Karen Hoyer:
Mime and Movement Specialist
Clown, Mask, Puppetry
Design and Creation...but Dot's Not All!
Ever since she landed in Chicago, Karen Hoyer has been using mime as her creative launching pad.
In 1984, she co-created Partners in Mime, Inc., a touring mime theatre company, performing over 100 shows per season for ten years.
Her solo mime, clown, mask and puppetry show, "Apparent Appearances," was featured in an extensive tour of Mexico in 1994.
With her twin sister, she created "The Angel Project," which combined mime with acrobatics, trapeze, sculpture and photography.
She performed the lip-synching, bungee flying, acrobatic role of Wellgunde and the puppeteer Waldvogel (Wood Bird) in Wganer's "Ring Cycle" for the Lyric Opera of Chicago in both the 1992 premiere and the 2005 revival where she also served as Assistant Choreographer. She worked as the movement director for two productions at Madison Repertory under the direction of Richard Corley.
She's taught at the Clown College of RIngling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and at Roosevelt College, Columbia College, and the Actor's Gymnasium in Chicago. She was mime instructor at Advanced Studies in the Art of Clown and other clown camps as well as workshops in countless elementary & high schools.
For the past eleven years she's appeared as Dr. Dot, professional Clown Doctor for Big Apple Circus Clown Care, performing at Comer, La Rabida and Children's Memorial Hospitals. She tours ten nursing homes throughout the year in the troupe's Vaudeville Caravan program with her "daughter" Little Dot.
In the fall of 2009 she joined Theatre Zarko, a puppet syumbolist theatre based in Evanston, IL. Sculpture, mask making, costume design & construction and her Dot's Recycling business round out her creative pursuits.
