Kosta Karakashyan

Columbia College, Dance

Department

Movement Lab

Kosta Karakashyan (CC’19, Dance) is a Bulgarian director, choreographer, and writer. Using performance, film, choreography, and text, he investigates how to nurture tenderness, empathy, and intimacy in an increasingly anxious, violent, and political world.

He is researching two upcoming spring projects in the Movement Lab: a series of audiovisual vignettes on desire and joy (in collaboration with composer Jude Icarus, projection artist Sophie Visscher, and dramaturg Hannah Story Brown) for CoLab's Split­Bill Evening, shared with fellow Dance major Nadia Halim, and his Senior Creative Thesis, a flamenco/contemporary solo investigating anxiety and burnout using improvisation and bio­sensing responsive lighting, co-­choreographed with Melinda Marquez and in technical and creative collaboration with the Movement Lab's Studio Manager and Technical Designer Guy de Lancey. Kosta's latest project was the documentary dance film Waiting for Color about the ongoing LGBTQ+ persecution in the Chechnya.