We have the plesure to host
Karen Nelson with her expertice in the tuning score and contact improvisation
more info is coming soon
Bio:
BIOGRAPHY
Karen Nelson (she/her/we) was born in Brooklyn, USA, and is descended from Northern Europeans who immigrated to Brooklyn around the 1880s. Since 1977, she has been a mutator of Contact Improvisation, playing seriously and experimentally within the lineages of Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson, Simone Forti, Nancy Stark Smith, Mary Fulkerson, and Marjean McKenna. Her lifelong improvisation practices include Tuning Scores, Contact Improvisation, Material for the Spine, and Contemplative Dance Practice.
As an explorer, collaborator, teacher, touring performer, and contributor to Dancing with Dharma and Contact Quarterly, Karen has consistently played with the boundaries of form. She co-founded the CI mixed-ability experiments Dance Ability (1988) and Diverse Dance Research Retreat (1991–99), and co-created ongoing research in Tuning Score Observatories with Image Lab (since 1991) and Tunezoom (since 2020).
Her work is deeply rooted in investigating and re-versioning dominant cultural narratives, reflected in her collaborations with mayfield brooks' Improvising While Black (2019), the community instigation Abolition Is… (a response) (2022), and the ongoing lecture/demonstration/jam event Contact Improvisation Interrogates its History and Currency (2016–ongoing). She lives on the colonized lands of the Coast Salish s̓xwəbabs people, an island near the now-named mainland city of Seattle, WA.
2026