Dance Education
1996–1998
Cunningham Studio / New York City / USA
1997–1999
Simonson Technique with Lynn Simonson / Dance Space Inc. / NYC/USA / SMTT
certification (Simonson Method of Teacher Training)
1998–1999
Checcetti Ballett with Janet Panetta / NYC/USA
Since 1990
Contemporary Dance with Howard Katz and Frey Faust
Since 1990
Contact Improvisation with Frey Faust, Nancy Stark Smith (The Underscore)
and Nita Little
Residency / Invitations / Grants
2023
#TakeHeart
Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal
Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the program
NEUSTART KULTUR
2023
DIS-TANZ-SOLO
"Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media
within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR, aid programm DIS-
TANZEN by the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland"
2021
NEUSTART KULTUR #TakeCareResidenzen FFT, Fonds Darstellende Künste
2021
NEUSTART KULTUR Scholarship program NRW Corona Immediate aid from the
Federal Government, Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North
Rhine Westphalia
2020 / 2021
Mayeur Projects in Las Vegas, New Mexico, Residency and performance project
in collaboration with Beatrix Szörényi – cancelled due to the Corona pandemic
2020
NEUSTART KULTUR Scholarship program NRW Corona Immediate aid from the
Federal Government, Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North
Rhine Westphalia
2019
Heinrich scholarships for dance / performance and choreography“ art-blue
dance Werkstatt Brunswick / Lower Saxony
2019
Initial Funding / Fonds Darstellende Künste, Recherche Project: The fourth
sense: Exaltation,Trance and Ecstasy / Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste
with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the
Media.
2018
NRW research programme "Tanzrecherche NRW #23“ / a collaboration
between Melanie Maar and Karen Bößer / Co-Producers: FFT Düsseldorf /
Funders and Supporters: NRW KULTURsekretariat
2017
CETDT Project / Learning Mobility of Individuals / Erasmus Grant / Echodrama
Cultural Group + TFF gUG / Skiathos, Greece
2017
Onomato / working grant / Düsseldorf
2014
Artist in residence / Glasshouse NYC
2012
Engage the city / Artist Exchange Project in Bucharest / Rumania
2012
Nasibu / Performance Project in Kampala / Uganda
2010
One Night Dance / Residence Dansatelier Rotterdam / Netherland
2007
Summer Residency / tanzhaus nrw / Düsseldorf
2003
Artist exchange Ein Hod / Israel / through the Department of Cultural Affairs,
Düsseldorf
2003
8th International Hot Summer Dance Festival Kyoto / Japan / Student Exchange
Project of Frey Faust
2003
Artist exchange Ein Hod / Israel / through the Department of Cultural Affairs,
Düsseldorf
Teachings
2026.
Lecturer Seminar: ‘Performance Practice: Body – Space – Material – Resonance’
- Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany - In collaboration with Beatrix
Szörenyi
2025
Lecture performance about „The Other Reason: Exaltation. Trance. Ecstasy“
GTF Symposium at the mdw - University of Music and Performing Arts in
Vienna, Austria
2024
Performance Project & Lectures & ArtLab - ‘Intersection/The Art of Identity’ at
the School of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities (SSAH) at Al Akhawayn
University in Ifrane, Morocco
2018
Lecture about: fremdbewegt - Ecstasy and Society at the Protestant University
of Applied Sciences / Bochum
2009
Symposium: Art as a learning Environment / Carl Montag Foundation / Bonn
2007/08
Project: Artists in school / Collaboration witht the Department of Cultural
Affairs, Düsseldorf / Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf
2006
Project: Artists in school / through the Cultural Department of Düsseldorf
2005
University Opole / Gymnasium Prudnik / Poland through the Carl Richard
Montag Foundation / Bonn
Since 2003
Workshops in Contemporary Dance at: Müegyetem, Budapest / Catìs, Istanbul
/ Kampnagel, Hamburg / Tanzfabrik, Berlin / Dock11, Berlin / Tuchfabrik, Trier /
High School, Staten Island,
USA
Prize
1994 Obwohl aber immer auch.... / 2. Prize: Tanzfestival Ruhr / NRW /
Choreography: Karen Boesser, Ulla Hillebrecht, Andrea Zwicker / Performed at:
Kölner Tanztagen, Witten / Werstatt e.V. Düsseldorf
Company work
Ballet for Young Audience / NYC, Urban Art Tribe Multimedia Performance /
NYC, Healing Theatre / Köln / Schauspielhaus Leipzig, Arma`Theatre / Israel,
tatraum projekte SchmidT / Düsseldorf, as well as with Howard Katz, Frey
Faust, Elaine Shipman, Felix Ruckert, Hans-Peter Jahn, Ormand Performance
und Dyane Neiman.
Choreography / Dance
2026 -INTERSECTION / Csomópontok
A production by Bößer & Szörényi, commissioned by Ludwig Museum
Budapest. Artistic Direction & Concept: Karen Bößer, Beatrix Szörényi
The project was presented at Ludwig Museum Budapest. Funded by
Monika Werhan-Mees Foundation Foundation for International Exchange
Funded and supported by Ludwig Museum Budapest
2024 Intersection / The Art of Identity
A production by karen-boesser-projects at the invitation of the School of Social
Sciences, Arts and Humanities (SSAH) at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane.
Idea-Concept / performance: Karen Bößer / Mixed Media / performance:
Beatrix Szörenyi / Music / performance: Isabell Eddouks Taurel / Project
management: Petra Prahl
The project was presented at the AUI and the Goethe-Institut Rabat, Morocco.
A production by karen-boesser-projects 2024 in collaboration with the visual
artist Beatrix Szörenyi and the musician Isabel Eddouks Taurel and 26 students
of AUI. The project was presented at the AUI and the Goethe-Institut Rabat,
Morocco. Supported by the Werhan-Mees Foundation for Cultural Co-
operation, the Al Akhawayn University, the Goethe Institute Rabat and the FFT
Düsseldorf
2023 S3NSE
A film by Karen Bößer & Dirk Dietrich Hennig / a karen-boesser-projects
production
Idea-Concept: Karen Bößer / performance: Karen Bößer & Misael Lopez /
music: Thomas Klein aka Sølyst / sound design: Dirk Dietrich Hennig / main
camera: Susanne Diesner / second camera: Karen Bößer / third camera: Camilo
Tupac Amaru Störmann / drone pilot: Roman Reinert / editing - film processing:
Dirk Dietrich Hennig / additional video material 1: archive Susanne Diesner /
additional video material 2: adobe Stock-Video / production management:
Jacqueline Friedrich / project management: Petra Prahl
Supported by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK - STEPPING OUT,
funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media
within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR. Hilfsprogramm Tanz
/ With kind support of FFT Düsseldorf, Kunst im Hafen e.V., Düsseldorf,
Künstlerverein Malkasten, Düsseldorf and Susanne Diesner, Photography for
Music and Art / we would like to thank Flora-Realschule, Düsseldorf.
Semi-finalist at the Serbest International Film Festival (SIFF) in Moldova / official
selection at the film festival Cinemod Debuts in Estonia and the European Art
Festival in Bucharest.
2022 „Under Moon“
Karen Bößer & Thomas Klein aka Sølyst / art director /dance: Karen Bößer /
music: Thomas Klein aka Sølyst / In co-production with Tonhalle, Düsseldorf
and in cooperation with Kabawil e.V. Düsseldorf
2021 D|S°DANCE film
Karen Bößer & Dirk Dietrich Hennig / art director / performance: Karen Bößer /
camera: Taneli Törmä / Neus Barcons Roca / Ingo Reulecke / Karen Bößer / film
score: Thomas Klein aka Sølyst / film editing: Dirk Dietrich Hennig / project
management: Petra Prahl and Jacqueline Friedrich public relation: Jacqueline
Friedrich / social media strategy: Laura Jil Beyer Graphik design / website:
UX/UI Design Jan B. Mwesigwa / selected for Best Fearture Film Heart of
Europe International Film Festival (HEI) Slovakei, Honorable Mention Tokio Film
Awards, Official Selection Stockholm City Film Festival
2020 The Other Reason - Exaltation. Trance. Ecstasy
An installative Performance by Bößer & Szörenyi art director, choreography,
performance: Karen Bößer / mixed-media, performance: Beatrix Szörényi /
dramaturgy: Lise Brenner / Music | performance: Thomas Klein / installation:
D.D.Hennig / Bößer & Szörenyi / management: Petra Prahl / project
management: Jacqueline Friedrich / documentation: Susanne Diesner /
produktion: karen-boesser-projects / Weltkunstzimmer, Düsseldorf
2018 Pieces of Manifesto
art director, choreography, performance: Karen Bößer / art director, mixed-
media performance: Beatrix Szörenyi / dramaturgy: Lise Brenner /
documentation: Susanne Diesner / project management: Anna Mareen Henke
/ management: Béla Bisom / co-production with Forum Freies Theater
Düsseldorf / in cooperation with Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg / Trafó House
of contemporary arts, Budapest / Goethe Intitut, Budapest / DIXON PLACE NYC
2017 BASICS*
art director, choreography, performance: Karen Bößer; Dance / performance:
Damian Gmür, Neus Barcons Roca / stagedesign: Dirk Dietrich Hennig /
soundcollage: Ansgar Tappert / light-architect: Hinrich Gross / costum, video
documentation: Beatrix Szörenyi / dramaturgy: Lise Brenner / production
manager: Karolin Henze / co-production with Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf
/ in collaboration with Maschinen haus in Essen and the Lehmbruckmuseum
,Duisburg.
2015 I kill-ill You
art director, choreography, performance: Karen Bößer, Dance / Performance:
Karen Bößer, Kyungwoo Kwon / soundcollage: Ansgar Tappert / stagedesign:
Dirk Dietrich Hennig / dramaturgy: Lise Brenner / production assistance:
Kathrin Spaniol / video documentation: Beatrix Szörenyi / co-production with
Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf / in collaboration with Maschinenhaus in
Essen and the Lehmbruckmuseum, Duisburg
2013/2014 Heimspiel
a coloboration work between Karen Bößer, Gudrun Lange, Kathrin Spaniol /
performer and dancer of the Freie Szene Düsseldorf / Cologne / co produced
by Made in Düsseldorf / Feuerwache Köln / tanzpunkt.köln
2013 InFormAtion
art director, choreography: Karen Bößer, dance: Maaike van de Westeringh,
Karen Boesser, visual art / stagedesign: Dirk Dietrich Hennig / music: Ansgar
Tappert / light-architect: Hinrich Gross / coach: Marie Goeminne / co-
production with Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf
2011 Home for Now
art director, choreography: Karen Bößer / dance: Karen Bößer, Marie
Goeminne / visual art: Dirk Dietrich Hennig / music: Ansgar Tappert, MadhaPPy
/ iT support: Jan Bashaijha Mwesigwa / coach: Caterina Pecchioli / art concept
in collaboration with Marie Goeminne/ co-production with Forum Freies
Theater, Düsseldorf
2010 Greetings from Hometown
dance: Karen Bößer, Marie Goeminne, music: Ansgar Tappert, Dansatelier
Rotterdam, Niederlande
2009 Raumfahrt-Coaching Reality
art director: Karen Boesser / dance: Karen Bößer / visual art: Dirk Dietrich
Hennig / music: Ansgar Tappert / light-architect: Gernot Schmiedberger /
coach: Michael Schmidt / artistic assistenz: Shinsaku Yuasa / co-production
with Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf
2008 Zzwweeii
art director: Karen Bößer / dance: Karen Bößer, Gudrun Lange / music: Ansgar
Tappert / coachs: Verena Billings, Michael Schmidt / visual art: Benjamin
Bohnsack / concept in collaboration with Gudrun Lange / co-production with
Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf
2006/2008 Gilgameschin
art director: Karen Bößer / dance: Karen Bößer, visual art: Lilla von Puttkamer,
Andre`Wenzel / musician: Eva Schampaert / artistic assistence: Shinsaku Yuasa
/ Ehrenhof Düsseldorf / Theatermuseum Düsseldorf / Feuerwache Köln /
Theater Garage Antwerpen / Performancefestival High-Fest, Yerevan, Armenien
2001/2008 Bildtanz
dance: Karen Bößer, visual art: Lilla von Puttkamer, Anetta Küchler-Mocny / in
collaboration with Lilla v Puttkamer, Anetta Küchler-Mocny
Düsseldorf (PLATZDA Festival) / Münster / Hooksiel / Budapest, Ungarn / (DAAD
- Preis), Prag / Tschechoslowakei
2002 Sociale Sculpture
dance: Karen Bößer, performance und skulptur, visual art: Franz Karl Boesser /
performance concept in collobration Franz Boesser / Festival European in
Balance, Polen / Ein Hod, Israel
1999/2001 Changing life by stepping through
art director: Karen Bößer / dance: Karen Bößer, musician: Karl Godejohann /
music editing: Tim Vohwinkel / Tanzhaus nrw, Düsseldorf / Art and Music
School Bielefeld / Moviemento, Tanz im Kino, Essen
2000 Performance Kongress
dance: Karen Bößer / Performance Congress at the Orangerie, Cologne
1998 Changing life by stepping on my feet
art director: Karen Bößer / dance: Karen Bößer / musician: Genieve Hayes /
Vision Festival NYC, Pentacel Studio New York City, New York, USA
1997 “-------”
art director: Karen Bößer / dance: Karen Bößer / musician: Perry Robinson /
Poet: Nestor, Rivka / Washington Square Church, New York City, New York, USA
1991/1996 Verleblichkeit, Eisbrüchigkeit
art director: Karen Bößer / dance: Karen Bößer / Outside Eye: Britta
Lieberknecht / Düsseldorf (die werkstatt e.V.) Köln / Witten / Neuss
1995/1996 Tan(t)z
dance: Karen Bößer, Chris Parker; Tan(t)z1, Tan(t)z2 / music composition: Tim
Vohwinkel / choreography in collobration with Chris Parker / Die Werkstatt e.
V., Düsseldorf / Alte Post, Neuss
1994 Music and Dance
dance: Karen Bößer, Musician: Yuko Fujiyama / Hoboken, New Jersey, USA
Press review / selection
Meike Hinnenberg - fidena.de
On stage, a non-verbal dialogue between Bößer and Szörényi slowly unfolds, in
which they examine each of the elements involved in the staging and question
each other’s working methods. In this way, the performance highlights, on the
one hand, the becoming spectator, the becoming costume, the becoming
audible, the becoming body, the becoming objects, the becoming stage, the
becoming creation, and so forth. It is the staging itself which is being exposed.
On the other hand, in a curious exploration and examination of the other’s
working method, it becomes apparent that this act of showing occurs in
multiple ways and can take various shapes. This radical disclosure becomes
itself a possibly not verbal, but artistically formulated manifesto: about the
agenda of the own work, about the demand to not only make something
visible, but about
expoing the act of showing itself, which in the moment in which something is
being shown, usually remains hidden.
www.fidena.de
Michael S. Zerban - O-Ton / online cultural magazin
Many things have been written about developing new work. Bößer and
Szörényi have succeeded in creating one of the better descriptions ? without
words, and full of artistic invention.
WDR3 Mosaik, Nicole Strecker
(...) BASICS*, a typical piece from Bößer, who in all her choreographies
sensitizes the awarness so much, so that the reality appears only as a fragil
construct. Atmospheric strong performances (...)
Biograph 1/17
(...) an insightful dance performance, that takes the audience in to a world full
of possibillities of associations.
Rheinische Post / April 11,2013 / by Reneè Wieder / FFT invites to a
charming Play
If you show fifty people exactly the same, they will see fifty fundamentally
different things. At the FFT the Düsseldorf dancer and choreographer Karen
Boesser wants to tell us something about the individual's perception during
this evening. Consequently, the audience at the premiere of her
interdisciplinary dance piece "InFormAtion" is divided into two spaces at the
FFT. This is inventive. Every guest receives a slip of paper in their hand, blue or
red. Shortly after, everyone finds themselves with the assigned "colour group"
in the designated space and a wide plastic curtain separates the two parties
from one another. Karen Boesser and Maaike van de Westeringh dominate the
stage with ease, everyone in their own half of the stage. On a broad tapestry of
sound, from throbbing acoustic stimuli to guttural clarinet tones and deafening
drum rhythms, the dancer sway in a trance or march around like remote
controlled toy soldiers. For a long time, one just sees only one dancer directly
in front, the other - captured by a wonderful evocative lighting design - only as
an outline on the plastic curtain. Both dancers seem to be fixated on the
contours of the adverse curtain phantom, full of curiosity to explore the
shadows behind the veil. Timidly they work them selves across the holes in the
curtain, then switch sides and seek one another. Finally, they break through for
a final duet, half romance, half trial of strength. Boesser points out the limits of
our perception and the then emerging loneliness, our longing for contact and
how easily impressions can be manipulated. Powerful and elegant analysed
Boesser in her fourth FFT-production the thesis that reality looks different for
everyone. But her piece is one thing above all: a feast for the senses.
title blog Sun, April 28, 2013 / by Verena Meis / www.titelblog.de (german)
/ (Com-) municated Information
Atmosphere: refrigerated warehouse. A diffuse background noise. The media
channels seem to crack: Is there such a technical fault, Mr. Tappert (sound
Ansgar Tappert)? A sterile curtain of white slats divides the stage and the
audience in two parts (stage design: Dirk Dietrich Hennig). In addition to the
perceived acoustic "disruptive" noise - information envy is spreading. Will I be
deprived of important messages? Is the view behind the curtain intentionally
denied? According to the motto: Shared information suffering is half
information suffering? This is unthinkable in today's information society.
Where is the information overload? In front of the curtain a female body is
forming from the dark, which sends vague twitched impulses outward, as if
she is infected with the media noise. Who is acting on behalf of whom? Formed
information, but which one? Behind every gesture, every ray of light, every
shadow and every noise seems to hide an encrypted message that eagerly is
waiting to be decoded. Or is it not?
Those who search for THE information, THAT objective message will be
disappointed during "InFormAtion" - an interdisciplinary experimental
arrangement of dance, music and light art by Düsseldorf choreographer Karen
Boesser: together with the dancer Maaike van de Westeringh, Boesser tarred
at the FFT (Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf) the relationship of sender and
receiver new. Principle: Whispered information (“Chinese whispers”).
Misunderstandings seem inevitable. But be careful! Boesser and van de
Westeringh plead with 'information' but straight for polyphony. The individual
reception receives its legitimacy right here. Caution! The following objections
are purely of a subjective character: Although the solo resembles from time to
time a wrestling match with itself, the shadow reveals itself as a bird of
paradise courtship dance. Matches the pas de deux almost a physical duel, it
can also shadow twosome harmony instead of discord guess. If one also gives
the (background-) noise its attention, it takes shape: we hear a neon lamp
buzzing, there is the sound of haunting drops on a water tap or the reading of
a hypertext.
Until the following audience discussion, it becomes clear that no one other
than the media philosopher Vilém Flusser reads the HTML text interspersed
and that his Kommunikologie plays no small role in "InFormAtion" - a lack of
information that would have facilitated the flow of information in the FFT.
Theatre discourses are, according to Flusser, "to make the recipients of
distributed information responsible for this information and mold them into
future broadcasters." But not, if the information that is to be sent, should be
an objective ... Do not worry, at the FFT it is not the case! Karen Boesser’s
message is: Expose the appearance of the objectives! Confess yourself to your
subjective perception! Take responsibility for information that is sent or
received!
Rheinische Post / 29.04.2011 / Von Melanie Suchy
Aside in a waiting position Karen Boesser and Marie Goeminne lift off a key
ring and a glass up and down and sideways. Their short dance show with big
arm swings is the cheerful greeting. Home for Now of the Düsseldorf
choreographer Karen Boesser is devoted to feel at home, or more precisely the
place that is a temporary home. A very current subject in times of flexible
working life .. A duet between proximity and distance. Now table and
spectators are cleared to the side and a dance appears again: a duet that
evolves from proxinity to distance. First the dancers lean towards each other
as if together the would shape a tent. They support each other on their
shoulder, legs and back, rest like laying in bed on the floor and rolling over
each other. One lifts up the other in the air. Then they face each other, like a
mirror and move with eye contact. Eventually they dissolve and first walk
together and then separate ways. This is a bautiful half-hour about a
relationship towards a room or to a person.
An exciting recent experimental dance theater pieces celebrated its
premiere in Düsseldorf FFT. / Von Björn Nussbächer / 30.04.2011
HOME FOR NOW choreographed and performed by Karen Boesser and Marie
Goeminne did not only surprised by its directness, but also turns out to be
subtle as well as an intellectual and sophisticated multi-media dance
experience. Even at the beginning of the piece, the audience is deprived of
their familar approach and immediately after entering the room the audience
finds itselft to be part of a scene. Postum an interactive situation arises, where
the audience has to decide to be an active or a passive participator in Home. In
a very experimental stage setting, the audience is encouraged to bring
homemade food to the table and to seek the conversation with the performer
and spectators to relax and to observe the scenaries. Suddenly, a live Skype
broadcast to Florida takes place. An artist family on the other side appears.
MadHappy talks about personal things, of love and madness and sings and
plays the accordion. At the same time boths performers Karen Boesser and
Marie Goeminne moderated and commented this when slowly silence arises
and the two dance a wonderfully poetic and physically-demanding
performance. The end of the play approaches and take s place metaphorically
in a garden. Home for Now is playfull in its combination of dance, video art,
multimedia and interactive with the audience. This may seem disturbing, can
displace people in order to bring them back together and to end up to
question oneself: What does it mean to be at home or to have a homeland? It
is exciting to see that the multimedia communication revolution and a
disorientation of homefeelings has arrived for the most parts in the physicall
dance scene. The question of perception that a more and more expanded
multimedia-networked world can mean a more and more fragmented world
and how we will react as human beings will keep me at breath more often
nowdays.
From the depths of space / Thomas Hag / Karen Boesser shifts with her
dance project Coaching Reality at FFt, Juta space and perspectives.
Space travel may be quite literally taken by the new piece of the Düsseldorf
dancer and choreographer Karen Boesser. Because it uses the entire surface
of the Juta, the audience is first on benches that are standing on the stage. The
performer even acts as a video projection in the fog only to appear later on as
a real person in the top ranks. However, what is real here anyway? She uses
the emptied ranks for the installation: blue light and cord separating the space
to reinforce the illusion. She explored with circular hip movements
accompanied by the scraping, abrasive electronic music by Ansgar Tappert. She
uses a small stage in front of the stage as playing surface and drooping her
upper body into a new shape creating a two-dimensional surface. Shortly
thereafter, she circles around the benches and looks into the eyes of the
audience. The audience becomes part of the production and a group of people
is immersed in the bright light and must feel observed. Again and again the
relations are shifted, when Boesser is lying on the floor and black surfaces
slide over her body and when finally letter seem to flow from her head. (...) The
last part of the 50-minute piece is turning into a satire, where the artist in the
role of the therapist requests the audience to meditate.
Space Coaching Reality / Boris Hovrath
The interdisciplinary dance theater production unite the artistic position of the
Düsseldorf choreographer and dancer Karen Boesser with the musical collages
of the Berlin sound artist Ansgar Tappert, and the video projections of the
artist Dirk Dietrich Hennig from Hanover. In the conglomerate of different
disciplines blends the expression of dance, performance and art as well as the
perception of illusion and reality. In a subtile way Boesser questioned in her
production, the roles of the production, the determination of the stage and the
auditorium, the actor and the audience. (...) With the help of dramatic
interruption such as the sudden gleam of the entire theatre space in working
lights and the changes in perspective through reflections of the dancer with
video projections, Raumfahrt- Coaching Reality manages to question the
viewing and listening habits again and again. At the end of the play, Karen
Boesser is challenges the audience with a test by leaving the space available to
audience and prepares at the same time her exit. She invited the audience to
trigger a challenge of timelessness to every visitor only for themselves.
Body of threads: Dance in the FFT / Rheinische Post, 20.02.2010 /
Stephanie Becker
The room is dark. Fog appears. Dripping water noises are heard. Through the
haze suddenly a woman appears. She looks with wide-eyed, amazed in the
room, turns slowly around in her axis. Only gradually the viewer recognize that
it is not a real person, but a projection. The real woman appears a short time
later at another location. So begins series - Reality Coaching in the FFT Juta. A
danceproject of the performer Karen Bösser, the visual artist Dirk Dietrich
Hennig and the sound artist Ansgar Tappert. The theme is the exploration of
reality, space and time. The audience sits on stage in the Juta, and the solo
dancer (Karen Boesser herself) is dancing. In a spider web hanging system ,
Bösser is eager to explore with slow movements the space between the
threads. She looks like a creature from another world. Slowly, she comes down
to the groundfloor. She uses only the upper part of her body to hang over the
stage edge in the spot of a headlight. A sound gently float through the room.
This music is mysterious and spherical, the dance sometimes strange, realized
in the game with reality and virtuality of the moment, from the beginning of
the performance. Beautiful is the scene where Bösser is dancing on the floor
playing with projected light forms. (...) It would have been a desire to see more
of the game with reality and illusion, more of the strange movements
appearing and more of this atmospheric sounds.
Toy cars at the end / Kölner Stadtanzeiger / 27.10.2008
Forum Freies Theatre in Düsseldorf attracts dance enthusiastic spectators with
the Performance zzweeii. Gudrun Lange and Karen Bösser give a dance
between entertainment and abstraction. (…) Karen Bösser sits in the shadow.
She will win in her solo the audience entirely different for her favour. It will be
in much darker, mysterious ways - with an astronaut-term floating dance,
where in the gentle touch it overturns in Brutalism. In one of her climax Bösser
mutated to a wild arm swinging, spiting machine - threatening to anyone who
is sitting close to her stage frame. One entices with dance entertainment, the
other threatened with abstraction, but they are both ironical skilled. zzwweeii
is a performance of two very different artists. It is a duo of two solos, which
evolved in an over 50-minute Performance. What Lange / Bösser unites, is the
question how voyeurism in the basic constellation performer / viewer repeal,
and how the danger of artist victim can be avoided (…)
Whole room will be screen / Friesland Post 02.05.2008
The dancer Bösser presents the astonished art lovers a performance on a 40
square meters large existing image. With her movements she continues
drawing the lines of the art work. It is an inspiring motion blur between the
artist and the artwork. The image modified and is re-created also in the
conciseness eye of the many art viewers. The dancing action transformed the
changes into a new supplement and became a memory train of impression.
Finally, there was plenty of applause for this most unique dance performance
in the Artisthaus.
Neue-Westfälische 05.02.08
(...) A human occurs in life, carefully consider scrutinizing, and leans angry
against sealed (life-) doors, and finally makes the best of it (...)
Europa in Balance / Tygodnik Prudniki, Poland, 19.06.2002
As a completion to the official Inauguration of the sculpture Europa in Balance
there was a happening performed by Franz Boesser and … his daughter Karen.
This spontaneous wonderful dancing, shaped through art and expressions
made visible that the avant-garde of European art was present in Prudnik for a
few minutes. Somebody had to come over from Germany to build the symbolic
European house, a house of a Europe which is connecting people. (Transl./
orig. Polish by Mrs. Urbach-Mokrska)
Changing Life by Stepping Through / Rheinische Post, 27.01.2001
On the contrary to many other organizers the Tanzhaus Düsseldorf is not fixed
to its own company but is serving as a meeting point to different positions.
Also under these premises the performance Dance Tank I came across as a
successful debut. … Karen Boesser’s introverted solo Changing Life by Stepping
Through was following as a heavy contrast after that. Boesser confines herself
to the body and to pure choreography, finds unique expressions for violation
and underwent memories by embodying animals through her dance. Alienated
organically, oppressive even with its humor, her metamorphosis into a bird
means an escape from the past and the personification of pain through the cry
of an animal.
Neue-Westfälische / 17.03.2001
In her performance Changing Life by Stepping Through Karen Boesser was
dancing steps of her life to the sound of a rain man, the music of a gong and
the rhythm of drummer Karl Godejohann. Memories are forcing on the dancer,
is becoming part of her. She is like a bird, even transforming into one, into a
shrieking craw, a seagull, and then into a peacock. High lights of dance scenes
followed, full of life vibrations, falling down from heaven, and stumbling on the
ground - until the memory is striking the present and the final sound of the
bird is fading away.
Lived it up / Westdeutsche Zeitung, 24.10.1995
… the big surprise of the evening was Karen Boesser: Her dance show caught
the breath of the audience. After she performed a modern and lively Pas de
Deux (Putney Dust) which she danced with Chris Parker exceedingly straight in
techno-style, the second half of the evening was assigned to herself. Scarcely
has been seen in Neuss such a versatile dance talent. First she squats into an
angle with the bearing of an embryo and plunges her heated cheeks in an ice
bowl, then she is pushily dancing against the walls and crawling weakly over
the ground. She skilfully slips down the banister and keeps track of the
possibilities left by the crooked shape of the dance floor. Her passion for
dancing was remarkable in every movement of the performance. After Chris
Parker presented her choreography Tan(t)z, in improvisation both dancers put
their sparkling fantasy of dancing into reality. They are dancing sometimes
together sometimes against each other and they more than once move along
the limits of their power. This was an intense finish of an extraordinary evening
which should be repeated anyway.
Biographie
Karen Bößer lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany
Since early childhood, Karen Bößer has been closely connected to dance
and visual art. She created her first solo pieces at a young age and
gained experience in theatre, dance and interdisciplinary performance
contexts. After completing her dance training in New York, she returned
to Germany and began developing her own choreographic and
performative projects.
Since 2009, she has been working under the label karen-boesser-
projects, through which numerous productions have been developed,
produced and presented at the intersection of choreography,
performance, film and visual art. Many of these works were created at
FFT Düsseldorf and subsequently presented nationally and
internationally.
Her current artistic practice continues to evolve across choreography,
performance, film and installation-based formats, with a focus on the
relationship between body, space and perception.
A artistic collaborator is visual artist Dirk Dietrich Hennig, who designs
and builds set designs for various productions. Since 2021, they have
also been developing film projects together.
Since 2016, Karen Bößer has collaborated with mixed-media artist
Beatrix Szörényi. Together, Bößer & Szörényi develop research-based
works, installations and performance projects that interweave visual art,
mixed media, spatial installation and performative formats.