Pam Tanowitz (born 1969) is an American dancer, choreographer, professor, and founder of the company, Pam Tanowitz Dance. She is a current staff member at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts where she teaches dance and choreography. Her work has been performed at notable performance venues such as the Joyce Theater, the Joyce SoHo, and New York Live Arts, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Early life and education
Pam Tanowitz grew up outside of New York City, in Westchester County. She began taking modern and jazz classes at the Steffi Nossen School of Dance in the fourth grade. In the eighth grade, her mother signed her up for the dance intensive, Ethical Culture Fieldson School located in the Bronx. At the intensive, she studied with Blondell Cummings where she had he first improvisation class and also studied with Ohad Naharin. Tanowitz took ballet later on in highschool and in college as a dance major where she had grown an intrest in the style. She earned a BFA in Dance from Ohio State University. In her senior year of college, Tanowitz attended the American Dance Festival, where she was immersed in works such as Molissa Fenley, Bill T. Jones, and Paul Taylor. She also took classes with artists such as Ishmael Houston-Jones, Sally Silvers, and Mark Dendy. The American Dance Festival is where Tanowitz was inspired to her connection of making work and being an artist. A few years later, Tanowitz got her MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College, where she was mentored by former Merce Cunningham dancer, Viola Farber.
Career
Dance companies such as the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, and the New York City Ballet have commissioned works by Tanowitz. Gia Kourlas, a dance critic for The New York Times, describes Tanowitz as a "modern choreographer much admired for the way she recharges classical steps." Roslyn Sulcas, dance critic for The New York Times, says "Tanowitz, who worked in relative obscurity for a long time, is a kind of choreographic collector, a passionate student of dance history, techniques and styles. Her work deploys physical ideas and images from Petipa, Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Erick Hawkins, Nijinsky and more, but shifts lightly among them. And it doesn’t matter whether you know or recognize any of it. There is no insistence in Tanowitz’s work; its beauties flower and dematerialize before your eyes."
↑Nadel, Marc Raymond Strauss with Myron Howard (2012). Looking at contemporary dance: a guide for the internet age. Hightstown, NJ: Princeton Book Co. ISBN978-0871273543.
↑Mannino, Trina (March 2014). "Pam Tanowitz Dance: "Passagen"/"Pause Dance"/"Heaven on One's Head": The Joyce Theater, New York". Dance Europe. pp.78–79.
↑Russo, Marilyn (Fall 2007). "Quoth the Raven". Vol.21, no.3. Attitude-The Dancers' Magazine. pp.32–33.
