In her lecture "Taught by Pygmalion," Catherine Turocy reflects on the first opera-ballet production of The New York Baroque Dance Company and Concert Royal in 1980 and her shift from choreographer to director and from a Grace to the Statue and from a sung opera to an imagined ballet without sung text.

Catherine Turocy, one of today’s leading choreographers/stage directors in Baroque period performance, with over 80 Baroque operas to her credit, has been decorated by the French Republic as a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters. After moving to NYC in 1976 she cofounded The New York Baroque Dance Company with Ann Jacoby. Her studies in historical dance began at Ohio State University with Shirley Wynne where she and Ann performed in the Baroque Dance Ensemble.

In 2018-19 she was a recipient of the Center for Ballet and the Arts Residency Fellowship in NYC for her work on Nijinsky’s Bach ballet (1913). In 2018 Turocy received the IZZY Award in San Francisco for her stage direction/choreography of Le Temple de la Gloire by Rameau which also received two first prizes in “Best of the Bay” under both stage direction and choreography. Other awards include the BESSIE Award in New York City for sustained achievement in choreography, the Natalie Skelton Award for Artistic Excellence and the Dance Film Association Award for “The Art of Dancing.” NEA International Exchange Fellowships supported research in London and Paris.

A founding member of the Society for Dance History Scholars, Ms. Turocy has lectured on period performance practices around the world including the Royal Academies of Dance in London, Stockholm and Copenhagen; the Festival Estival in Paris and The Society for Early Music in Tokyo. She is also a founding member of Dance Studies Association (DSA) and belongs to CORPS de Ballet International and the Dance Council. She has served as consultant to Clark Tippett of American Ballet Theater, Edward Villella of the Miami City Ballet and Yaniro Castro of acanarytorsi. She was a movement consultant to the famous master chef Thomas Keller, training his wait staff for Per Se in NYC.

As a writer she has contributed chapters to dance history text books, articles to Opera News , Early Music America and Dance Magazine, many which have been translated into French, German, Japanese and Korean. A chapter in Janet Roseman’s book, Dance Masters: Interviews with Legends of Dance, published by Routledge is dedicated to her work. Books in which Turocy has authored chapters include: Moving History/Dancing Cultures: A Dance History Reader; Creating Dance: A Traveler’s Guide and “Dance on its Own Terms: Histories and Methodologies,” eds. Melanie Bales and Karen Eliot, published by Oxford.

Ms. Turocy has worked with conductor James Richman and his Concert Royal Orchestra in NYC as well as his group in Texas, The Dallas Bach Society, collaborating on groundbreaking productions of period ballets and operas. She has also worked closely with Ryan Brown, Antoine Plante, Matthew Dirst and internationally with Nicholas McGegan (Festival Orchestra of Goettingen ), the late Sir Christopher Hogwood (Academy of Ancient Music in London) , Sir John Eliot Gardiner (English Baroque Soloists in London), Philippe Herreweghe (La Chapelle Royale in Paris) and Wolfgang Katschner (Lautten Compagney in Berlin).

Training professional artists is an important part of Ms. Turocy’s work with the NYBDC. Former members of the company include Ken Pierce, Thomas Baird, Paige Whitley Bauguess and Carlos Fittante, all who have gone on to start their own companies and/or careers as freelance historical choreographers. Current members of the company trained by Ms. Turocy and now active in the field as choreographers include Patricia Beaman, Caroline Copeland, Sarah Edgar, Rachel List, Alexis Silver, Ani Udovicki and Julia Bengtsson.

Currently she is the director of Historical Dance at Play, an ongoing summer workshop investigating multi-era dance histories including European and Non-Western dance. The workshop also links influences of the past resonating in today’s dance practices and society