Choreographer

A Master of Fine Art in Choreography, Kowalsky regularly engages in a research-based choreographic practice, and often hires dance artists to create live-performance or film-based work. One might engage with Leighann Kowalsky to the extent that she is a Guest Choreographer for a period of time at a company or university, or that she is commissioned to set work for an event, occasion or company. Kowalsky has also been a movement coach, a dramaturg, a mentor, or a guest educator specifically for teaching emerging choreographers about composition.

Choreographic Work

The Body Shakes (2023)

The Body Shakes is a study that began in 2019 and had a soft premiere in January of 2023 at the Arts Society of Kingston, NY, as part of the Choreography on the Edge Showcase.  This piece thematically is rooted in the fact that the human body at the extremity of each emotion, shakes. We heave from the core of our being when we weep. We shudder in fear, we quiver with pleasure, we bounce with excitement, we tremor with laughter - and so on. It’s a challenge to permit the body to go to some of these depths, and a joy to dive into others. Through a lens of bodily autonomy and responsible sensating - how can we invite a shared experience into both the deepest, darkest of human emotions, and the ones we can’t quite get enough of.

Crystal Clear (2021)

The movement was developed following a study on grief, not so much in it’s technical stage-like format, but rather the all-consuming grief that leaves an individual unable to do much but hold their hands out in front of them and trust it is enough to just be. The trance-like nature so often felt by the grieving is illuminated by the movement, which embraces weight shift, the directionality of the momentum, and the general individuality of each mover. In complement, the movement features a number of small, more stubby and twitching detailed movement.

I STILL MARVEL AT HOW LIGHT THEY ARE (2015)

I STILL MARVEL AT HOW LIGHT THEY ARE presents as an important journey, but is in secret a wonderful little study on human bones and the magic and mystery they hold as a structure and a medium. Contemporary in nature, the movement calls upon tension building and breaking, and bone stacking to exhibit shapes and pathways that illuminate sensation. Much of the movement is inspired by a book by Hugh Aldersey-Williams entitled “Anatomies”, particularly the section on human bones.