Artist Profile- Katy Schonbeck Artist Profile- Katy Schonbeck

Katy has been a dancer, choreographer and public school math teacher for over 20 years. In her work as a performance artist she has performed both original solo pieces and collaborative works in a variety of venues in the States and in Europe. She studied with and has been most influenced by the works of choreographers, Dana Reitz and Lisa Nelson and performance artists, Eiko and Koma.


Center Photo, Katy performing at Southern Vermont College, Left: with Jared Shapiro, the Alhambra, Spain, Right: at Gateway Arch, St Louis, MO.(Alhambra photo by Alexandra Eckhardt, all others by John Carlson)

Katy holds a BA in Mathematics and Dance from Bennington College. Her interest in exploring architecture through movement and film has its roots in a project she completed in 1999 with cellist, Jared Shapiro and visual artist, Alexandra Eckhardt. They created a series of short site works in Granada, Spain. Most of the locations were in and around the Alhambra grounds. There they were struck by the human sense of scale embodied in these magnificent palaces (very different from the overwhelming grandeur of the great European cathedrals). Katy found herself, “ ‘seeing’ with my body as much as with my eyes. Since then I have, developed this ‘body as kinesthetic camera’ approach to understanding places and the range of human experiences of those places.” Katy has created site works for outdoor arts festivals, for private gardens and is experimenting with ways to ‘translate’ these experiences into works for the black box theater.
In addition to creating new movement works, she is producing, along with her husband, filmmaker/photographer, John Carlson, experimental documentary films including, "The Movement in Architecture Series" and "Being Wayne Adams". She also leads workshops in “Exploring Emergent Uses for the Creative Process”, for high school, undergraduate and graduate level students.

Katy can be reached at: ktscho@gmail.com