Karen Aqua (February 2, 1954-May 30, 2011) was an American filmmaker and animator.

Early life

Aqua was born in 1954 in

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Wilkes-Barre ( , alternatively or ) is a city in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in the 2020 census. It ...

and grew up in the nearby town of

Forty Fort Forty Fort was a stronghold built by settlers from Connecticut, on the Susquehanna River in what is now Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Before the American Revolutionary War, both Connecticut and Pennsylvania claimed this territory, as Connecticut h ...

. She graduated in 1972 from Wyoming Valley West Senior High School in

Plymouth, Pennsylvania Plymouth is a borough in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States, located west of Wilkes-Barre, along the Susquehanna River. The population was 5,763 as of the 2020 census. History Plymouth was first settled in 1769 by the Susquehanna C ...

. She graduated from RISD in 1976 with a bachelor of fine arts degree.

Career

Over the course of her career, Aqua completed 12 animated films and one collaborative animation/live action video. Her films explore "the themes of ritual, journeys, transformation, and the human spirit. Much of her work reflects an interest in symbols, mythology, and prehistoric and tribal cultures, and include elements of rhythm, dance, and music." She wrote the lyrics and melody for the majority of her animations. She frequently collaborated with her husband,

Ken Field Ken Field (born January 26, 1953) is a saxophonist, flautist, percussionist, and composer. Since 1988 he has been a member of the electrified modern music ensemble Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, with whom he has recorded eight CDs. Career Field ha ...

, on the melody for some pieces, as well as chords and arrangements for the majority of them. In 1990, she began producing animated shorts for ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational television, educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation, and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Worksh ...

''. In total, she produced, directed, and animated 22 segments for the show. Aqua taught workshops at

Emerson College Emerson College is a private college in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It also maintains campuses in Los Angeles and Well, Limburg, Netherlands (Kasteel Well). Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a "school of Public Speaking, o ...

and

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

. She received grants and commissions from such organizations as the

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the History of cinema in the United States, motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private fu ...

The MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The program was founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowe ...

Millay Colony for the Arts Millay Arts, formerly the Millay Colony for the Arts, is an arts community offering residency-retreats and workshops in Austerlitz, New York, and free arts programs in local public schools. Housed on the former property of feminist/activist poet ...

, Fundación Valparaíso (Spain), New England Film/Video Fellowship Program,

Berkshire Taconic Trust Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London to the east, Surrey to the sout ...

, LEF Foundation,

Puffin Foundation The Puffin Foundation, established in 1983, is a non-profit organization that aims to amplify the voices of minorities who may be underrepresented due to their race, gender, social philosophy, etc. The foundation achieves this mission of foster ...

, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She has served as a juror for film festivals in Japan, Canada, and the US, and has presented numerous one-person screenings of her work. Aqua died in May 2011 of

ovarian cancer Ovarian cancer is a cancerous tumor of an ovary. It may originate from the ovary itself or more commonly from communicating nearby structures such as fallopian tubes or the inner lining of the abdomen. The ovary is made up of three different ...

, after battling the illness for a decade. Upon her death, over 300 of her film and video works were donated to the

Harvard Film Archive The Harvard Film Archive (HFA) is a film archive and cinema located in the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dedicated to the collection, preservation and exhibition of film, the HFA houses a c ...

in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Personal life

She married her husband

in 1984.

Films

* '' Penetralia'' (1976) * '' Heavenly Bodies'' (1980) * '' Vis-á-Vis'' (1982) * '' Yours for the Taking'' (1984) * '' Nine Lives'' (1987) * '' Kakania'' (1989; title sequence) * '' Animals on Parade'' (1990) * ''

Perpetual Motion Perpetual motion is the motion of bodies that continues forever in an unperturbed system. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work indefinitely without an external energy source. This kind of machine is impossible ...

'' (1992) * '' Dance to the Rhythm'' (1993) * '' Ground Zero/Sacred Ground'' (1997) * '' Building a Rhythm'' (1998) * ''

Andaluz The Andalusian dialects of Spanish (, , ) are spoken in Andalusia, Ceuta, Melilla, and Gibraltar. They include perhaps the most distinct of the southern variants of peninsular Spanish, differing in many respects from northern varieties in a number ...

'' (2004) * ''

Sensorium A sensorium (/sɛnˈsɔːrɪəm/) (: sensoria) is the apparatus of an organism's perception considered as a whole. It is the "seat of sensation" where it experiences, perceives and interprets the environments within which it lives. The term ori ...

'' (2007) * '' Twist of Fate'' (2009) * ''

Taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

'' (2011)

Sesame Street

* ''Animals on Parade'' * ''Dance to the Rhythm'' * ''Fast/Slow'' * ''Forward/Backward'' * ''Building a Rhythm'' * ''Pass-Along Alphabet'' * ''Rhyme Time'' Source:

References

External links

*http://karenaqua.com/index.html *https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0032586/ *https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SEgcyLTWYUc {{DEFAULTSORT:Aqua, Karen Rhode Island School of Design alumni 1954 births 2011 deaths Art & Language Animators from Pennsylvania American women animators Deaths from ovarian cancer