Tanzspiel is a One-Woman Tour de Force

About this event

In Tanzspiel, Karen Montanaro blends the arts of mime and dance to create theater with rare physical and emotional power. German for “dance play,” the show is a kaleidoscope of stories told in Montanaro’s innovative “mimedance.” The world-renowned dancer and mime artist is performing at 2:00 p.m. Saturday, April 27, at Jacoby Arts Center, 627 E. Broadway, Alton.

The family friendly and donation-based show will feature a variety of stories in performance, such as one involving a hunter and a tiger and a baseball sketch.

“It’s expressive movement using all sorts of techniques,” said Montanaro. “I’ll talk to the audience between sketches and some of them will have music, some won’t. But there will be a lot of laughter.”

Montanaro calls herself the luckiest person in the world because she rediscovered joy in her life.

“I had a rigorous professional ballet career for 10 years. By the time I got to the end of it, I was experiencing serious mental health issues. Ballet is about looking for perfection in your body but the body is constantly changing. One day I could do five pirouettes and the next, just one. My life was an emotional roller coaster,” she said. “I just didn’t know that everyone else was on the same roller coaster.”

Then she met her late husband, Tony Montanaro, a world-renowned mime who had studied with Marcel Marceau and Marceau’s teacher Etienne Decroux.

“I saw him perform. It was a subtle, sweet humor and eloquent. I thought, ‘I just have to do this.’ Somehow I knew joy would come back. That marked the beginning of a change for me,” she said. “I was unlearning the rigidity of ballet and rediscovering joy.”

Montanaro has performed Tanzspiel around the world, including in Europe, the mid-East, Japan and Taiwan. Last spring, she taught part of the semester at Principia College where she also performed her show. She returned this spring to teach Dance & Movement. At the suggestion of Geoff Callaway and Chrissy Calkins Steele, members of Bankside Reperatory Theater Company, she contacted Jacoby about performing.

Montanaro also is an arts advocate who gives talks on the reason why art is important in schools today.

“I think it’s the only thing to break our addiction to screens. Children and young people especially are missing out because movement is our connection to ourselves,” she said.

Row seating is first come, first seated. Doors open 30 minutes in advance. Parking is available on the gravel lot next door. You can find more information about Montanaro and her unique mimedance at www.mimedance.com.

About the Jacoby Arts Center The mission of the Jacoby Arts Center is to nurture and promote the practice and appreciation of the arts through education, exhibits, cultural programs and community outreach initiatives. Jacoby Arts Center is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The Jacoby Arts Center is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Jacoby Arts Center, 627 E. Broadway, Alton, IL 62002 / 618-462-5222 / jacobyartscenter@gmail.com