Laura Karlin is a dancer, choreographer, director, teacher and activist who grew up in Los Angeles. With family all over Great Britain, Karlin also spent time working and training there. In 2006, while living in London, she was commissioned by the Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company to create a new work. Planning to stay in LA for only three months, choreographic and teaching opportunities kept coming her way. In 2007 Karlin found herself once again living permanently in LA and launching the now Invertigo Dance Theatre. Over the next seventeen years Karlin choreographed over 40 works for the company as well as working with her dance artists and Board of Directors to develop community engagement programs Dancing Through Parkinson’s, SOL: Invertigo’s Bi-Annual Solstice Celebration, and many more opportunities for the company to collaborate with community organizations on a wide range of topics and social issues.
It recently became known that Karlin and her family relocated to Maine and I was eager to speak directly to her about the future of Invertigo Dance Theatre. Audiences have watched the company grow and expand and want them to remain.
Laura Karlin – Photo by Joelle Martinec, GingerSole Photographer.
Fortunately Karlin agreed to an interview where I learned that although certain internal aspects of the company may be shifting, LADC can ease the minds of Invertigo’s admirers by stating that the company will remain actively working in LA.
How did Invertigo begin? Karlin explained that at first it was a little bit by accident but also very much on purpose. “I realized that I didn’t want to make work on other people’s terms. I was walking into rehearsal rooms where the culture wasn’t a given. The values weren’t a given. I also didn’t want to wait to be given permission to make the kind of work that I wanted to make, which was a blend of dance and theater, which had a certain lens of accessibility, and that had community work attached to it.”
Karlin wanted to escape the kind of gatekeeping that independent choreographers have to deal with. She explained that though she can now make the kind of work she wants and on the timetable she wishes, “There’s a lot of gatekeeping when you run a non-profit organization, so did I escape gatekeeping? No!” She also wanted to make something that was bigger than herself. “It isn’t called the Laura Karlin Dance Company and that has always been very intentional.”
Another reason Karlin started Invertigo Dance Theatre was to create the kind of infrastructure that would support the art, the artists and the communities that they are part of.
Invertigo Dance Theatre – Laura Karlin leading a Dancing Through Parkinson’s class – Courtesy of the company.
Dancing Through Parkinson’s is an exceptional example of this three pronged idea of the arts, the artists and the community working and growing in tandem. Invertigo has also worked with the Independent Shakespeare Company. “That’s still in my heart as one of my favorite partnerships because they are so magnificent in their realization of the values and their sharing of their communities,” Karlin added. L.A. Music Salon, created by co-founders Terry Tegnazian and Scott Whittle, is another of those groups.
Dancing Through Parkingson’s has been in existence for fourteen years and the majority of people who come to those classes have become regulars and they have become Invertigo’s community that does not begin or end with them taking classes. “People form community within that in a way that is incredibly meaningful. Not just with those of us who are involved in teaching and running the program, but with one another,” she said. “We definitely have a very beautiful community that organically and with intent, has grown in a very meaningful way.”
Karlin credits her mother, Fiona Karlin, and her “other mother” Linda Berghoff for all the love and hard work she puts into running the Venice location and then there is Catalina Jackson-Urueña, the Dancing Through Parkinson’s Program Manager and the teachers Rachel Whiting, Jessica Evans, Morgan Bronk Lutz, Chavia Blankenship, Rosa Navarrete, and Heidi Buehler – all who help keep the program running.
Invertigo Dance Theatre – photo by George Simian
Since high school, Karlin has been a queer activist and continued to deepen her understanding and commitment by receiving dual degrees in Choreography/Production and Pre-Law/LGBTQ Civil Rights from Cornell University. “My plan was to go to law school and be a Queer Rights Attorney,” she said. Instead she started an arts non-profit organization in 2007 right when the recession started. When I told her that she has a very big heart, Karlin paused and said, “I think that’s how I make sense of the smallness of an individual in a very big, often scary, often very sad world. I think I understand it by showing up and that can be in so many forms. Reproductive justice is at the intersection of so many forms of oppression and liberation. You know it’s race, class, gender and as a dance artist, I think a lot about bodily autonomy.“
She does not just think or talk about reproductive justice. For years, Karlin actually showed up to help protect and comfort people who go to reproductive clinics and are harassed by “Pro-Life” protestors. Karlin put herself on the front lines, and now works with grassroots access and advocacy efforts. She described activism as a tapestry with people who are working at many different facets of the intersectional politics, each pulling a loose thread from that tapestry until it comes apart. Her hope is once it has been taken apart, that the threads can then be better woven together.
“I think about showing up especially if you have various forms of privilege like I do, so the clinic defense made a lot of sense to me,” she added. “Because I am a choreographer, I understand the power of a body in space.”
Cat Moses – Photo by Devi Pride.
When our conversation turned to how the move to Maine will affect the future of Invertigo Dance Theatre, Karlin suggested that I speak with the company’s Executive Director, Cat Moses who joined the Invertigo team in 2023. “Cat is brilliant, and she embodies this incredible balance of the artistic heart, the strategic mind, and the leadership grit that blows me away.”
Moses is a life-long artist and creative who began her dance training studying with Garth Fagan Dance for six years. She earned her bachelor’s degree from SUNY Brockport and in 2009 produced, “Diaspora, Food for Thought” an evening length dance exploration on racialized trauma, ancestral wisdom, and a re-imagined Black Diaspora in the American Experience. Among her many accomplishments, Moses is the founder of the Tannery World Dance Cultural Center in Santa Cruz, CA. and the founder and director of the SCC Black Health Matters Initiative. Not stopping there, she is also a choreographer and a writer.
Invertigo Dance Theatre’s Laura Karlin – Photo courtesy of the artist.
Moses traveled to Jamaica where Fagan’s cultural roots are at the Edna Manley School Visual Performing Arts in Kingston. Next she went to the University of Accra in Ghana. “I wanted to go back to the origins and study there” she said.
She still dances and hopes to choreograph more in the future. “My job now is to get others’ work out there,” she stated. It took her many years, however, to realize that her passion was in production. “Watching and seeing all of the different pieces and parts of what it means for a dance production to come together from a seed, all the way to the stage and then watching magic in the presence of the audience’s interaction and energy,” Moses added, “I really feel the most passionate about bringing the work forward, to support the artist’s throughline and vision, to have accessible incubator spaces; much can happen when there are the right resources and conditions for great work to come to life. So, that’s where my heart lies. Which is why I’m in LA.”
After eleven years, she stepped down as founder and executive director of Tannery Dance and Cultural Center and was thinking about moving to Los Angeles. With the help of Arts + Culture Consultant, Emily Wanserski, Moses applied to and was offered a position that she turned down. Wanserski contacted her again regarding the Executive Director position at Invertigo Dance Theatre saying that she felt Moses was the perfect person for it. “And so Laura and I jumped on Zoom. And that was it,” she said. “I admire her unfailing dedication to the craft, to activism, and to the community. That is the magic recipe. It’s real.”
Spencer Jensen, Crody Brunelle-Potter – The Kitchen Table Project – Screenshot courtesy of Invertigo Dance Theatre.
Once Moses met with Karlin and the Invertigo team and had accepted the position, she felt extremely humbled, telling herself that she had some “big work to do here in living up to what she (Karlin) has established, to hold that and to move the organization into the next place so that it can evolve and continue to impact the dance and cultural landscape as it has for the past 17 years.”
I mentioned Karlin moving to Maine. Moses, who knows well what it takes to run an organization, responded “There’s a tremendous amount of work and leadership, and as a founder myself I know what it means to hold all of those pieces, it is so natural that Laura and her family are ready for a different chapter. You don’t stop being an artist when you become a mother.”
Her moving to Maine, however, does not mean that Karlin is leaving the company, only that the company’s focus has somewhat shifted. “It’s a different moment for Laura to bring forth her next creative dialogue,” Moses said. “I think leading through a transition is determining where we are in terms of artistic needs in LA and beyond, the shifting demands for technological agency, and how we bring new work, powerful artistic voices, and audiences together. It’s important to me that we are retaining Laura’s values and the ability for her to co-create exactly where she is by opening the platform.”
Invertigo Dance Theatre – (L-R) Cody Brunelle-Potter, Luke Dakota Zender, Derion Loman, William Clayton in “Formulae & Fairy Tales” choreography by Laura Karlin – Photo by George Simian.
Moses wants the transition to provide Karlin with exactly that and for her to plug into the company when she wants alongside other heavy weight artistic minds within the organization. She credits former Interim Executive Director, Emily Wanserski and Kay Bradford, for setting up the organization to make this possible. “They worked very diligently to create a rubric, and a container space to make artistic governing decisions, visualize how the work itself on the stage could evolve, while retaining the value systems and the processes that Laura has so carefully developed.” Moses said. “Of course, remain magnificent and innovative and interesting. And also physical and visceral; all in Invertigo fashion.”
Rachel Whiting – Photo courtesy of the artist.
Moses believes that the Invertigo team is accomplishing this goal. She was also happy to have it published that this new group who is aiding Karlin with this transition, is called the Curatorial Council. Two members of this four-person council are Laura Karlin and Rachel Whiting, Invertigo’s Dancing through Parkinson’s Lead Teaching Artist, who have been in meetings with two other artists to discuss and plan Invertigo’s future. Although the four-member Curatorial Council has begun working, the names of the other two artists will not be released until September.
“We describe the Curatorial Council as a lateral artistic decision making body. They will sit inside a year-long residency as leadership that will usher in and select adjacent choreographers to Laura, an emerging choreographer, and will help develop the residency’s program for open classes, workshops, and performances,” Moses said. “There will be a general theme that emerges from the Curatorial Council each season as we have started work on for 2025.
Theatre – Marco Palomino and Hyosun Choi in “Interior Design” – Photo by Luke Dakota Zender.
There will also be a dramaturg alongside the emerging choreographer and Invertigo will present pop-up performances throughout Los Angeles culminating with a larger and more formal concert at the end of the year. This will be the very first time that Karlin’s work will be seen on stage alongside two other very distinct choreographers. “An important part of the residency, and the next chapter of Invertigo is to more expansively work with technology to create the seamlessness between the physical and the virtual world in performance, while centering human experience, dignity, and connection as Laura has done so elegantly.” Moses added. “All that we’ve learned from Covid, our access and relationship to technology, our agency as artists with commerce and technology, our agency to imagine new performance spaces or performance experiences; we want to be at the forefront of that.” Moses sees one of the ways to drive the company forward is to take Karlin’s brilliant dance theater and fuse it together with technology in performances.
I approached a topic that I was hesitant to entertain; will Invertigo Dance Theatre remain the company that LA audiences have grown to love with occasional guest choreographers, or will it be transformed into something else. “We don’t know yet,” Moses responded honestly. “And I really trust in the power and the process of creativity. I use the process of creativity in business. I use the process of creativity in transition because I think that these times call for innovation. I think that they call for an approach that is grounded in collaboration and leaning into the future. What I do know is that the Invertigo Laura Karlin has built is a stellar foundation we have to stand on.”
Invertigo Dance Theatre – Hyosun Choi on Cello – photo by Joe Lambie.
What she and Karlin are most interested in is that work continues. When they bring in other choreographers, everyone will work within a central theme. In addition, everyone at Invertigo is interested in the company touring on a national and international scale. “And then from there, the Curatorial Council as an artistic decision making body can say this is interesting or we’re making inroads, bringing new audiences into the evolution with us and creating performance experiences that are transformative and steeped in community connections, that’s the magic.” Moses concluded.
LADC thanks both Laura Karlin and Cat Moses for their time and willingness to share Invertigo Dance Theatre’s new and exciting future with our readers. We look forward to seeing them in Los Angeles theaters and beyond.
For more information about Invertigo Dance Theatre, please visit their website.
Written by Jeff Slayton for LA Dance Chronicle.
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