Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Pam Gleason - Season 12, Episode 139

Pam has been creating, teaching and performing dance for over 40
years. She was involved with the Nancy Hauser Dance
Company/Hauser Dance from the mid-1980s to 2011 as an apprentice,
company member, teacher and choreographer, along with freelancing
in the community. As director of MotionArt (cofounded in 2013
with Diane Moncrieff), she is dedicated to providing
opportunities for people - no matter their age or ability - to
move, express, learn, create and find community in dance –
whether
through the Ageless Dance class she initiated with Heidi Hauser
Jasmin twenty years ago, or through other adult and children’s
classes, monthly improvisation gatherings, somatic workshops
andperformances. Her collaborations with professional and
nonprofessional dancers spanning nine decades in age, along with
musicians, composers, visual artists and film makers have
resulted in over 50 choreographed pieces, eight theater
productions and four films. She has taught, performed
and/or
presented dance in many Twin Cities venues, several US cities, in
Taiwan, Japan, Russia and Ireland, and her work has been
supported by grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the
Jerome Foundation, and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Commission.
In 2019, she was a “50 over 50” honoree by AARP/Pollen for her
contributions and achievements in the arts and for disrupting
outdated beliefs about aging.

Pam received a BS in Community Health Education with minors in
Dance and Psychology from UW-Madison, where she first delved into
the study of Modern Dance. She holds an MA in Kinesiology from
the University of Minnesota and has been a Pilates instructor and
personal trainer since 1999. She taught “The Articulate Body“
(Dance Kinesiology), Pilates and Modern Dance in the University
of Minnesota Dance Department, was a faculty member in the
Physical Education department at North
Hennepin Community College, a community health educator for
research in the Epidemiology Department at the University of
Minnesota and has been a guest artist at several Midwest
colleges.

As a teacher, Pam draws from her strong interest in both the art
and science of the body in motion to offer biomechanically sound
classes infused with individual exploration and improvisation. As
a choreographer, inspirations are as varied as life itself,
planted in her psyche and often manifest when she’s not looking.
These seeds of inspiration have resulted in a wide body of work -
from abstract to theatrical, solo to large ensemble, melancholy
to slapstick and are reflective of her fascination with universal
principles of motion and universal aspects of being human.