Kari Hoaas is a Norwegian choreographer, dancer and teacher from Oslo. During the period 1993-2006 she lived and worked in New York City. Under Kari Hoaas Productions she has created ten evening length group pieces, in addition to choreographing numerous shorter works, solo works, commissions for companies and institutions, site-spesific works and collaborations with other artists.
Her work has been presented and toured in twenty countries on three continents including Austria, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, France, Greenland, Georgia, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Palestine, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Kari was a 2014-16 Norwegian State Artist Grant recipient. Her production “On the desperate edge of now” was awarded the Best Performance of Program Prize 2015 by Georgian Theater Critics Association at Tbilisi International Festival of Theater. She has been fortunate to receive regular support for her work from Arts Council Norway, The Norwegian Fund for Sound and Image and the Norwegian Fund for Performing Artist, in addition to funders such as Nordic Culturpoint, Sleipnir Nordic Grants, The Norwegian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, The City of Oslo, The American Scandinavian Foundation and The Jerome Foundation. She was a 2003-04 92nd Street Y Harkness Annual Space Grant recipient in New York, and has been selected for numerous artist residencies in Norway, as well as in Croatia, Spain, Iceland and Sweden.
As a choreographer she has been commissioned to create several site-spesific works for The Norwegian National Museum for Art Architecture and Design, including a site spesific work in the National Gallery for the opening of the exhibition Munch150 in 2013, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of world reknown Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. In 2008 she created a site-spesific work for the official opening of the new Pavillion of the Architect Museum created by architect Sverre Fehn, especially commissioned to the score “Solitaire” by Fehn´s friend and Norwegian contemporary composer Arne Norheim. In addition she has been commissioned to create numerous shorter works for educations and dance companies as well as choreographing for the theater, film and tv.
Kari choreographed and performed her first solo piece in 1996 as part of the New Dance Alliance Performance Mix Festival at Joyce Soho. Her early solo and collaborative choreographies was since regurlary presented in New York at venues including Movement Research at the Judson Church, P.S.122s Avant-Garde-Arama, HotHouse and New Stuff series, Fresh Tracks at Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), Joyce Soho, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center Friday´s at Noon and Sunday´s at three series, Dixon Place, Galapagos Art Space, Williamsburg Art Nexus, Chashama Oasis Festival, Context Theater, Joe´s Pub and DanceNOW Festival among others. Her first eveninglenght productions were commissioned and presented by Performance Space 122 (now Performance Space New York).
Kari also served as curator of the performance series “New Stuff”, a showcase commissioning new works by emerging choreographers, at Performance Space 122 in New York from 1998-2003.
Kari is currently Professor of dance at Kristiania University, Oslo. Previously The Norwegian College of Dance, where she has taught since 2005 and taken part in developing the current BA in Dance Performance program. In addition she guest teaches and lectures at various studios, colleges and universities in Norway and abroad. She is a sought after advisor and sensor for, among others, KHiB Norwegian Program for Artistic Research, KHiO and UiS.
As a dancer she has worked with various independent choreographers in New York including Sarah Skaggs, Maureen Fleming, Susan Rethorst, Sean Curran Company and the Merce Cunningham Understudy Repertory Group under the direction of Chris Komar, among others. In Europe she has worked with Michel Laub/Remote Control Productions and in Norway with Company B Valiente and Lise Eger among others.
She was educated as a dancer from an early age at the Norweigan National Ballet School and spent one year studying at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. She furthered her studies in modern dance at Alvin Aliey American Dance Center and trained on scholarship at Merce Cunningham Studio. She has studied post-modern dance forms and somatic practises independently at NY Dance Intensive and continued to take various workshops at studios such as Movement Research while living in New York. She has since participated in numerous workshops and courses to further her fields of interest.
She currently lives in Oslo with her husband and son.
