Karen Montanaro is a solo performer, an award-winning choreographer, and the innovator of “mimedance” (the fusion of two classical art forms). Karen studied ballet at the Cantarella School of Dance, the Ram Island Dance Center and on scholarship with the Joffrey Ballet School. She danced professionally with the Ohio Ballet and the Darmstadt Opera Ballet in Germany. Upon moving back to the Unites States, Karen also danced principal roles with the Portland Ballet Company. For more than a decade, Karen toured and taught internationally with mime master, Tony Montanaro. She currently tours the world with her one-woman show entitled “Tanzspiel.”
Tanzspiel (German for “dance-play”) is a one-woman tour de force and a triumph of athleticism, artistry and imagination. Karen blends the art forms of mime and dance to create theater with rare physical and emotional power.
One moment an old gunslinger reminisces about his youth, the next an entire baseball game plays out in front of you with Karen playing all the roles, including the avid baseball fan, the patient catcher, and an incredibly flexible pitcher.
“Karen has fused her prodigious skill in both mime and dance into a new art form, using the body as a descriptive tool–painterly, narrative and lyrical.”
– Donna McNeil, Director of the Maine Arts Commission.
