DR. KAREN
PEARLMAN
Head of Screen Studies
Dr Karen Pearlman, is the author of Cutting Rhythms, a
breakthrough work in the integration of theory and practice which
describes: what rhythm is, how it's shaped and what it is for; and
provides practical exercises for enhancing rhythmic creativity.
Cutting Rhythms will be published in 2009 by Focal Press, the
world's leading publisher on film and screen media.
Karen Pearlman is the co-director of the multi-award winning
Physical TV Company, which specialises in stories told by the body.
Through Physical TV she has produced or directed seven highly
acclaimed and
widely screened shorts, a project for mobile phones and the short
feature Thursday's Fictions (ABC-TV) which was recently
reincarnated as a virtual world in Second Life with the support of
AFTRS/LAMP. (See www.physicaltv.com.au and
www.thursdaysfictions.com) Karen is currently working on a new form
'choreographed documentary' Doesn't Fit in a Box which,
for her, is another mix of theory and practice, combining new ideas
about form with years of experience in making dance on screen.
Karen's publications include her work as co-editor of
Performing the Unnameable; An Anthology of Australian
Performance Texts (Currency Press, 1999) and she has published
essays and articles in Metro, RealTime, The Journal of Performance
Studies and other anthologies, conferences proceedings and
journals.
Karen's other careers include professional editor and
professional dancer - performing on the Opera House stages of the
world and directing two dance companies.
Doctorate of Creative Arts, UTS
MA Media Arts and Production, UTS
MA Editing, AFTRS
BFA NYU Tisch School of the Arts
Co-Director (with Richard James Allen) of The Physical TV
Company
Casual Lecturer University of Technology, Sydney, and Sydney
College of the Arts
Freelance Editor on documentary, drama and dance films
Co- Artistic Director of Tasdance
Co- Artistic Director of That Was Fast
Dancer: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company
Australian Screen Editors Guild - steering committee
Ausdance, NSW
AIMIAA
Awards
- Winner, ATOM Award for Best Experimental Film, General
Category
- Winner, Gold Medal for Excellence - Director's Choice Award for
Artistic Excellence in a Feature Film at the Park City Film Music
Festival, Utah
- Finalist Australian Screen Editors award for Best Editing
- Winner, Best Experimental Film, 2002 Atom Awards For Film,
Television, Radio & Multimedia.
- Winner, Gold Medal for Excellence: Audience Favorite in Short
Films,
- 2004 Park City Music Festival, Utah
- Shortlisted for ReelDance Awards 2002.
- Winner, People's Choice Award, 2002 Australian Poetry
Festival.
- Winner, Best Editing Award, 2004 Fearless Film Festival
Recent Grants:
- Literature Board of the Australia Council grant to build
Thursday's Fictions in Second Life
- Critical path Research Grant for production of Doesn't Fit in a
Box
- Critical path Research Grant for development of ideas about
movement and the moving image
- Australian Post Graduate Award with Stipend for PhD
- Grants for live and dancescreen works, and travel for
marketing, research and conferences over the years from NSW
Ministry for the Arts, NSW Film and Television Office, Australia
Council for the Arts, Australian Film Commission.
Books:
- Pearlman, Karen; Cutting Rhythms, Shaping
the Film Edit, Focal Press, Boston, MA (Forthcoming in
2009)
- Pearlman, Karen and Richard James
Allen; Performing The Unnamable, An Anthology of
Australian Performance Co Editor, Currency Press and RealTime,
1999
- Pearlman Karen; New Life on the 2nd Floor (dance
theory for secondary school educators) Tasdance, 1996
Essays
- Pearlman, Karen; Editing Rhythms: Event
Rhythm, Physical Rhythm and Emotional Rhythm, series of three
articles for the Dance Film Association Journal, September/October
2005, November/December 2005, March/April 2006
- Pearlman, Karen; The Rhythm of
Thinking, Metro, 2004
- Pearlman, Karen; Learning to Read the
Physical Mind, Body Show/s: Australian Viewings of Live
Performance, edited by Peta Tait (Rodopi), 2001
- Pearlman, Karen and Allen, Richard James;
Rethinking a Lifetime, Repenser les processus createurs /
Rethinking Creative Processes, edited by Françoise Grauby and
Michelle Royer (Peter Lang),2001
- Pearlman, Karen; Dance Travels,
Performance Research Journal, 1999
- Pearlman, Karen; Text and Dance, Five
Bells magazine, 1996
- Pearlman, Karen; Examining the Evidence, The
Air Dolphin Brigade, Paper Bark Press,1995
- Pearlman, Karen; Co-Artistic Director's
Statement, What To Name Your Baby, Paper Bark Press,
1995
Articles
- Pearlman, Karen; A Dance of
Definitions - review of Screendance: The State of the Art
Conference at the Duke University, North Carolina 2006 American
Dance Festival, Real Time, 2006
- Pearlman, Karen; Dance Cinema/Cinematic
Dance, a survey of the 2006 ReelDance Finalists, Real Time,
2006
- Pearlman, Karen; The Courage to go Cross
Media, Real Time, 2006
- Pearlman, Karen; Rise of the Workshop
Class, a survey of post-graduate degrees in film, Real
Time, 2005
- Pearlman, Karen; Work/Place, a review of
the Un-Cordinated show at Omeo Studios,Real Time, 2005
- Pearlman, Karen; Life After Death,
review of Reeldance Real Time, 2004
- Pearlman, Karen; Digital
Disturbances, screen projections in the Sydney Dance
Company production of Underland, Real Time 2005,
- Pearlman, Karen; Reel Dance, a critical
analysis of the 2002 ReelDance Film and Video festival, Real
Time
- Pearlman, Karen; Urban Clan on TV, a
feature/interview with director Michelle Mahrer about her
documentary film on Bangarra, Real Time
- Pearlman, Karen; Clark Kent of Kinetic
Intelligence - Ross Stretton, Artistic Director of The
Australian Ballet, Real Time
- Pearlman, Karen; Post-Pissed Off, a
feature/interview with New York choreographer Stephen
Petronio, Real Time
- Pearlman, Karen; Virtual Dancing, a survey
of the Green Mill Dance Festival, Real Time
- Pearlman, Karen; Real Bebe, a
feature/interview with Bebe Miller, visiting New York
choreographer, Real Time
- Pearlman, Karen; Re: Cycles, a
feature/survey on current trends in dance in New York, Real
Time
Selected Conference Papers and
Presentations:
- Setting the Frame Critical Path forum on dance film,
2008
- World of Women Film Festival - panel chair on funding
and collaboration, 2008
- d-vis, Design Cinema Conference Paper, with
AFTRS Head of Design, Jon Rohde, 2008
- Pathways for Filmmakers into new Digital Media, Panelist,
Women on Women Film Festival, 2007
- Reincarnations of Thursday's Fictions, Melbourne
Writers Festival, 2007
- Introduction to Pudovkin's Storm over Asia, Silent
Film Festival, 2007
- Editing Dancers Panel New York Dance on Camera Festival,
2007
- Editing as a form of Choreography, paper for
Screendance: The State of the Art Conference at the American Dance
Festival, Duke University, North Carolina, 2006
- The Physical TV Company: Dance on Screen, an
introduction to the art of screendance through a thematic
retrospective screening of the works of The Physical TV Company,
Bates Dance Festival, Bates College, Maine,2006
- The Physical TV Company: Retrospective Screening Performing
Arts in the Screen Exhibition, Arts Wonderland - Festival in the
Square, Taipei Arts International Association (two day
retrospective) 2005
- Presentations of excerpts and ideas from DCA Thesis at
Postgraduate Student Conferences at UTS,2003-04
- Dance, Corporeality, The Body And Performance Practices
Symposium, UNSW
- Cinemoves, A Forum for the Exhibition of Dance and
Movement on Film, Sydney Dance Company
- NDS Actors, Noosa
- Short Sited Film Festival - Film Illawarra, Wollongong
- OzDox panel moderator and convenor of a discussion with editors
about structure and rhythm
- e.motion - Co-Creater of a pitch at the Forum for
Audio Visual Co-Productions, IMZ Dance Screen/Monico Dance Forum,
in Monte Carlo, 2002
- Editing for Drama and Dance Film, a paper on editing technique
in narrative drama contrasted with editing in dance films, for the
ReelDance Workshop Seminar Series, UNSW, 2001
- Miss Torso Looks Back, a performed lecture with dance,
video, music, set, costume and sound design devised for the
Performing Hitch Conference at Performance Space, 2000
- The Physical TV Series - Co-Creater of a pitch at the
International Marketplace Simulation, IMZ Dance Screen/Monaco Dance
Forum, in Monte Carlo, 2000
- The Word Is…, the 1999 Australian Poetry Festival for
the Poets Union Inc. Co-Conceiver of the first major national
festival of Australian Poetry: an overview of contemporary
Australian poetic practice, included readings, performances,
screenings, book launches, competitions, coaching booths, held at
the Balmain Town Hall, with the assistance of the Australia Council
for the Arts and the NSW Ministry for the Arts, 1999
- The Relic and Rethinking a Lifetime - Co-Author of a
performance and pape concerning the cycle of creativity presented
at the Rethinking Creative Processes Conference, organised by The
University of New South Wales and The University of Sydney and
presented at The University of Sydney, 1999
- Performance Creates Platforms for New Kinds of Writing -
Co-Presenter of a forum/panel discussion based on Performing the
Unnameable: An Anthology of Australian Performance Texts at the 3rd
National Performance Conference in Sydney, 1999
- Reading Dance, a paper for NaDIE Conference,
Launceston, Tasmania, 1996
- Co-Conceiver, and Co-Director and Curator of the first and
second Tasmanian Poetry and Dance Festivals, 1995 and 1996
- Dance on Screen - Co-Author of a paper, with video
examples, delivered at the Microdance Stage 1 Forum in Tasmania,
1995
- The Future Of Tasdance - Co-Author of a paper, with
video examples, on new ways forward for contemporary dance
presented at the University Forum Series, University of Tasmania,
Launceston, 1995
- Blue Cities - A work for performance, created and
performed with Richard James Allen, adapted for presentation at the
American Association of Australian Literary Studies Conference at
Vassar College at the invitation of Professor of Australian
Literature, Paul Kane, 1994
- Co-Author and Researcher of special report for the
International Theatre Institute and the Australia Council:
Waking Up In The American Dream: A Report On The
Performing Arts Presenters Conference, NYC, And Guide To U.S.
Markets For Australian Performing Arts , 1994
Doesn't Fit in a Box - documentary- director,
editor
Thursday's Fictions in Second Life - dramaturge and
producer
Island, Home Country - documentary - editor
Thursday's Fictions - short feature - producer,
editor
No Surrender - dancefilm - producer, editor
Down Time Jaz - animated dancefilm - director, editor,
animator
Rubberman Accepts the Nobel Prize - comic book hero
dancefilm - director
Together - dance-drama co-executive
producer, script editor
What I did on my Nervous Breakdown - poetry dancefilm -
director, editor
What is Video Dance - documentary-Producer,
Co-Director, Editor
