Dancer, choreographer. Karen Jamieson was born in Vancouver on July 10, 1946. She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia in philosophy and anthropology. She then studied dance at Simon Fraser University and in New York with a variety of modern dancers, notably, Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, and Alwin Nikolais. In addition, she performed in Nikolais’ company and with choreographers Yvonne Rainer and Phyllis Lamhut. In 1974, Jamieson returned to Vancouver to teach at Simon Fraser University. The following year she was one of the founding members of Terminal City Dance, an experimental movement collective. Jamieson won Canada’s major dance prize, the Jean A. Chambers choreographic award, in 1980. She has toured nationally and internationally with the Karen Jamieson Dance Company, established in 1980. The Company is primarily a vehicle for Jamieson’s choreography, which seeks to explore mythological concerns—often aligned with the traditional beliefs of the peoples of the Northwest Coast—in a new choreographic language. Jamieson lives and works in Vancouver.
Discrete project sites documenting the work of specific artists and collectives in detail.
Essays and conversation providing a context for exploring the Project Sites and Archives.
Video interviews conducted between December 2008 and May 2009 reflecting on Vancouver’s art scene in the sixties.