Karlia is a dance artist of European, Mā’ohi and Māori descent, hailing from Norfolk Island, Hitiaurevareva (Pitcairn Island) and Ngāpuhi iwi on the North Island of Aotearoa. Karlia was raised in so called Australia on Yuin and Dharawal country. Encompassing all of this, Karlia’s dance practice is grounded in the embodiment of listening and honouring the ever-evolving relationality between her body her ancestry and the lands and water she grew up on and travels between. Traversing between the physical and the ancestral, the local and the cosmological, she aims to converse, unearth and dance alongside the multiplicity of voices, memories and bodies of water that her body is a meeting.

Karlia is currently based in Naarm working as a freelance dancer and choreographer and in 2023 completed a Masters in Dance from the Victorian College of the Arts. Previous to this she graduated from WAAPA in 2021 and since then has worked with companies and artists such as Chunky Move, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Joel Bray Dance, New Zealand Dance Company, Strut Dance, Guts dance, Julie Minaai and Bella Waru. Performing in Joel Bray’s premier of Garabari at Arts house in 2022 and performing in Bella Waru’s and Julie Minaai’s premier work Hana at Melbourne Museum as well as choreographing a short work Oneness on New Zealand Dance Company, apart of the Matariki Hunga Nui program. Recently, Karlia had the opportunity to choreograph and perform a new work two thread, presented at Dancehouse in collaboration with her sister Danni. In 2025 Karlia performed as Dancer in Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui premier Manifest at Perth Festival.