Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kelly Bartnik. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Kelly, appreciate you joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

It was socially ingrained in me for a very long time that being an artist doesn’t make any money. It was always the expectation and the assumption that I would need a ‘normal’ job in order to support my creative “habit.” And for years, I did exactly that and most of my peers were doing the same thing. I was spending 8 hours a day at an office job so I could afford to cram in a few hours on evenings and weekends to do what I actually wanted to be doing. And it certainly served its purpose at the time, but looking back I wish I had spent that massive amount of time devoted to developing myself as an artist and trusting that it would all work out. I’ve since spent a lot of time undoing that deeply held perception that I have to support something that I love with something that I hate. All that to say, I wish I had started believing in my creative career more fully sooner in my life.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a NY-based choreographer, director, performer, teacher and producer. My background started in movement and choreography, which is primarily why I moved to NY in the first place. I spent 10 years performing and showing my work and then in 2009 I got cast in the first iteration of Sleep No More through the American Repertory Theater at Harvard. The show went on to be a huge success and moved to off-broadway in NY where it became the first large-scale Immersive Theater show in the country and has been running for almost 12 years. Being part of that show expanded my career to include directing, creating, writing, and choreographing Immersive Theater shows and events on every scale, in both theatrical and commercial realms. This expansion brought acting into my life in a massive way and I started performing in plays, choreographing for staged theatrical works and teaching movement for actors. In addition to this creative journey, I spent 18 years doing property management and real estate sales / rentals in NY, so I have a comprehensive background in navigating all of the financial, architectural and functional aspects of working in large-scale spaces which has been very beneficial to my work. At this stage, I travel all over the world working on various projects that include everything from directing music videos, choreographing staged works, crafting immersive theater experiences and performing in both others’ and my own works.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish I had understood the power I have to control my own experiences. I spent the majority of my early career feeling like everything was stacked up against me. And in a lot of ways, starting out as a working artist in any genre, that can often be true. There is a sense of scarcity, that we’re all fighting for the same limited opportunities and resources, which creates a sense of competition and lack. It wasn’t really until the last 5 years or so that I began to understand the power of removing that sense of lack from my experience. I started investing in researching the ways my perception affects my reality and how I fit into it. And with that growth has come an understanding of community and that there is far more value in supporting and championing my fellow artists rather than competing with them.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goals / missions have expanded over the course of my career. I think early on it was to just simply have my work shown, which can be a feat in and of itself. But as I’ve grown over time and become more adept at navigating my personal creative process, my mission has largely come to include crafting the way other people enter into that work, whether that be audience or collaborators. A lot of my work is narrative-driven and can require a great deal of vulnerability to enter into. Some people are comfortable with that, and a lot of people are not. There’s a really beautiful space that can exist when the right environment is crafted for someone to be able to step out of their comfort zone and engage in a space with you where they feel held and cared for in your work. The facilitation of that process can be messy and difficult, but moving through that journey together is one of the most satisfying things about the creative process.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kellybartnik.com
• Instagram: kelly.d.bartnik
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-bartnik-60323484/

Image Credits
Shannon Giles, Steven Trumon Gray, Maria Baranova