Carolyn Pampalone Rabbers
Executive Artistic Director
Carolyn Pampalone Rabbers is the Executive Artistic Director and founder of CPR Dance: Inhale Movement. She received her MFA at the University of the Arts and graduated as the Presidential Scholar with a BFA from Western Michigan University. Carolyn has danced in NYC, Miami, LA and Michigan dancing and acting both on stage and on camera. Her dance-based works have been featured nationally and internationally, have been a finalist for Michigan’s Maggie Allessee’s Choreography Competition, and has been awarded support in a KADI grant of the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo. She can be seen as ‘Abby’ in Moondance (2020) and has performed for Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers, Coldplay, Omi, Starbucks, Jockey Bra, Kaplan University, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Celebrity Cruises, Diavolo EdCo, Mariana Olivera, Clairobscur, LACDC, Nickerson-Rossi Dance, and Vox Lumiere. She has performed in works choreographed by Cori Terry, Erik Hawkins, Yvonne Rainer, Loïe Fuller, Gerald Arpino, Randy Duncan, and John Leher.
Carolyn is an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University, on faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, and has taught at Grand Valley State University and Western Michigan University. She also judges for CRU National Dance Competition, has taught for Fusion Center for Dance in Benton Harbor, MI, and The Gabriella Foundation in Los Angeles, honored by Michelle Obama in 2015. She is certified as an ABT Affiliate Teacher in Pre-Primary through Level VII & Partnering. She also holds certifications in PBT, PCT, ISTD Contemporary, Reiki and Yoga.
PC: Lauren Debra Grace
Artistic Statement
My current research explore somatic healing practices and identity politics. Building empathy and relationships are my main goals within each project. My work as CPR Dance: Inhale Movement proposes movement as fundamental to existence as breath. In process and in affect, I focus on breathing life, cultivating life, dancing within artistic collaboration, relationships, memories and moving experiences.
I have cultivated my interests in performing and creating dance movement-based works by lensing my desires through alethic vision, and through utilizing improvisational scores, theatrical elements, and technology. I pursue a spiritual sense of connection anchored in quantum physics while exploring emergent strategy through permaculture-based explorations in pedagogy and research creation approaches.
I am open to multiple strucutres in format, and currently my work explores creating through film, site specific works, and staged works. I like to challenge myself with building value in my art for what we value as part of our societal time, rooting it in a deeper context of accessibility. By intentionally choosing open formats, I enjoy exploring how technology can be utilized in experiencing art and bending the edges of when the art experience starts/stops. I am inspired by the overlapping intergenerational pedagogical approaches in multiple modern foundational and contemporary techniques.