Kara Tatelbaum brings her whole self as dancer, choreographer, teacher, coach, writer, and caregiver to all of her endeavors.

She has enjoyed a wide-ranging performance and teaching career in NYC and abroad. She earned her BFA in Dance as a University Honors Scholar from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and MFA in Choreography with a Teaching Assistantship from The Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase.

Encouraged by her early teachers, Kara began choreographing at a young age. Her company independentdancemaker| Kara Tatelbaum was created in 2000 and presented by venues including Dancenow/NYC (where she also served as Managing Director), Dance New Amsterdam, Danspace Project, Duke Theater, Gibney Center, Joyce SoHo, Symphony Space, and the Shanghai Expo.

Kara also teaches dance extensively—from toddlers to seniors—her unique teaching style enhanced by her own experience with injury, recovery, and prevention. Kara created the dance program for School of Holy Child Rye (5th-12th grade) where she served as lead dance teacher for ten years. She’s also taught and held residencies at Ballet Arts Studio (Beacon, NY), Brown University, Dance New Amsterdam, Education Through Music, Gibney Dance Center, Millbrook School, NYSSSA, Ryeneck High School, Shattuck St.Mary School (MN), and SUNY Purchase.

After suffering from painful injuries, including two hip surgeries, Kara turned to Pilates to pay the bills. During this time, she earned her Mat Certification from Power Pilates (after initially failing due to a nasty margarita hangover) and Reformer Certification from Pilates Academy International and began teaching extensively for major fitness chains, corporations, and private clients.

Over the next fifteen years, Kara became one of the most sought-after Pilates instructors, teaching extensively all over Manhattan. As an in-demand instructor, at one point she taught the most Pilates classes of any NYC Crunch instructor. She's also been on staff at Clay, Club H, New York Health and Racquet Club, NYU Coles Gym, New York Yoga, the Y, and corporate clients include Penguin Publishing, Saatchi and Saatchi, and Time Inc.

Kara is also certified in Poolates and is the creator of Barrelates, her own class designed combining Ballet Barre with traditional mat exercises. Kara has been recently featured in many national publications such as TODAY.com, Forbes.com, GoodHousekeeping.com, ReadersDigest.com and StyleCaster.com, among others.

As a busy mother of two, Kara was inspired to create Lazy Girl Pilates, inspiring women everywhere to fit Pilates into their life using quick and easy workouts that can be integrated into any busy schedule. She published the first installment of her Lazy Girl Pilates book series, Lazy Girl Pilates: Morning, which eliminates the need to wake up early for a workout or skip it all together when you don't have time.

In 2020, Kara earned her certification as a Wellness + Resilience Coach from the Academy for Creative Coaching. Navigating her own storms and setbacks including her husband’s sudden Stage IV colon cancer diagnosis, inspired her to anchor others. With personal experience under her belt, she’s dedicated to helping people discover new direction, maintain a positive quality of life during an uncertain time, and find their power.

Kara uses her unique skill set as a choreographer and coach to support a diverse range of clients—from cancer caregivers to dancers seeking career change, along with school visits, faculty meetings, PTA assemblies, and middle/high school student—in individual and group settings.

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Tamar Rogoff is a choreographer and filmmaker who explores the outer limits of how people negotiate extreme circumstances. As artistic director of Tamar Rogoff Performance Projects, Rogoff creates inclusive, multidisciplinary, multigenerational, and site-specific performance and film as well as proscenium performance. Rogoff’s subject matter is deeply personal and often autobiographical, but in the vast diversity of her casting, it finds its universality. Rogoff has been presented both nationally and internationally, at the Kennedy Center, the Pompidou Center and the Estonian National Opera, and in venues as accessible as sidewalks and rooftops. The surprising juxtaposition of performers who are new to the stage and seasoned professionals taps into Rogoff’s wish--to use the unexpected to spark curiosity and empathy. Rogoff’s choreography has been seen at P.S. 122, St. Mark’s Church, LaMama ETC, Dance Theater Workshop, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and in venues worldwide. Her latest piece Drop Dead… Gorgeous , was presented at La Mama in the Fall of 2025.

Rogoff’s documentary Summer in Ivye (2001) screened at The Jewish Film Festival at Lincoln Center and The Hamptons Film Festival. She was later a Sundance Institute Documentary Film Fellow where she worked with Daisy Wright on the award-winning feature documentary Enter the Faun (2015), based on an earlier piece of choreography, Diagnosis of a Faun (2009). In the film, Rogoff’s lifelong method, known as Body Scripting, explores release through unorthodox body practices to address protagonist Mozgala’s cerebral palsy. Enter the Faun toured festivals globally–The Sarasota Film Festival, the Margaret Mead Film Festival, Dance on Camera, ReelAbilities Film Festival, and the Extraordinary Film Festival in Belgium. It was broadcast on Belgium TV and on PBS America Reframed in 2018 and 2022. Rogoff’s documentary about her dancers during lockdown, A Plague on All Our Houses (2021), screened at NYC Independent and Manhattan Film Festival (both June 2021). Rogoff’s first short, Wonder About Merri, was at Dance on Camera (2019) and won the Most Daring Short at Dare to Dance in Public Film Festival (2019). During Covid she produced a dance-narrative short, The Circles of Avenue C in her Lower East side neighborhood. She is the founder of the Solar Powered Dance Festival at Solar One.

Rogoff works as a movement coach to actors, including Claire Danes for her Emmy award winning role in Temple Grandin (2010). She was an adjunct teacher at NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing (1995-2010), Her experiential anatomy dance lab at LaMama is ongoing.

Rogoff is a recipient of grants from the NEA, NYFA, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Trust for Mutual Understanding, Association of Performing Arts Presenters and the Rockefeller MAP Grant. She is also a Guggenheim fellow.

Rogoff’s choreography will be seen in the soon to be released feature film Run Amok.

Thank you for listening to The TuTu thin Podcast

Please contact us through
www.dawntheodore.com
www.tututhin.com
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Thank you to Matt Miller @ Smacky Media Group

Dr. Sean Altman is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and Orthopedic Functional Medicine specialist who works with dancers, gymnasts, athletes, hypermobile patients, and individuals with complex chronic pain and orthopedic injuries. His approach focuses on identifying the root causes of pain, instability, and dysfunction rather than simply treating symptoms. Dr. Altman completed his doctoral dissertation on rehabilitation for dancers and has extensive experience addressing the unique mobility, strength, core stability, and injury-prevention needs of dancers and athletes. He also developed AltPoint™, an ultrasound-guided electrolysis treatment designed to support targeted orthopedic tissue repair.

Thank you for listening to The TuTu thin Podcast

Please contact us through
www.dawntheodore.com
www.tututhin.com
IG @dawn.smith.theodore
Facebook @Dawn Smith-Theodore
Twitter @Dawnstheodore

Thank you to Matt Miller @ Smacky Media Group