Kara Brody (she/her) is a Korean American movement artist based in Chicago. She is a performer, teacher, and community advocate who works collaboratively both in life and artistic endeavors. Kara amplifies a playfulness in her process, celebrating the indeterminacy of human connection in performance, studio practices, and ensemble devising. She approaches her movement with a deep sense of tenderness and humility, imbuing a range of nuance in tandem with an explosive form of power. Kara’s work is multi-focused, expanding into different performance practices that continue to influence her collaborative contributions as well as her teaching pedagogy. She has had the pleasure of working with Faye Driscoll, Lucky Plush Productions, Erin Kilmurray, Melinda Jean Myers, Ayako Kato, Helen Lee, Darling Shear, and Erick Montes. She has performed with The Fly Honey Show, Freedom From Freedom To, Ordinary Peepholes, Dehd’s Mood Ring music video, and will be making her debut performance with Paramount Theater spring 2025 in Cats The Musical.
As an educator, Kara extends her personal movement inquiries through a low-stakes, high-play approach. Expanding on release-based and modern dance forms, momentous and efficient floorwork, somatics and improvisational tools, she generates a community forward methodology encouraging a rich sense of embodiment, pleasure, and play. She is a Lecturer at University of Chicago and has been on faculty at Visceral Dance Center, Chicago Movement Collective, COMMON Conservatory, The Joffrey Academy, The Rooted Space, and Dovetail Studios. Kara has had the pleasure of guest teaching at Rutgers University, Northern Illinois University, Danceworks Chicago, Hedwig Dances, and The Cambrians summer and winter intensives. With Lucky PLush Productions, Kara has led community and intensive workshops at The Kennedy Center, Sonoma State University, Hamilton College, and The Dance Center of Columbia College.
Kara is deeply inspired by her Chicago community and navigates time to support the makers, movers, DIY venues, and nonprofit institutions through her work as a producer, administrator, and fellow community member. In 2022, she was the first curatorial resident for Steppenwolf 1700 Theatre,creating a dance series that celebrated artists in process through a two-week production residency and performance festival. She was a guest artist on The Process podcast: The Group Chat, a pivotal resource that archives and amplifies the voices of Chicago’s dance scene, to speak to ensemble devising and group work. Kara is the Company Manager of Lucky Plush Productions, working alongside artistic director, Julia Rhoads. She has helped produce the premiere and touring lifespan of numerous productions in the Lucky Plush repertoire. Additionally, she has helped envision the Embodied Research Project, Lucky Plush’s micro-grant program that supports research and development of independent Chicago artists’ ongoing projects. She has also spearheaded their Virtual Dance Lab and Community Class programs, offering accessible live-stream, on demand archive, and in person classes to the greater Chicago community and abroad.