Episode # 9 - Castaway: Karen Montanaro

Karen Montanaro is a Maine based performer and teaching artist.  Maine has been Karen’s home base since 1978 when her family moved to Portland from Western MA.  This move to Portland was tough for Karen, not because it was her senior year in high school but because it meant leaving her beloved ballet school (The Cantarella School of Dance) where at 12 years old, she discovered a burning passion for ballet.

Karen loves to tell the story about that definitive ballet class where, after 4 years of training, she found herself doing the waltz turn without effort or thought.  At that moment, she experienced music in a new way . . . through movement and an intricate journey through space.  Right then and there, Karen knew she would “dance forever.”

At the age of 18, Karen signed her first contract as a professional ballet dancer and moved to Ohio to dance with the Ohio Ballet.  Her first two years with the company were some of the most exhilarating years of Karen’s life.  Sensing that physical perfection was just around the corner, Karen went after it with reckless abandon.  The director noticed Karen’s progress and started casting her in lead rolls.  Then the injuries started.  Injuries (including a stress-fracture of the spine) forced Karen to quit her job and confront some formidable disappointments . . . disappointment that her body couldn’t sustain the pressure she placed on it . . . disappointment that everything could go wrong, even while she was doing everything right.

Eventually, her injuries healed and she danced professionally again in an opera ballet company in Germany.  Three years later, Karen was ready to close the ballet chapter of her life and apply to medical schools.  She never could have predicted what happened next.  Immediately upon returning to Portland, Genie O’Brien, director of the Portland Ballet asked Karen to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy in their Nutcracker.  Genie also asked Tony Montanaro to perform in this same production.

For those of you who don’t know, Tony Montanaro was one of the world’s most prominent mime artists.  He is also the founder of the Celebration Barn in South Paris, Maine, a still-thriving mecca for performers and students-of-theater. 

When Tony and Karen met, Tony was 60 years old and Karen was 27.  Despite a 34 year age difference, Karen and Tony were soul mates.  Within a year, they were married and Karen began (what she calls) her “15-years-of-incubation” as Tony’s student, partner and wife.  They formed the Montanaro-Hurll Theater of Mime and Dance and toured the world performing and teaching together.  Karen was the word-smith for Tony’s book Mime Spoken Here published in 1995.  Tony died in 2002 and Karen continues to learn grand lessons through Tony’s example and through her own career as a mime, dancer and movement artist.

Karen performs her one-woman show in theaters and teaches residencies in mime, dance and movement in schools through out New England.  She is also an award winning choreographer and the recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship grant from the Maine Arts Commission. Although Karen is a movement artist, her main passion is communication.  She has found that the non-verbal language of movement speaks to audiences of all ages, cultures and economic backgrounds.  One of Karen’s goals is to bring her unique understanding of movement to bear on conversations about childhood health and education.