Karen
Montanaro

When I was 18 years old, I signed my first contract as a professional ballet dancer.  I danced professionally with the Ohio Ballet in the US and the Darmstadt Ballet in Germany.  After a ten year career in the dance world, the rigors of that profession were taking a toll on my sanity.  I was also deeply disturbed by the AIDS epidemic as many of my closest friends died.  I decided to quit ballet and focus my energy on curing AIDS.  Before I could enroll in medical school, I met (and eventually married) master mime and teacher, Tony Montanaro.  Tony was 34 years older than I and he introduced me to a whole new form of education.  He did not teach "mime"; rather he used mime to liberate his students from self-consciousness and introduce them to their own visceral connection to all living and non-living things.  Tony died in 2002 and I have not stopped learning from the art/empathy connection.  My movement vocabulary now includes dance and mime and a hybrid that I call "mimedance."  My whole life, I've been driven by a subliminal conviction that art is the way toward "peace on earth."  For the past ten years, I've been on a quest to discover the science supporting this conviction.  I am quite sure I have discovered this science and that even the staunchest arts advocates are deeply moved by my unusual expose of what they, too, instinctively know.  I now have a one-woman show about this science.