ABOUT ME

KAREN PALAFOX

Karen Palafox is a dancer, producer, and movement researcher dedicated to Somatic Education, Contact Improvisation, and Evolutionary Aquatic Movement.

Her research explores somatic landscapes through developmental movement patterns, vestibular awareness, and the body’s systems of orientation. She is interested in how these shape perception, adaptation, and our capacity for relationship across both terrestrial and aquatic environments.

She has danced throughout her life and, for more than 15 years, has formally deepened her studies in movement pedagogies, improvisation, and somatic practices.

In 2011, she completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Dance at UDLAP. She subsequently began her training in Somatic Movement Education and Therapy with Body-Mind Movement® in Mexico and Brazil, becoming a certified Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist. In 2016, she participated in the immersive P.O.R.C.H. Program in Improvisation and Somatics at Ponderosa, Germany. These experiences deeply nourished her practice and opened pathways into various somatic approaches, including Body-Mind Centering®, Body-Mind Movement®, Skinner Releasing Technique©, Axis Syllabus©, Feldenkrais©, and Alexander Technique.

Since 2017, she has researched, practiced, and shared Human Developmental Movement Patterns from an aquatic perspective, primarily in group settings. Over time, her curiosity expanded into one-to-one work, leading her to become a Certified Janzu® Aquatic Therapy Facilitator (Levels I and II) through Casa de las Artes Acuáticas México. She is currently deepening her studies in AquaSoma®, in dialogue with its Valencia, Spain, center.

Her practice is deeply rooted in improvisation and Contact Improvisation, through which she understands the soma as a living territory. Through shared weight, touch, and deep listening, she investigates how movement and contact open sensorimotor pathways that cultivate relational ecosystems and more embodied forms of presence.

Contact Improvisation is a practice that is predominantly developed in silence, which is particularly interesting within her trajectory, as she has been deeply connected to musicality through dance since childhood—from classical ballet, hip hop, and flamenco to African dance, which she currently practices alongside percussion. While her central practice unfolds in silence, her relationship with music remains an important part of her embodied experience. This apparent duality has led her to investigate the relationship between the vestibular and auditory systems within Contact Improvisation, developing collaborations that form part of her research into CI pedagogy. She currently collaborates with sound artist Daniel More on Crystalline Intelligence, a dialogue between gravity, sound, and movement.

She has been part of the co-direction of Performática: Festival de Danza Contemporánea y Artes del Movimiento, founded by Ray Schwartz; co-created Encuerpar, Festival de Movimiento Somático; and co-produced Contact and Flow across multiple editions.

Since 2011, she has taught, organized, and collaborated in gatherings, festivals, workshops, and artistic projects throughout Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Argentina, New Zealand, the United States, Colombia, and Ecuador, supporting communities engaged in somatic practice, improvisation, and embodied research.

Throughout her career, she has also collaborated on numerous stage and audiovisual projects, including Performática, Arcdanz, and especially Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, where she was part of the video documentation team at the historic Ted Shawn Theatre, working with international companies including Mark Morris Dance Group, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Dorrance Dance, The Hong Kong Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Companhia Urbana de Dança, and LeeSaar The Company, among others, as well as collaborating on special productions with dancers from New York City Ballet.

Her artistic and pedagogical journey has led her to build a life and practice across different territories, languages, and communities. She currently communicates and teaches in Spanish, English, Portuguese, and French, continuing an investigation that understands movement as a living process of orientation, adaptation, relationship, and encounter.

ABOUT MY WORK
My practice is deeply informed by the work of Body-Mind Movement/Centering®. During my time at the school, I developed a strong interest in the study of the Basic Neurological Patterns (BNP), developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and Mark Taylor. Since then, I have been dedicated to exploring these patterns both on land and in water, sharing how these roots of movement reveal forms of consciousness, relationship, and transformation within us.

At the center of my work lies a profound interest in sharing the wisdom of the human movement universe, with the intention of awakening an amphibious understanding of our evolution and of life in motion. My approach seeks to cultivate an embodied understanding of the mind–body connection, inviting each person to immerse themselves in the richness of their somatic landscapes as membranes of lived experience, where every movement reveals itself as a manifestation of embodied consciousness, both in terrestrial and aquatic environments.

IN THE WATER
I work in two distinct ways: with groups and through individual sessions.

In group settings, drawing from the research on the Basic Neurological Patterns, I propose a process of movement re-patterning—a fertile field for self-knowledge and the sensitization of bodily systems, connected to the embodiment of our amphibious origins. This work is based on the recognition of our earliest movement patterns, also known as Oceanic Patterns. Here, we explore our primitive expressions of movement and consciousness that emerge from conception through the earliest embryonic stages. Each pattern is understood and inhabited as an organic state of movement—a living manifestation of cellular, energetic, and relational processes that shape our original somatic experience.

In individual sessions, I offer Aquatic Massage, creating space for the co-regulation of the nervous system and the reorganization of our bodily systems, thus generating a safe container to experience the benefits of water. The work I offer is a blend of my own research, supported by tools from the schools where I have been certified as an aquatic facilitator: Janzu® and AquaSoma®.

ON LAND
On land, my research is strengthened through the practice of Contact Improvisation, where I explore states of presence and attune to the nuances of sensation, perception, and proprioception. For me, this practice is a profound relational tool that opens pathways to understand how our bodies communicate, adapt, regulate, and create meaning in relation with others. In this way, Contact Improvisation becomes a bridge to expand my somatic research, discovering new ways of translating sensory information into efficient motor impulses, fostering fluid, creative, and joyful movement.

AMPHIBIOUS AND SOMATIC CONSCIOUSNESS
My focus is to cultivate an embodied understanding of the mind-body connection in movement, inviting each person to immerse themselves in the richness of their somatic landscapes as membranes of lived experience. In this way, I remember that each movement is revealed as a manifestation of embodied consciousness, both in terrestrial and aquatic environments.