Joan Karlen

Joan has been practicing and teaching Pilates since 1988. Her teaching is informed by her current studio practice, and continuing advanced training in Pilates (Patrick Strong (NY/WI), Lesley Powell (NY), Susan Landsman (FL), and Amy Beversdorf (WI)), ballet, and somatic movement disciplines. Joan’s classes focus on optimal alignment, articulate whole-body movement patterning, and enhanced energetic flow.  

Joan is former Department of Theatre and Dance department chair, dance program coordinator and professor of Theatre and Dance at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point where she taught for 32 years. With Amy Beversdorf, she originated and co-directed UWSP’s Pilates Mat Teacher Training certification program.  

Joan earned dance degrees from The Juilliard School and New York University. As a performer, choreographer and media artist Joan developed and presented collaborative work across the United States and in Portugal, Germany, the UK, Egypt, Ireland, Argentina, Italy, and in Canada, where she was Artist in Residence and faculty at The Banff Centre in Alberta.  Joan was named University of Wisconsin System Teaching Scholar, UW System Teaching Fellow, received the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Teaching Excellence Award (twice),  and the University Teaching Mentor Award. Her choreography was awarded a Wisconsin Arts Board Choreography Fellowship. In 2021 she received the Wisconsin Dance Council Lifetime Achievement Award for a life centered on dance as a performer and educator enriching Wisconsin’s Dance Heritage.