Last Thursday night at Space Gallery, Karen Montanaro, resident of Casco and world-famous dancer and mime, lead her most unusual workshop to date. When Mystic Out Bop, an avant-garde improvisational jazz trio and the nights’ opening act, finished warming up on the stage behind her, she welcomed the audience to her experiment. “The goal of this evening is to get everyone up!” she said. “I feel strongly that everyone dances, we just listen to the voice in our head that says “no” to movement. The moment you hear the “no” voice in you, is when you say “yes!” She looks behind her at the band. “I’ve never heard their music before, but I want to show you what their music does to me.” Mystic Out Bop began to play and Montanaro moved with the entirety of her body, reacting impulsively to every slap of the bass with each finger, toe and twitch of her nose.
Karen Montanaro started dancing ballet at age eight and at 12 she had what she described as a “religious experience” in dance. “I was the same as the music,” she said, “I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to dance forever!'” Montanaro devoted herself to the study of ballet, and in later years, she performed with the Ohio Ballet and Darmstadt Opera Ballet in Germany. Her life, and her dancing philosophy, changed when she met internationally renowned mime Tony Montanaro. “Tony taught me to just say “yes” to my energy,” she said. “In ballet, everything you do is not good enough. I was constantly trying to get what I didn’t have. It made me very sad.” Studying mime gave her a completely different perspective on dance. “I started to experience movement in a new way. Dance is what you’re given. You meet your body where it’s at.”
Karen and Tony got married and traveled the world together, performing and teaching. Tony died in 2002, but to Karen “he’s still alive in here,” she said, holding her hand over her heart. In the years since, Karen has devoted herself to passing on Tony’s lesson to hundreds of professional dancers and ordinary people; teaching them to say “yes” to themselves and just dance. From this fusion of classical dance and miming came “mimedance,” a completely improvisational expression of personal energy through unedited movement.
Montanaro urged the audience to get up and dance with her. “I’ve learned that if you give people a choice, they don’t get up and dance,” said Montanaro. “So ultimately, you have a choice, but not now.” Over 20 people were coaxed onto the dance floor and began to move to the music. “Dance from your physical oblique – from your side” she said. “As soon as you feel like you know where you’re going, let something come out of you.” Montanaro demonstrates, expressing the irregular rhythm of Mystic Out Bop with long, languid gestures jerking suddenly into new forms and expressions. The crowd followed suit and soon the room was filled with grown men and women twisting, and flailing and spinning in their own personal dance.
The collaboration with Ginger Ibex began when Betty Widerski, the bands’ chief violinist, attended a workshop at the Celebration Barn, an international theatrical school founded by Tony in 1972 where Karen teaches. Widerski gave Karen the band’s CD and Montanaro immediately felt the desire to dance. She pulled Widerski aside saying “I’ll move to music and you watch.” Montanaro’s improvisation of “Firefly,” what she calls Ginger Ibex’s “signature piece” can be seen on youtube, and both parties felt the need to do it again.
Ginger Ibex, a rock/classical hybrid band, took the stage and the entire audience tried their hand at improvising “Firefly.” The “warm up” with musically challenging Mystic Out Bop, described by one woman as “Sylvester on a bad trip” had loosened the groups inhibitions, and the magic of Montanaro’s philosophy began to unfold. “The body and music have a deep, old, old, old relationship,” she said. “as you dance, the movement will begin to inform you of itself.”
Ginger Ibex’s music, a tantalizing dream of a Muse circa “Origin of Symmetry” and Dresden Dolls collaboration, brought beautiful, uninhibited and expressive dancing out of even the most amateur participants. Montanaro withdrew form the group and watched two women improvise a tender and moving interpretation of “Prelude to Dust for Kisses.” A group of five middle aged men and women, including Mystic Out Bop’s drummer, Francesco, danced a loose interpretation of one of Ibex’s tangos. Ibex finished the set with a Loreana McKennet cover and their piece “February.” Not a single person was sitting down and everyone seemed to have absorbed Montanaro’s passion for improvisational dance.
Montanaro will continue dancing and teaching workshops all over New England, capping off the summer with her “Art of Movement” workshop in late August at the Celebration barn.