As founder of This Is Bulgaria, I was genuinely honored to meet—and learn from—director and choreographer Kosta Karakashyan, an artist whose work keeps widening what “Bulgarian” can mean.
We met in Sofia, in a co-working space called The Steps. It was lunchtime and we both arrived late—traffic had knotted the city, which was celebrating its name day: Faith, Hope, and Love, and their mother Sofia (Вяра, Надежда и Любов и майка им София). Inside, the room felt cooler than the street. Kosta was calm. Not the calm of detachment, nor of stillness, but the calm of someone who has learned how to make space—for others, for risk, for empathy. When he speaks, even the pauses feel deliberate, as though silence itself were part of the choreography. His body carries the memory of a dancer: weight placed with care, gestures economical, attention attuned like a metronome. At the bar, we let two cups of coffee go cold as we settled in for the interview, the wide counter giving us room to breathe, to listen, and to find the right place to begin.
Kalina: Your work is often described as "empathy through motion." What precisely does empathy look like in your directing room—and how do you know that you achieve it?
Kosta: For me, there are two aspects to this. First is the empathy in the creation itself, the work—whether it's a film or live performance—making sure that the value of empathy can somehow be translated to the audience. So really focusing on things that I see as important in society, but are not as universal as I would like: vulnerability, taking care of each other, putting ourselves in someone else's shoes and showing solidarity with people who are somehow different from us. The first aspect is making sure that emotion and value can live in the story, in the dramaturgy.
But then also, I think to successfully show this, you also need empathy in the room creating it. So we try to create a process that feels very safe for the creatives, the cast, the crew—very open, flexible. I want the communication to be very soft, and to not put any unnecessary pressure in the process. And this is something that we often get as feedback—that our projects are always very calm, which is really nice to hear.
Kalina: You trained as a dancer but also studied human rights. What is something the latter taught you that pure dance training never could?
Kosta: With human rights, you have a lot of framework—there is a big foundation behind talking about human rights and the shared belief that human rights are universal. So you're stepping on something that all the treaties and all of the law follow—this assumption—and you work through finding the institutions, finding the mechanisms that can protect human rights. So in a way, it's something that comes from an ideal and finds a way to be practical about this very important, again universal, issue.
And then with dance and performing arts, there is this extreme freedom—sometimes you're not tethered to foundation. And I think it was really important to me to connect my artistic practice to something deeper, to something more universal and, again, in a way more empathetic. Because we see art can speak on any subject, but for me, I noticed that I always keep going back to this social aspect—so I wanted to understand it better, so I can create art that really can strike a chord with the audience.
Kalina: Waiting for Color has become a touchstone. Looking back, what is one decision—artistic or ethical—you would still defend, and one you would do differently?
Kosta: A decision that I'm really happy with—the way we made the film—was keeping it bilingual. Some of the testimonies were in English and some were in Russian. We originally read them in translation in the English report, but because our story was coming from Russia, we decided to work with two Russian-speaking voice actors. So in a way, it can be a bit closer to the real stories of the people. But then, because we wanted it to be more international, we also incorporated English—because it can be quite chilling to hear them and not just read them with subtitles. So this was a strange idea, to mix the two languages, but I think it makes the film work.
And something I would change or do differently now—I would probably find a way to also have more performers that can show the variety of experiences. I think it's always nice when you see different faces, different bodies that people can relate to. But it was a very personal project at the time, so it's one of the few works where I'm performing myself. So I’m also kind of glad that it happened that way.
Kalina: So nowadays you're not dancing?
Kosta: I'm directing, choreographing, and kind of stepping away from stage the last few years.
Kalina: Do you miss dancing?
Kosta: No, not at all. It was a very conscious decision, because more and more my creativity was going towards the big picture of the project. I like to see everything in terms of how the piece is observed by the audience, how the lighting is set up, what are the costumes—and if you're performing, you can make all those choices, but you never see it from the outside. And for me, this outside eye is important.
And I also found that I get more joy from producing, writing and directing the projects—but not so much from rehearsing as a performer. I started to find it tedious and tiring—dancing for so many hours. So it was a moment where I had to be honest with myself—even though I've been doing it since I was five—that it doesn't bring me the same pleasure it did before. But I'm lucky—it's just expanding to the next level. Maybe I'm doing something similar but different enough to enjoy it.
Kalina: I wanted to ask you a little about KITCHEN. Why immersive now? What can a room full of moving bodies and food achieve that film cannot?
Kosta: For me, immersive work—maybe one of the defining moments for me as an artist—when I was studying in New York, a friend took me to see a show called Sleep No More, one of the most famous immersive theater shows by a company called Punchdrunk. It takes place on five floors—plus one secret floor—in a warehouse space, and ties together fragments from Macbeth with characters from Alfred Hitchcock's movies and the witch trials. All of this is woven into these floors where you have a ballroom, a cemetery, a street with shops, hospital and asylum, and you wander through these spaces. There are around twenty to thirty performers, and you choose which performer to follow—you kind of choose your own adventure. Such a visceral, incredibly rich set—there are different fragrances, the dancers are running around, jumping on walls, covered in blood, getting naked, screaming. It feels so dangerous in a really amazing way. And when I saw that show, I was like: How does one even invent this? It's so different from any other performance I've seen.
This was really the inspiration for me when I moved back to Bulgaria and I met my boyfriend, Alexander—he's the creative director of Cosmos restaurant and former pastry chef. So we decided to combine our knowledge and our passion, and he gave a lot of real stories of people who he'd worked with in the kitchen and all of the troubles that they have—problems with substance abuse, with this feeling of never being good enough, with feeling threatened by colleagues—all of the insecurities that a really intense industry can put on you.
So we started creating this work in the real-life culinary spaces of HRC Culinary Academy, and together with co-director Antonia Georgieva created something very different. This was during COVID, so there was a limit of fifteen people in a public setting, so we did it for six performers and ten audience members. The logistics were unique—working with the sound across all these spaces. Our composer and sound engineer, Georgi Atanassov, came up with the idea to have all of the sound in headphones for the audience. In the beginning, you sit down like you're going to go to a restaurant, but instead of food, you get the headphones on their cover. You put the headphones on and throughout the show he's mixing the sound live—he triggers each track, he adds some sounds from the space with a microphone. But the dancers are dancing it in complete silence, which is really interesting and freeing for them, because they don't have to go with the music—they can follow their own breath, develop their own timing. If something that night feels longer or shorter, they can play with that a bit. They have the set choreography, but they can take a moment longer, indulge in a different way each performance.
Kalina: You're building institutions—Studio Karakashyan, and your dance company Karakashyan & Artists. What is the artistic risk these companies exist to take that others won't?
Kosta: With Studio Karakashyan, the film company—one of our big focuses is on telling LGBTQ stories. This is quite rare in Bulgaria. It's very important to show this visibility through film because it's a very accessible, very commercial medium. But still, in Bulgaria, we see that neither the audience nor the film distributors, the cinemas, are ready for queer stories. They're very afraid this will bring some negative reactions, or they will lose business. So that's why, for me, it's very important to champion these stories—not just with my own films but also as producers.
This year, we produced the short film of first-time director Georgi Petkov. His film is called Silent Mode, and again, it's a queer story tackling homophobia and friendship in Bulgaria. So it's quite nice to see this profile of the studio solidify and emerge. This year I gave myself permission to finally write scripts —I finished the script of my feature debut film. We're hoping to shoot it next year. It's a queer love story set on the Bulgarian seaside. It's going to be called July Morning. So that's very exciting.
And then, with the dance company, the risk is always in putting theater and dance in unexpected contexts—taking the audience on a very visceral, very wild journey. We've done a show in a landfill full of trash together with Greenpeace on a project called The Last Sunset. We've done shows in a hair salon. We just did an outdoor experience with Mercedes for ModaSofia, a new fashion event in Sofia—so we're very open to putting performance where you wouldn't expect to see it.
Kalina: You talked about the documentary Welcome to Chechnya.
Kosta: Yes—this is the film by David France, and I was invited, in a strange way, to volunteer my face. It's a feature documentary where he managed to go to Russia to film queer people from Chechnya trying to flee to Europe. He managed to get quite a lot of footage that is incredibly difficult to capture there. When he managed to smuggle out the hard drives, editing in a studio with no internet—they were very protective of all of this footage—in the end, to make sure that the film can be released, he and his team had to find a way to anonymize all the people whose stories they filmed.
This was, I think, in 2018—one of the first times a documentary film used deepfakes to replace the faces. And David asked me and another activist to give our faces. So we were recorded with, I think, fifty cameras from different angles, and then the algorithm approximated our faces on top of the faces of the people in the film—which is really special and very moving to be part of. To be able to tell their stories in this way and make sure it protects their anonymity.
The film was nominated for quite a lot of awards, I think for an Emmy, and it was shortlisted for the Oscars in a few categories. So it was a very powerful project. It was released on HBO in Bulgaria; we did a special screening during COVID.
Kalina: If a funder asked you to "soften" queer themes for broader reach, how would you respond—what's your red line?
Kosta: It really depends—not all of my work is on queer themes. Sometimes I create on other topics, but with queer work, of course, it's at the forefront. For me, it's extremely important that stories are told in an authentic way. So we can only collaborate with institutions or companies that know why we're doing it and why this visibility is important. I don't think there is a way to compromise on this.
Kalina: Directing and choreographing for major brands and artists—what creative constraint from advertising actually improved the art?
Kosta: For me, this is one of my favorite ways to create, because you enter a sandbox that's very specific, very unique to the brand and the concept. You have to find a way to really create something that you're proud of in a narrow sliver. For me, it's actually very creative. Sometimes, certain ads really test your creativity —once we built a huge pool of real milk for someone to dive in, and I would never come up with this idea on my own, but I can have a lot of fun with it. Or we've had a hundred people in a foam party on the street—we've had so many interesting things. Situations where I wouldn't think of putting dance, but someone creative in a different way had this idea.
You're tasked to create movement that lasts one or two seconds, and this is very different than making a performance where you can take your time. It forces you to express yourself in a very different way—and not all artists enjoy these constrictions, but I find it very fun. You never know what each commercial will bring.
Kalina: As artistic director and producer, how do you split time between art, fundraising, and operations?
Kosta: This is the topic of the hour. Now I'm starting to get more help with operational stuff, because up until now I've been doing all of the grant application and writing and budgeting—and then having to do all the creative work afterwards—it's very exhausting. But I think more and more artists should also have this business side, to be aware of it and to have a bit of knowledge so that they can support—stand up for—their own work. Sometimes no producer will fight as hard for your idea as you will, so you need to know what's the non-negotiable, which things you can let go. So it's important for the artist to also know the business side a bit of what they do.
And absolutely, I take it as a learning experience—it's always fun to learn new things you don't know. For example, for a project having to figure out where to source animals or small kids—I like these challenges. Or finding a location last minute.
Kalina: Touring playbook—what's the minimum viable team and tech rider for your immersive shows?
Kosta: It depends. Now we made some smaller works that are more flexible for one performer, and they could travel with just me and the performer if there is technical support on site. And we have bigger works that need a similar venue to where they were created—KITCHEN takes place in over six or seven rooms. Some of the shows require this modular type of space. That's why it's important to create different configurations—because some festivals want a bigger work, some festivals want a solo, some want a ten-minute show, some want something that's three hours. So it’s important to also diversify what you can offer and not have one strict formula.
Kalina: Education and platforms—Columbia's dance training and your Human Rights master's. How do they intersect in your rehearsal ethics?
Kosta: Luckily, in the rehearsal context, I try to keep a very gentle environment—so everything is much less severe than talking about human rights. But even in an art context, there is—in the industry as a whole, I think—abuse of power and unethical treatment of performers and dancers.
The things that I'm really aware of: I'm always trying to negotiate higher fees for the artists, because they are still underpaid in my opinion. With a creative practice, the paradox is because it looks easy people would assume you love doing it, or it's something you can just do with no preparation. I'm always trying to educate the people on the other side. And at the same time, I work hard not to put the dancers in precarious situations—which with our work sometimes is harder. The audience is a touch away from them. You don't know what the audience would be like, you don't know what floor they'll be dancing on—it's different than putting it on stage.
Sometimes they're touching the audience, interacting with the audience, and this does bring—I don't want to say danger—but uncertainty. We rehearse a lot of situations, and ideally there's always people on the side so the dancers are not in a precarious situation. Sometimes we even take one audience member in the hallway somewhere with one dancer—so it's important. It's a balancing act because you want this intimacy, but you also want both sides to feel safe. It's very tricky.
Kalina: Glance from the Edge maps bodies onto Bulgarian landscapes. What specific sites or histories are inscribed in the choreography that a foreign viewer might miss?
Kosta: This was a very special project because it was my first project after graduation, and I managed to bring part of the same team that did Waiting for Color from the States to Bulgaria. We worked with an American cinematographer – Kevin Chiu and an American composer – Jude Icarus, and they came to Bulgaria for the two weeks we were shooting—so it was really special to see these locations through the eyes of foreigenrs, someone who has no context for them.
We were weaving them in a very fantastical, very abstract way. We worked with some very recognizable, very iconic for Bulgaria places—like the cave with "God's eyes." We worked with some locations at the sea—Tyulenovo, this very beautiful rocky cliff formation. We went to Plovdiv, the old town, and we found a really interesting marble quarry. And then we also went for some more anachronistic moments—we took them to Sunny Beach; there is a scene on the streets with all the nightclubs.
It was a very diverse project, and it was really fascinating to see you can recontextualize some of these places, because we didn't want it to be a very historical documentary film. We wanted to create something more magical-realist based around these locations. Even this year, it was selected in a program in Poland mapping the body as landscape—so it's really fascinating when an old project keeps getting some unexpected attention.
Kalina: Rapid-fire to close. A movement you overuse and don't care?
Kosta: In the dance context—movement that's very just connected to the music, but it can be—if you turn off the music, it can look like a hundred other things; it doesn't make sense. There is a lot of choreography that's hitting the accents in the same way, but if you watch it without sound and you watch a hundred of them, they will look the same. So—deeper into the texture, getting into sound.
Kalina: A note you give too often—as a director?
Kosta: Go slower. Take your time.
Kalina: An artist outside dance you'd steal from?
Kosta: So many... David Lynch.
Kalina: A risk you're hungry to take next season?
Kosta: I'm starting to write a novel—so that will be very different, a new form of expression from everything else. Hopefully next year it will be ready.
Kalina: Five-minute rehearsal warm-up that never fails?
Kosta: When I'm not sure how to lead the room—we sit down on the floor, we close our eyes, and we kind of know what the project is about. We do this exercise where we use the eye of the mind. We put on music that is relevant to the piece, and everyone kind of directs the scene in their head. If they know their character or one thing to go off, they start to imagine it as a movie—they see where the character goes, what happens to them. They experience this for five to ten minutes, and then we sit down and we each say what we saw. That kind of gives the backbone of the narrative.
People see crazy things, and then you talk about it. It's like a mental rehearsal—connecting to a very deep inspiration you can't quite place. And because it came from their mind, they believe in it—so they don't question it. It's very easy to put it in the work: "I saw it, why not?" It's tricking the mind.
Kalina: The last idea you killed—and why it deserved to die?
Kosta: A choreography we were doing yesterday—and sometimes you create, create, and then you see there are moments that kill the energy. So you have to take out the bits that are not adding anything. You start to trim it down, because something shorter and more explosive can be better than something that feels very flat.
Kalina: A folklore image you haven't cracked yet?
Kosta: I have a new idea—it's gonna be a piece about Bulgarian rituals based around different herbs and spices and bread, and all of the flavors that make Bulgaria, Bulgaria. A piece for a few dancers and a folklore singer. We're starting next year to crack this idea—hopefully bring it to New York; that's the goal for this project, for a festival there that I can’t share just yet…
Kalina: One note you wish collaborators gave you more often?
Kosta: I'm not very strict—I like to paint a rough picture. It would be nice if they encouraged me to be even more picky with certain things. I like to create very fast, and then I say, "okay, it's good enough," but—slow down, like I said before—slow down and fine-tune the details. I know this is not always my strength, so I try to have someone in the team that can work through those small details after I paint the broad picture.
Kalina: Cut on breath or cut on beat?
Kosta: On breath—because it's more authentic to the moment.
Kalina: A costume detail that does half the choreography?
Kosta: Fringe.
Kalina: The lighting trick you overuse—and won't apologize for?
Kosta: I like chaser effects—where you put different lights and then you alternate. It creates a lot of dynamics and shadows in the space. It can also hide choreography if you're not sure why it's not working.
Kalina: The biggest myth about "immersive" you want to retire?
Kosta: That it's always interactive in a way that is awkward or cheesy for the audience. When they hear "immersive," they imagine someone bringing them out on stage and asking them to dance—and this is a lot of people's weirdest nightmare. Immersive can be done in a way that makes you very invested in the story without causing you discomfort.
Kalina: A smell or taste that instantly gives you a scene?
Kosta: Something smoky—like incense, or wood. Anything that has this burning, smoky sensation.
Kalina: The compliment you don't trust?
Kosta: "It was interesting."
Kalina: A dream Bulgarian location you're still waiting to film?
Kosta: Buzludzha Monument. It would be amazing—maybe for an immersive performance as well.
Kalina: A failure you actually hope to repeat?
Kosta: It happens quite often—I don't think it's a big failure—but with projects, I have one idea, and then when we start rehearsing it I see that it's totally not gonna work, and I need to change the whole concept and the approach. Sometimes you have to do it in front of the performers, or even when you go to a location and you see it would be a very bad idea to do that. So—just forget, and you try to do something from scratch.
I'm very happy I have the courage to do that and not feel like, "oh, but we rehearsed this, so it has to be this." I try to scrap ideas if I know they're not the right one. You're never a computer that can perfectly imagine a venue or a location or a set in your head. When you go, it's always different—you have to adapt a lot. You never know until you get the first audience in the venue how they'll react. You have assumptions where they'll go, which side they'll be on—but it's always different. So you adapt mid-performance—and then after the show, change for the next audience as well.
Kalina: Is KITCHEN coming back soon?
Kosta: Maybe November, for the Night of Theaters—we might bring it back. It's a very special show for us. It's one of those pieces that's hard to "see" on video—you have to be there, in the rooms.
Kalina: And the feature—July Morning—how real is "next year"?
Kosta: The script is close to being done. We're working to shoot next year. It's a queer love story on the Black Sea, and I think it's the right time. Ordinary visibility, like I said. Film can carry that further than a stage sometimes.
Kalina: And the novel?
Kosta: I'm writing. But it’s a new muscle, so it takes time. Hopefully next year it will be ready.
On a day when the city celebrates the very virtues his work insists on, our conversation closes the way it began—quietly, deliberately—leaving room for the next step.
As we wrapped, I thought of all the spaces Kosta has made: a film where testimonies flicker between languages; a kitchen where dancers move in silence while audiences drown in sound; a landfill seeded with choreography; a cave turned into a cathedral of bodies. What unites them isn't spectacle but risk—the risk of empathy, the risk of intimacy, the risk of making space in a country where space is too often denied.
In Bulgaria, where corruption trains people to treat the law as optional, where Pride meets counter-parades, where rules bend for those who can pay, Kosta insists on different rules: care, presence, attention. That's the paradox. In a society built on exceptions, he makes art that demands honesty. In a place where silence often hides complicity, he builds silence that reveals truth.
Leaving The Steps and walking into Sofia’s lively streets, I thought of his new project—rituals with herbs, spices, bread. The flavors of Bulgaria, turned into dance. Perhaps that’s what art does best: take bitterness and burn, failures and fragments, and make them into something worth sharing. Something that asks us not just to watch, but to sit with it—in silence, together.