Kim Savarino is an artist working in film, theater, and dance. She is based on the traditional, unceded lands of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples (Brooklyn, NY).

 

FILM:

• The Beguiling (Lead, dir. Ishkwhaazhe Shane McSauby) - World Premiere, 2024 Toronto International Film Festival

• How Will You Carry It (Lead, dir. Caitlin M. Boston) - Official Selection, 2024 Georgia Shorts Festival

• Unspooling Wind (釋風) (Supporting, dir. Danis Zhang)

• upcoming: Studio Tour (Supporting, dir. Andrew Gitomer)

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LIVE PERFORMANCE: As a performer, highlights include:

• Playing three leading roles (Cassandra, Polyxena, and the Weaver) in Andrei Serban’s sold-out revival of The Trojan Women

• Working with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker/ROSAS to develop choreography for West Side Story on Broadway

• Nearly 1,000 performances as Alice and The Doctor in Third Rail Projects’ off-off-Broadway immersive hit Then She Fell (NY Times Critics Pick, Bessie Award)

 

Kim is a proud company member with Third Rail Projects and La MaMa E.T.C.’s Great Jones Repertory Company. She has worked with artists including Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Miguel Gutierrez, Emily Johnson/CATALYST, Dan Safer, Romeo Castellucci, Maura Nguyen Donohue, and Alex Ketley/The Foundry, among others.

 

CREATION: Kim creates performances that dive into the antique and the absurd, with sources like ghost stories, choose-your-own-adventure formats, and vintage photobooths. She has choreographed site-specific dance and theater works in spaces ranging from traditional stages to (once) an old bathroom in a former mental hospital. Kim’s creative work has received support from MANCC’s Forward Dialogues Lab, EstroGenius Festival, Arts@Renaissance, and the WV Dance Festival.

 

TEACHING: Kim works with students to develop their own creative processes and work, and has taught in Florida State University’s Arts in NYC program and Terry Knickerbocker Studio’s Summer High School program.

 

FIELD WORK: Kim supports artists through work with the MAP Fund and has worked in various capacities as a researcher, facilitator, and moderator with Arts Action Research, Dance/NYC, and the Doris Duke Foundation, among others. She was a member of the WOW Project’s inaugural Bridging Futures Cohort, a 2018 Dance/USA DILT mentee, and served as co-chair of the Dance/NYC Junior Committee.

 

Kim studied dance at Florida State University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and completed a two-year Meisner conservatory under the direction of Terry Knickerbocker. Kim is Chinese-Italian-American and grew up in Southern California and West Virginia. She likes homemade pasta and walking in the woods, and lives with a humongous black cat.