Karen Montanaro, Dancer, Mime, Performing Artist

She is a solo performer, an award-winning choreographer, and the innovator of mimedance”  (the fusion of two classical art forms). She started her work in  physical arts by studying ballet at various dance schools: Cantarella School of Dance, the Ram Island Dance Center and on scholarship with the Joffrey Ballet School. Then she danced professionally at the Ohio Ballet, the Darmstadt Opera Ballet in Germany and the  Portland Ballet Company in the US.When going through a life crisis she met the mime artist Tony Montanaro. Watching his performance on stage she experienced ‘a joy unlike anything she had experienced before’ ‘guiding her path back to life’. Tony was a unique kind of teacher. “He did not teach mime; rather he used mime to teach people how to be themselves.”Karen spent the next fifteen years studying, teaching and performing with Tony Montanaro. Now, Karen tours the world with her one-woman show titled ‘Tanzspiel’. Karen blends the art forms of mime and dance to create theater with physical and emotional power.

Foto ©2015 GeorgeC.Anderson