Hannah Straney. Each performer lends a personal signature that informs and transforms the work’s essence and trajectory.
The choreographer has been struck by their individual vulnerability and collective willingness to dive in and create authentic connection: “Every single person had this propensity for going deep immediately and revealing something of themselves,” and she observed that at every stage in the process, “all these stories come out of their bodies, and it’s a different story every time.” Their full-bodied commitment and rigorous effort astonish in scale and range as they enter heightened states that are visceral yet subtle, and where they remain responsive and receptive to one another as vessels for care.
Throughout the work, physical proximity and tactile imperatives sustain magnetic intimacies in destabilized spaces and altered sensory states. As a director, Bartosik thinks holistically about how design elements can support and participate in the intention and impact of the work.
She and lighting designer Roderick Murray — who is also her husband — committed to using handheld lights over fixed theatrical lighting. Their 18-year-old child, River Bartosik-Murray, and River’s friend Ari Barash operate the lights in the space, sweeping and circling around the performers as witnesses and visual narrators. “There is something so important about the human connection to the light on the body,” Bartosik told me, “there’s this distress, but then the light is tender on the body.”
Sound also supports and drives the demands of the work’s movement, and Sivan Jacobovitz’s score for bLUr activates states of disorientation and rhythmic grounding in deeply physical ways for performers and audience alike. The sound design includes directional speakers that will allow the score to envelop the audience from the sides, behind, and below, adding a haptic dimension to the work — as Bartosik puts it, “it’s felt loud.” The textures of fabric have a role to play as well, in simple, luminous costumes by Harriet Jung and translucent drapery that creates a soft, dynamic container for the space and its living light.
In addition to her attention to space, Bartosik points to a keen understanding of time as an essential guide in shaping bLUr.
“I use my body a lot as a barometer of time,” she explains, and once her physical ideas enter other bodies, this barometer shows her when exhaustion spills over into saturation, making the next idea possible. “Things need to be as long as they need to be… If it’s longer, it bleeds out,” she explains, “There’s a point when our bodies become like a tsunami has passed through and you just feel things.”
And while feeling takes precedence over form, the tasks and actions in each section of bLUr play out with remarkable clarity — Bartosik and the performers manage to close the gap between highly-charged emotional and psychological states and their physical manifestations. The material is not easy, she admits, but “this is so relevant to the world that we’re in, and I don’t want to shy away from that.”
bLUr runs October 2 -4 at New York Live Arts as part of L’Alliance New York’s Crossing the Line Festival
TICKETS + INFO
