PARIS – Karen Montanaro, winner of the 2008 Maine Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Fellowship Award, is not your usual mime – and her show is not your usual show. One moment an old gunslinger reminisces about his youth, the next an entire baseball game is played out with Montanaro as the avid baseball fan, the patient catcher and an incredibly flexible pitcher.

Montanaro will bring her show, “Tanzspeil (German for “dance-play”),” which blends mime and dance to create theater with physical and emotional power, to Celebration Barn Theatre at 8 p.m. Saturday, July 19.

Also performing will be physical comedienne Jackie Reifer.

Celebration Barn was founded by Karen’s late husband, renowned Maine performer Tony Montanaro, and she has continued that legacy through her own work and performances across the globe.

A solo performer and award-winning choreographer, Montanaro created “mimedance,” the fusion of two classical art forms. She 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, she also danced principal roles with the Portland Ballet Company.

She is a teaching artist and offers residencies in movement, mime and dance in public and private schools throughout the United States.

“Tanzspeil” tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, $8 for students and children 12 and under. Call 743-8452. Celebration Barn Theatre is at 190 Stock Farm Road.

Copy the Story Link