Karla Desentis
By Angela Wu
Ms. Desentis is a new dance teacher who began teaching at Collingwood School in 2022. She is an interdisciplinary artist who works across live performance, choreography, video art and installation. Through her art practice, she has explored identity and perception from different angles. She is concerned with engaging art as a medium to explore alternative ways of thinking and perceiving.
She started teaching dance in 2009, sharing her skills and experience in many places, including SFU. Born and raised in Mexico City, her passion for dance began when she was eight, and she committed to pursuing the art when she was ten. Since then, every time she had an opportunity to keep investigating dance, she did. She started studying other artistic disciplines as well, but tried to connect them with dance. This led her to explore design and choreography, later mastering interdisciplinary art. Some of her other hobbies include tennis, watching the Raptors win, and social dances.
Ms. Desentis enjoys various varieties of dance; contemporary is one of her favourites. It is flexible, allowing one to approach the dance or the movement from a concept, communicating in a compelling way. Her favourite Latin dance is Cuban salsa, which possesses a contrasting dynamic from contemporary dance. Instead of working towards producing a discourse or a concept, it’s based more on communication in the moment, perhaps with a person you have never danced with before. She adores connecting with others through these styles. She also loves jazz, tap, and folklore.
Interestingly, her favourite subjects in high school included mathematics, physics, and history alongside art courses. Her parents had STEM-related occupations, piquing her curiosity in a field that was totally different from her main interest. She also found herself drawn to reading and writing poems. She was taught to use artistic language to connect with her emotions and communicate ideas in different ways.
Check out Ms. Desentis' Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@KarlaDesentis/videos
More after this image
By Angela Wu
Ms. Desentis is a new dance teacher who began teaching at Collingwood School in 2022. She is an interdisciplinary artist who works across live performance, choreography, video art and installation. Through her art practice, she has explored identity and perception from different angles. She is concerned with engaging art as a medium to explore alternative ways of thinking and perceiving.
She started teaching dance in 2009, sharing her skills and experience in many places, including SFU. Born and raised in Mexico City, her passion for dance began when she was eight, and she committed to pursuing the art when she was ten. Since then, every time she had an opportunity to keep investigating dance, she did. She started studying other artistic disciplines as well, but tried to connect them with dance. This led her to explore design and choreography, later mastering interdisciplinary art. Some of her other hobbies include tennis, watching the Raptors win, and social dances.
Ms. Desentis enjoys various varieties of dance; contemporary is one of her favourites. It is flexible, allowing one to approach the dance or the movement from a concept, communicating in a compelling way. Her favourite Latin dance is Cuban salsa, which possesses a contrasting dynamic from contemporary dance. Instead of working towards producing a discourse or a concept, it’s based more on communication in the moment, perhaps with a person you have never danced with before. She adores connecting with others through these styles. She also loves jazz, tap, and folklore.
Interestingly, her favourite subjects in high school included mathematics, physics, and history alongside art courses. Her parents had STEM-related occupations, piquing her curiosity in a field that was totally different from her main interest. She also found herself drawn to reading and writing poems. She was taught to use artistic language to connect with her emotions and communicate ideas in different ways.
Check out Ms. Desentis' Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@KarlaDesentis/videos
More after this image
Ms. Desentis finds inspiration in artists like Henry Daniel, Cecilia Appleton, Javier Contreras, Alvin Nikolais, Merce Cunningham, Pilar Urreta, Pina Bausch, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Henry Daniel was her former teacher from SFU, having danced in famous companies around the world. Because of his connections in Trinidad and Tobago, Germany, England, United States, Canada, and Mexico, he has an unconventional perspective. Another one of her instructors was Cecilia Appleton from Mexico. Having received multiple national awards, she has built an impressive career in teaching and choreography. Javier Contreras is a scholar with an interdisciplinary background. He works towards creating awareness in the dance community about using movement as another vocabulary, and the usage of our bodies to communicate ideas. The architect, Alvin Nikolais, approached dance very visually, focusing on space and travelling beyond the traditional narratives of dance by using bodies as forms in space. He had danced with the revolutionary Merce Cunningham, who also broke the conventional ideas of dance. Pilar Urreta had worked with both artists, passing her experience and skills to Ms. Desentis when teaching her. Pina Bausch was a powerful choreographer who manoeuvred her dancers through discourse rather than direction. Last but not least, Mikhail Baryshnikov was a guiding figure at the beginning of Ms. Desentis’ journey in dance. Even though he never personally taught her, he was always there on the posters above her place at the bar, spinning and leaping in the air. Eventually, she started appreciating his work and philosophy. His most notable quote is forever carved into Ms. Desentis’ mind - he claimed that at the end of the day, technique is not as important as discipline and enjoying the movement.
|
Ms. Desentis’ passion for dance is fueled by the possibilities of expressing with the body, of finding a language that is universal. The body can erase barriers of communication, reaching everybody with its powerful influence. She finds the arts to be an unstoppable force of expression, with unlimited potential for each individual to find their own distinct style.
Having started dancing at so young an age, Ms. Desentis can barely remember her life without it. Dance is her haven and medicine; it is her special way of understanding the world, sometimes disconnecting with it and sometimes communicating with it. |
communicating with it. Over the years, she has come to see the world through the broader sense, to see it as a language of movement. She encourages young dancers to follow their passion, to keep exploring and learning, and to keep believing in themselves. The most important thing about dance is to be present in each moment, to fully commit, to be honest, and to be kind and listen to your body.
