We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Karen Peterson Corash. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Karen below.

Karen, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Recently I have been awarded several foundation grants, national touring opportunities and alumni recognition after 30 years of directing my dance company of physically integrated dance.

1. KPD received a $150,000 2018 Matching grant award from the John and James L. Knight Foundation to raise seed money to support “The first and second Forward Motion DANCE FESTIVAL and Conference OF INTEGRATED DANCE”. The fourth-year festival and conference will take place in October 2022 at the Miami-Dade County Auditorium featuring the work of Full Radius Dance Company from Atlanta, Georgia, and Victoria Marks, a Guggenheim choreographer from UCLA who will present new work on KPD. This festival has allowed me to connect with dance companies, artistic directors, and independent artists from all over the world who practice the same dance form we do in Miami. The festival has given KPD an opportunity to share our teaching practices and performances with hundreds of dancers under the umbrella of physically integrated dance.

2. In March of 2022, I received an Alumni Achievement Award, from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee to “recognize Karen Peterson for her contributions to society and to the dance industry” at various venues throughout Boston. Only six mature dance artists, in the field of music, dance and theater won this annual award and I participated as a guest speaker at the gala dinner, shared teaching techniques at the educational round table, and was interviewed for the audio college archives.
The award from the Boston Conservatory, where I received a BFA degree many years ago, made me feel that my lifework
was being noticed on a nationwide level.

3. KPD has toured extensively since 2006 to ten countries abroad and throughout the State of Florida, but a recent invitation to be part of the First National Physically Integrated three-city tour to Cleveland, New York, and Miami with Dancing Wheels and Heidi Latsky Dance made me feel once again that we are receiving national exposure and recognition.
This tour was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and gave KPD an opportunity to perform with our national colleagues in different cities throughout the country.

Karen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

It was ten degrees in New York City in February 1978 when I saw an audition notice for a full-time paid company position for the Coconut Grove Dance Theater directed by Billie Kirpich. I found Coconut Grove on my paper Atlas (no Goggle Map at that time) and the possibility of a new dance opportunity in a new state convinced me to take the audition. I was a young, anxious Boston Conservatory Graduate who wanted so desperately to work with a dance troupe and justify my college tuition.

I arrived in Coconut Grove in 1979 with two suitcases and had some of my best experiences as a young dancer with Billie Kirpich. Billie relocated to Miami after many years as a dancer in NYC and a teacher at the University in Buffalo. Federally funded CETA grants provided an annual salary for the six company members and provided daily ballet and modern class and opportunities to perform at the Coconut Grove Playhouse as well as mnay venues in South Florida. We created our own dances for the top-floor Grove studio, (now torn down and replaced by Cocowalk) and worked with guest choreographers from outside Florida. It was a dream job for one year.

Part of the company’s required community outreach programming took place at the United Cerebral Palsy Center where I had my first experience introducing movement skills to adults with disabilities. Although I had no formal training with disabilities, my intuition told me the groups at the center seemed engaged, responsive, and challenged by my movement tasks. There was no Conservatory syllabus to follow and I loved the way I had to make up the class as I went along. I also received special feedback from my clients, some of who were nonverbal and had severe physical impairments. I remember feeling overwhelmed and ecstatic at the same time.

In the late 1970s, Miami had no contemporary dance scene, just a handful of ex-New York City dancers looking for a new place to create and perform. At that time, Lincoln Road contained vacant stores, Miami City Ballet was only an idea, Wynwood was very dangerous and the New World School of the Arts was located in the one-story Old Diamond Building. However, I knew this city had possibilities and I found a way to perform, teach and create throughout the 80’s as co-director and performer with Momentum. A handful of dance artists decided to call Miami home and we begin to experience the growing pains of Miami’s dance community; The endings/beginnings, arrivals/departures, who‘s in / out – too many to remember.

I worked with musicians and dance artists in the early parts of my career and enjoyed the process of collaboration. In 1989, Mildred Levinson, a former actress, and ADA activist, stricken with Muscular Dystrophy contacted me to help her create a theater dance piece inspired by her writings about her life and loss of body control. She provided the narrative and I interpreted her words to create the choreography.

I believe this trio was the first choreography, performed at the former New World School of the Arts, with a wheelchair artist and two able-bodied dancers in 1990. in Miami. I was also aware of the contact improvisation movement in San Francisco where people with disabilities were invited to be equal participants with dancers in workshop settings. I traveled to the west coast several times and leaned from people who were disabled. From the beginning, I loved the notion that dance could be universal, shared with others, and be a powerful channel to bring differences together.

I was also looking for a choreographic challenge in order that my dances would not fall into a repetitive vocabulary. Disability required me to find a new process each time. With each new dancer or walker or wheelchair, I was forced to start from scratch.

After our first trio performance in 1990, individuals showed up at my doorstep year after year to work with me. I formed a non-profit, started to receive funding from Miami Dade County Cultural Affairs, was invited to perform at the Mobility Junction festival in 1997 in New York City at the Vineyard Theatre with other “mixed-ability” choreographers. I felt part of a “new” movement.

I also stayed in Miami because I was newly married, had received support from Miami Dade Cultural Affairs and Daniel Lewis (founding Dean of the New World School of the Arts) supported my work when some audience members called the dance special social work; not art. My intention was and still is to be a creative dance maker, not a therapist.

So with one foot in the door, I stayed because I saw an opportunity to continue my work and start a family. After 30 years of producing annual concerts with new work by multiple choreographers, creating residencies in ten foreign countries, collaborating with hundreds of dance artists and educating students with special needs as well as audience members……. Miami turned out to be a good place for me to develop a dance career and raise a two sons.

It is difficult to measure the success of your art form when your community is developing at the same pace as your career. I came to Miami in 1979 with an ambition to be a contemporary dancer and had no Paul Taylors, Merce Cunninghams, Twyla Tharps or dance history. I was making it up as I went along.

Throughout the 1980 and 1990’s, Fusion Dance, Thomas Armour, Ballet Concerto, Freddick Bratcher Dance, Mary Street Dance and Momentum were the organizations making, presenting and teaching dance. Dance obviously evolved artistically over the past 30 years, but I think contemporary dance still has a small audience and will always. KPD has tapped into a wider audience because of the social, healing and educational benefits of physically integrated work but we still need to constantly find new audiences.

Miami has exploded culturally over the past 30 years. There is also a feeling of “let’s try this” in Miami because it has no history. Our diverse populations and the incredible dance magnet programs in the Miami Dade schools gives Miami an edge and a feeling that “the sky is the limit”. We will never have the pool of artists that live in New York City or Los Angeles but Miami offers opportunities to those who are willing to work.

As Winston Churchill once said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

There is no one perfect world for dance. There is never enough money, not the right dancer, not enough time, not enough audience etc etc – the list goes on and most likely will not change. But if you have to make dance you will find a way to be resourceful and get the job done. You become flexible and adapt to your environment if you have that single-minded vision.

I am not sure if the model of the non-profit dance company is the correct model forever. The days of CETA grants are over and contemporary dance is still at the bottom of the ladder in corporate funding. However, KPD has been lucky! Since1990, KPD has grown on an International level (we have performed and taught in nine foreign countries), has developed a highly respected educational program (we started with 30 teens, and now have 200 on an annual basis), and has created over 40 works in the repertory (performed in various venues on a local, state and national level). The model has worked in Miami for KPD but some of the problems remain because they are just part of the dance arts industry.

I personally drive this company. I am not sure if there is anyone with the interest and resiliency to do all that I do for virtually little money. I am not sure what will happen to KPD in the future. A lot depends upon what type of luck comes my way.

I am looking to secure funding for an artistic person who can succeed me when I retire. I have been unable to secure funding to find and hire that person as of 2022.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The onset of Covid initially shut down all KPD performance activities, but the dancers were eager to rehearse and perform together with masks. We received performance opportunities at the Naples Botanical Gardens and the Pinecrest Gardens in March and April 2020 to perform on outdoor stages. These opportunities kept the dancers sane and less isolated. Between 2020-2022, the dancers and I created many beautiful duets based on “the people we lost and remained behind” and continued to show the work throughout 2021-2022. A movie was made about that time period.

The movie description is:

“finding Lost and Found”, a film inspired by the people we lost and held close during the coronavirus, after one year of isolation and confinement, documents a creative two-year period, for Karen Peterson and Dancers, with rehearsals in the studio, performances in outdoor gardens, and finally long-awaited concerts in formal theatres

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

KPD is a pioneer in the development of physically integrated dance and has reached thousands of students, therapists, teachers and activists through educational workshops, formal performances, and school lecture demonstrations and through many invitations to teach and perform on a statewide, national and international level. This individual pursuit of creating, educating, and presenting physically integrated dance, an idea that I alone had in 1990, makes me feel that I have accomplished what I set out to do. I have been rewarded many times over in different countries, with many different dancers who may not have spoken English and with dancers with various disabilities. I have joined dance artists together through the universal language of creative improvisational movement under my directives and have prompted dancers to find their physical passion through understanding and exploring their bodies with others. I have challenged labels, prejudices and perceptions about dance and disability.

KPD attracts individuals as a role model that projects inclusion, diversity, activism, and artistic excellence with its tailored programs for specific/ age populations and community events.

Every dancer’s dis(ability) is unique and teaching choreography to new bodies is often time-consuming and non-transferable. The choreography of KPD is specific to the dancers who make it.

Through the annual Forward Motion Dance Festival, KPD attracts dancers, teachers, and leaders nationwide and globally. KPD also provides movement demonstrations as a “learning and healing tool” and has reached thousands of individuals with special needs at community venues, hospitals, senior centers, and public/private schools.

Committed to touring, education, and expansion, the company has performed at disability and dance festivals in New York City, Ohio, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. & Florida as well as Sao Paulo, Brazil; Carpi, Italy; Edinburgh, Scotland; Barcelona and Madrid, Spain; Podgorica, Montenegro; Cork, Ireland; Lisbon, Portugal; Trebinje, Bosnia Belgrade; Serbia. Being able to share my understanding of disability and dance to movers in International countries gives me great pleasure for a method that I have perfected.

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Facebook: [email protected]
• Other: Twitter @kpdance Facebook www.facebook.com/karenpetersondancers Instagram @Karenpetersondancers Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenpetersondancers Vimeo Library vimeo.com/karenpetersondancers

Image Credits
Photographers: Karime Arabia, Lisa Nalven