Indigenous Artist

Karen Pheasant is an experienced professional performing artist, writer, and cultural programmer/advisor. She has dedicated her life to researching, writing, and teaching about Aboriginal performing arts.

Pheasant has work-shopped, created, and choreographed innumerable dance pieces. Some students and fellow choreographers include Penny Couchie, Sandra Laronde, George Leach, and Santee Smith. Pheasant notes that blending and balancing Traditional and Contemporary artistic expressions has been an incredibly rewarding experience. She performed with Buffy St. Marie at the 2008 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards in Toronto.

Pheasant guest-writes for several newspapers: Anishinabek News, Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, Native Voices (Rapid City S.D.USA) and Windspeaker, among others. She is currently researching and drafting several books. Most recently, in 2010, Karen published The Promise to the Nokomis, based on her personal experience twenty years ago in Whitefish Bay, Northern Ontario.

Since the eighties, Karen has been fortunate to have been tutored by outstanding mentors, such as Apela Colorado (www.wisn.org), Leroy Little Bear (Kainai, University of Lethbridge) Muriel Miguel (Spider Women Theatre), Marrie Mumford (Trent University) and Alejandro Ronceria (www.EarthinMotion.com). In 2002, Pheasant was named adjunct faculty, teaching creative writing, at the En’owkwin Centre, in Pentiction BC.