Growing Takes Time
Karley Wasaff
Noo Arts
June 20, 2026
Brooklyn
Walking into Growing Takes Time, the space immediately feels alive with movement, sound, and a kind of structured play. There’s a balance between choreography and unpredictability where nothing feels fully fixed, but everything still feels intentional.
The audience isn’t positioned as observers but as participants inside a shifting system of games, tasks, and collective decision making. In her New York State Council of the Arts grant-winning and site-specific play coming to Noo Arts in Greenpoint on June 20, Karley Wasaff builds a world that blends contemporary dance, immersive theater, and game logic into something playful and physically present. What unfolds feels less like watching a performance and more like being inside a shared experiment in attention, trust, and cooperation.
Bleu Pablo (Rail):
You have a show coming up, Growing Takes Time. Could you tell us a little bit about it?
Karley Wasaff: Yeah. Growing Takes Time is a real-life video game disguised as a dance performance where audiences don’t just sit and watch—they become part of the system. Inspired by games like Pikmin 4, the performers act as Pikmin, guiding audiences through playful missions, movement props, conflict-resolution games, and cooperative challenges.
The work blends contemporary dance, immersive theater, and the whimsical unpredictability of New York’s experimental gallery scene. Audiences can expect a beautiful wildflower rooftop run by No Art, gorgeous sunset city views, live gameplay, unexpected interaction, absurd humor, and a strange little world where collective problem-solving becomes choreography.
Rail: That sounds fun. I’ve actually been a participant in your past two shows, and they were really amazing experiences. Walking into the space, there’s an immediate sense that everything is intentional, but still open. Everything feels placed there for a reason, but there’s also room to breathe. What were you hoping people would notice or feel when they stepped into the space?
Wasaff: I’m hoping people feel an immediate sense of whimsy and play. I think that’s largely lacking in communities right now. Part of why conflict never seems to get resolved is because it requires self-presence and self-worth to engage with play and vulnerability in conflict.
Growing Takes Time is weird, messy, fun, physical, and sincere all at once. I’m asking people to play together at a time when genuine collective interaction can feel surprisingly rare.
I want people to walk away with something. I’m interested in people leaving a little more connected to themselves and community, and feeling lighter than when they walked in.
Rail: That’s beautiful. Can you walk me through what’s physically happening in the exhibition?
Wasaff: Yeah. There are about three or four stunning rooftops that audiences travel through. There’s also going to be a digital art exhibition co-curated by Josh Sauceda and myself.
That’s actually one of my favorite parts of the show, because these digital artists are helping fund underserved performance art and helping create a collective community that expands beyond just one scene. It’s kind of like when one person says something kind to another person, and it ripples outward. That’s the goal.
I think it’s exciting to see a more privileged art form supporting a more underprivileged one.
Another part of the show includes Not Your Muse hosting a live painting session at the end of the performance. The work focuses on accessible ways to regulate emotions, which audiences will also experience throughout the show itself.
All of the games and levels throughout the performance are rooted in somatic practices that help people become more connected to themselves and better support their communities.
There’s also a collaboration with Tribe and Vibe Collection involving hydroponic systems that are self-watering. They’re implementing them into schools, and my collaboration with them is about bringing those systems into community spaces like No Art.
And throughout all of this are these whimsical animated Pikmin-inspired characters. You’ll see combinations of contemporary dance, jiu-jitsu, and gameplay mechanics where audiences mirror movement together.
A big throughline in the work is how contemporary partner dancers and jiu-jitsu practitioners often develop a stronger presence in stressful situations because they regularly train in close-contact, high-pressure environments. My goal is to help people navigate those high-stress moments together with more ease.
Rail: I love that. You mentioned jiu-jitsu, and I wanted to ask about that briefly because it’s really interesting seeing how it influenced the work. Did you actually practice jiu-jitsu for the show?
Wasaff: I did. I’ve been practicing it for a while now.
Rail: How was that experience?
Wasaff: Oh my god, it was amazing. I used to work at a gym where some of my peers practiced jiu-jitsu, and I would watch them flowing and moving on the floor. I realized I was already doing similar things in contact improvisation dance, so I got curious.