Performance Art

Karen Kohler’s training and musings in stagecraft and performance art that are not singing and acting, such as dance, pantomime and the circus arts.

Science of Consciousness Conference (Presenter)

By |2024-04-01T16:54:13-04:00April 20th, 2022|Key Dates, News & Events, Performance Art, Public Speaking|

I'm honored to present my monologue, "Songs, Psychedelics and Seizures: A One-Woman Flow" at the Science of Consciousness Conference 2022. Sponsored by the University of Arizona in Tucson (my alma mater), this year's program includes such consciousness studies leaders as Roger Penrose, Dennis McKenna, Robin Carhart-Harris, Katrin Preller, Christof Koch, Elizabeth Krasnoff and Deepak Chopra. I've chosen a topic, Flow, [...]

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Oh Sweet Desire, You Know How I Hate to Practice

By |2021-11-17T12:37:04-05:00February 23rd, 2017|Blog Post, Performance Art, Stagecraft|

I've never been good at practicing. I like to be good at something quickly, and if I'm not good at something quickly, I don't like doing it. So I put it away, for awhile. Or forever. Such has been the fate of tennis, baking, sewing and tap-dancing, to name a few. The blame seems to fall squarely on the shoulders [...]

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Edge Play: Creating Art that Challenges

By |2020-04-29T17:09:27-04:00January 30th, 2017|Acting, Blog Post, Performance Art, Singing, Stagecraft|

Performers are revealers; we lay a thing bare. To cultivate as broad a landscape of potential revelation as possible, we venture from the center of familiarity and recognition to the edge of mystery and uncertainty. Just as there are edges to the stage space, there are edges to us performers too. I consider the edge that place where there's nothing to hide [...]

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Understanding

By |2020-04-30T17:41:29-04:00January 9th, 2013|Acting, Blog Post, Performance Art, Public Speaking, Singing, Stagecraft, Storytelling|

To become exemplary, an artist cannot imitate, cannot be a carbon copy of someone else. She must present that which is thoroughly unique - herself - and for this she needs to know herself and to continually grow herself. A good singer builds herself a mental reference book. She excels in the art of seeing into someone else's eye [...]

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The Art of Silence

By |2020-04-30T17:46:11-04:00December 17th, 2012|Acting, Blog Post, Performance Art, Public Speaking, Singing, Stagecraft, Storytelling|

Music begins inside human beings, and so must any instruction. Not at the instrument, not with the first finger, nor with the first position, not with this or that chord. The starting point is one’s own stillness, listening to oneself, the “being ready for music,” listening to one’s own heartbeat and breathing.  Carl Orff Watching other artists perform is [...]

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