Carolyn Pampalone Rabbers
Executive Artistic Director
Carolyn Pampalone Rabbers is a distinguished dance artist, choreographer, educator, and researcher whose multifaceted career spans across commercial, theatrical, and academic spheres. She is the founder and Executive Artistic Director of CPR Dance: Inhale Movement, a Southwest Michigan-based contemporary dance company, and currently serves as an Instructional Assistant Professor of Dance at Texas A&M University.
Education and Credentials
An exceptionally certified and highly trained educator, Rabbers earned her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from the University of the Arts and graduated as the Presidential Scholar with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from Western Michigan University.
Her extensive pedagogical credentials include certification as an American Ballet Theatre (ABT) Affiliate Teacher in Pre-Primary through Level VII and Partnering. She is also an aspiring Countertechnique© teacher in training, an elite international teaching designation, and holds certifications in Martha Graham Technique (Levels 3, 4, and 5), Progressing Ballet Technique (PBT), Progressing Contemporary Technique (PCT), the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) Contemporary syllabus, Pilates, Yoga, and Reiki. Bridging her artistic expertise with administrative excellence, she holds a certification in Non-Profit Leadership from the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M.
Performance Career
With a career that has taken her to major cultural hubs including New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, and Michigan, Rabbers has performed nationally and internationally on stage and on camera. Her performance credits span elite contemporary dance companies, commercial brands, and entertainment giants.
She has danced for Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers, Diavolo Education Company (EdCo), Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company (LACDC), Clairobscur, Nickerson-Rossi Dance, and Vox Lumiere. On the commercial and entertainment stage, she has performed for Coldplay, Omi, Starbucks, Jockey Bra, Kaplan University, Royal Caribbean Cruises, and Celebrity Cruises. As an actress, she starred as "Abby" in the 2020 feature film Moondance.
Throughout her career, she has performed in works by highly celebrated choreographers and historical dance icons, including Sidra Bell, Cori Terry, Erik Hawkins, Yvonne Rainer, Loïe Fuller, Gerald Arpino, Antony Tudor, Seyong Kim, Marianna Olivera, Randy Duncan, Laurie Eisenhower, and John Lehrer.
Choreography, Research, and Residency
Rabbers’ award-winning choreography has been featured on national and international platforms. She was named a finalist in Michigan’s prestigious Maggie Allessee Choreography Competition and has received generous grant support from the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo and Texas A&M University.
Her innovative, interdisciplinary choreographic work includes THAW, an evening-length, collaborative interarts production created alongside Lynn Vartan, Stewart Ziff, and Michael Brunner. Harnessing cutting-edge technology, she choreographed Chase Your Dreams, a project with Red Productions LLC for Texas A&M’s Virtual Production Institute, collaborating with Academy Award-nominated directors Brandon Oldenburg and Limbert Fabian.
Her artistic research and practice have been supported by prestigious residencies and modules. She has been named an Artist-in-Residence at the Res_Arts Atelier in France, an Everwood Resident Artist, and a Research MODULE artist with Sidra Bell. In the academic realm, her research on integrating integrity-centered pedagogy to address the misuse of generative AI in dance and education has been presented at Texas A&M’s Transformational Teaching and Learning Conference (TTLC), the Digital Learning Expo, and the "Hear from the Peers" forum.
Teaching and Leadership
In addition to her current role as an Instructional Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University, Rabbers has served on the dance faculties of Western Michigan University and Grand Valley State University, as well as the prestigious Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. Her dedication to community and youth development includes teaching for the Gabriella Foundation in Los Angeles, a non-profit organization honored by First Lady Michelle Obama in 2015. Additionally, she shares her expertise as a judge for the CRU National Dance Competition, helping to shape and inspire the next generation of dancers.
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.