photo by Aaron Rosenblum
Karen Sherman's work draws from her background in dance, theater, writing, and the handyman arts. Her projects have been presented nationally by P.S. 122, Walker Art Center, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, PICA/TBA Festival, Fusebox Festival, The Chocolate Factory Theater, American Realness, The Southern Theater, Dance Place, Diverseworks, Movement Research, Danspace Project, ODC, Red Eye Theater, and many others.
She has received numerous awards for her work, including a New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award for her performance in Morgan Thorson's Faker, McKnight Foundation Fellowships in Choreography (2013) and Dance (2009), a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship, Minnesota SAGE Awards for her work as a choreographer, performer, and scenic designer, and residencies with the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Performance Lab, Movement Research, LUMBERYARD, and the Bogliasco Foundation program in Liguria, Italy. She was a 2016-2017 Hodder Fellow in The Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University and is an inaugural Caroline Hearst Choreographer-in-Residence in its dance program.
Since 1993, she has worked in nearly every facet of arts production as a technical director, scenic and sound designer, production manager, and technician. Her writing, including essays and poetry, has been featured in such forums as e-flux journal, The Movement Research Performance Journal, The Performance Club, Criticism Exchange, Culture Bodega, and The Triumph of Poverty: Poems Inspired by the Work of Nicole Eisenman. She is currently working on a three-part visual art, dance, and writing project; part one, Minor Bodies, was exhibited art Hair+Nails gallery (Minneapolis) in March 2018.