Karen Fisher Doyle is a resident choreographer and dancer at ADC, celebrated by audiences and critics alike for her emotionally rich movement and fierce commitment on stage. For the past twenty eight years her professional career has taken her through intense studies, performance and choreography in ballet, modern dance, flamenco and ultimately aerial dance. Karen has a B.S. in Nursing with a Minor in Theatre Dance from NIU, strongly influenced under the Direction of Randy Newsom. After college, flamenco became a big part of her career in which she performed locally as well as internationally with Azucena Vega’s Soul and Duende Spanish Dance Theatre. She went on to perform with various flamenco and modern dance companies including the cutting edge choreographer Bob Eisen in the 90’s and imaginative Clinard Dance Theatre, ultimately joining Aerial Dance Chicago in 2003. Teaming up with Artistic Director Chloe Jensen, Karen had the pleasure of sinking into the roles of AD and Associate Artistic Director of the professional company from 2014 to 2020, embracing Aerial Dance Chicago's unique vision of dance not bound to the traditional stage. In August of 2020 she continued in the role of Resident Choreographer, looking forward to new creative opportunities at ADC. She has staged over 30 choreographies in the aerial dance genre, and her focus on lush discoveries of dance in theatre spaces is what the Chicago Tribune describes in her work as “hypnotic, spellbinding and meditative” choreography. She received Curators Choice Award for her choreography twice at the Around the Coyote Festival and has been a recipient of the Chicago CAAP Grant which took her to Boston to study with the famous Omayra Amaya. She embraces movement through emotion, strength and vulnerability, finding spectrums that stretch from one end to the other. Her choreographic work has been presented at Millennium Park, The Grand Ballroom of the Drake Hotel, Ruth Page Center for the Arts, Athenaeum Theater, Prairie Center For the Arts, Vittum Theater, Links Hall, North Shore Center for Performing Arts, Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, Louis Armstrong theatre in Grand Rapids and Touhill Performing Arts Center in St Louis. She has been honored for her work to appear in multiple festivals including Dance Chicago, Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival, and Spring to Dance, as well as collaborative projects creating spectacle performances with Redmoon Theater and Elements Contemporary Ballet with her creative partner Chloe Jensen. In addition, Karen started her teaching career back in the 90’s at Homer Bryant Ballet the home of CMDC and has transitioned through the years teaching classes in the aerial arts. She has been a feature teacher and performing artist for ADC at the Santa Barbara Floor to Air Dance Festival in 2015 and has head up intensives and workshops in the ADC studio over the years. Karen is currently on faculty at the ADC school, emphasizing a teaching style that captures the detail in airborne movement while also empowering students to reach their emotive potential. Karen is grateful to ADC for the opportunity to create art, and continues to enjoy collaborative exchanges among dance artists and Directors Chloe and Kip. She relishes in choreography that pulls from emotion, strength, vulnerability and the endless possibilities aerial dance has to offer.