Karen Schaffman   Karen Schaffman is a choreographer, writer, and life-long dancer. Her research is concerned with sensorial perception, memory, and the politics of transgression. Karen is interested in witnessing bodies, both everyday and spectacular, in curious states of investigation. She presses paradox and the agency of vulnerability as means to disrupt cultural norms of performativity.   Karen earned her Ph.D. in Dance History and Theory from University of California, Riverside with her research focused on contact improvisation and identity politics. Her writing has appeared Taken by Surprise: An Improvisation Reader (Wesleyan Press) and Contact Quarterly. Karen is also a graduate of the European Dance Development Center, where she engaged with leaders in the field of experimental dance and improvisation. She studied intensively with Eva Karczag, Nina Martin, Lisa Nelson, Nancy Stark Smith, among others. Currently, she is Associate Professor of Dance at California State University San Marcos and travels internationally to work at festivals and schools.   Upon moving to San Diego in September 1994, Karen co founded Lower Left, and subsequently launched a number of programs including Process Works, Zero-2-One, and later The Satellite Project. Among her most memorable performance moments with Lower Left: co-creating the "epic" carnivalesque Horns Wings Tales, raging as Monster Grrl, protesting the Iraq War as Bush meets Sadaam (Wass) in Mars, tumble-weeding as "trash" in My Hands are Dirty, "being seen" with Deborah Hay, filming in the desert with BodyCartography, and numerous magical moments dancing in Available Space improvisation concerts.   A devoted collaborator, Karen currently contributes to the collective efforts of Downstream Media, SomeBodiesMovingCompany and the European-based Veronika Blumstein Group. Her recent collaboration with media artist Kristine Diekman is a multi-disciplinary installation piece, United & Severed: That Window of Time, which illuminates the kinesthetic and sensorial experiences of people living with traumatic physical injury.