Karen Montanaro: Performance & Workshop
Karen Montanaro performed and talked about her work as a mime/dance artist on October 20, at the Black Box Theater, on the University of Maine Campus. The Intermedia graduate students expressed interested in her experiences of ‘creating from the in-between space’ of mime and dance. Karen opened her show with a piece that she choreographed called Etcetera. Through this piece the audience could experience her background in Ballet and her love of Mime, but in the final moments of the piece she exclaimed, “I just want to MOVE!”
In the workshop that followed, Karen worked with two dance classes and a variety of students in the afternoon. Karen introduced students to her “rolls”, which in a crescent shape, one begins to imagine magnets pulling feet and hands toward the wall, and the body pulls away, turning on the floor. Karen believes these exercises encompass a whole discovery of ‘things that wash up’, as one lets go of tension and holds on to a premise – to keep the shape of the crescent as one rolls.
Both the performance and the workshop were followed by a lively question and answer session between Karen and the participating students and faculty.
This event was sponsored in part by the Cultural Affairs/Distinguished Lecture Series and the Intermedia MFA Program.