Deborah Karp is available for classes, consultations, workshops, curriculum design and consultation, lectures and performances.
Philosophy: Deborah Karp integrates a compositional approach to teaching with contemporary dance aesthetics, grounded in healthy, sound technical practices influenced by the inside-out body wisdom of various somatic practices. She teaches using a constructivist framework, centering equity and inclusion, creating and implementing curriculum that invites students of all ages to co-create their experience. Through a creative, rigorous, embodied experience, Deborah’s ultimate goal for her students is freedom.
Experience: Deborah Karp has been teaching in schools, studios and community spaces since 2003. She has been on faculty with Jacob’s Pillow Curriculum in Motion, San Francisco Ballet’s Dance In Schools and Communities Program and most recently for a six-year tenure with Luna Dance Institute. She is currently pursuing her MEd. in Arts Education at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Specializations:
- Composition & Choreography Kindergarten – 12th grade
- Students with Special Needs Kindergarten – 12th grade
- Relationship-based dance for students of all abilities, to build empathy, community and collective creativity Kindergarten – 12th grade
- Curriculum integration
- Family dance
- Professional development
- Curriculum design and consultation
Artist- Educator: Deborah approaches her teaching and art-making as two parts of the same whole. Each practice informs the other. In 2015, with support from the Clorox Company Foundation, Deborah Karp Dance Projects produced “Perform: Education” an evening of performance and discussion examining the art-making art -teaching feedback loop. The evening featured dance companies CherieHill Irie Dance, The Thick Rich Ones, Deborah Karp Dance Projects and composer Aram Shelton with a discussion facilitated by artist/scholar Megan Nicely, PhD.
photo credit Tony Nguyen
Deborah Karp Dance Projects 