The New York Baroque Dance Co.

Catherine Turocy photo by Alexis Silver

“Nobody today seems more qualified to reconstruct the French dances of the 18th century than this American and her New York Baroque Dance Company.”  Le Figaro

Catherine Turocy, recognized as one of today’s leading choreographer/reconstructors and stage directors in 17th and 18th century period performance, with over 100 Baroque opera-ballets to her credit,  has been decorated by the French Republic as a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters.

HONORS, GRANTS, AWARDS:

2018-2019 Center for Ballet and the Arts Residency Fellowship in NYC (affiliated with NYU)
Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Best Re-staging and Reconstruction 2018 (Le Temple de la Gloire, Rameau)
Best of the Bay, top prize for Choreography 2017 (Le Temple de la Gloire, Rameau)
Best of the Bay, top prize for Opera 2017 (Le Temple de la Gloire, Rameau)
Bachtrack (International) Award for Best Opera photo (stage director) 2017 (Le Temple de la Gloire, Rameau)
Artist/Lecturer in residence at Dance New Amsterdam 2013
CMRS Visiting Distinguished Scholar (UCLA) 2013
Natalie Skelton Award for Sustained Artistic Excellence, 2008
BESSIE Award for Sustained Achievement in Choreography, 2001
Getty Scholar, 1997
Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters, decorated by the French government, 1995

Prix Claude Rostand (French prize given by the critics for the best lyric opera of the year, 1986 Scylla et Glaucus)
Chosen as one of the top choreographers in New York City to be documented as part of the
National Dance Heritage Project at the Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center since 1980
National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowships: 1980, 1983, 1984,
1986-88, 1990, 1994-6, 1996-97, when this category disappeared from the NEA.
NEA Heritage and Preservation Grants 1997-2016
New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, 1990
US-France Exchange Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts, 1987
Jerome Foundation Award for Choreographic Creation, 1985
USA-UK Exchange Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts, 1980-81
Dance Film Award, for the creation of the video, The Art of Dancing: An
Introduction to Baroque Dance, 1979
Ohio State University Scholarship, 1970-74; Women’s Club of Orange Village, 1970-72
Member of Alpha Lambda Delta (Academic Honor Society, 1970-74)

photo by Beatriz Schiller

A founding member of the Society for Dance History Scholars which has now become Dance Studies Association of which she is also a founding member, 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 has served as consultant to Clark Tippett of American Ballet Theate, Edward Villella and Benjamin Millepied.

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.

Directing Orlando in Drottningholm

As a sought after period stage director/choreographer, Ms. Turocy has worked with singers Jessye Norman, Bryn Terfel, Christine Brandes, Howard Crook, Ann Monoyios, Julianne Baird and Drew Minter.  She has worked eleven years at the Handel Festival in Goettingen, Germany where she has been lauded by the international press for her ground breaking production of Handel’s Teseo  in 2011.  In New York, Ms. Turocy works closely with Concert Royal directed by conductor James Richman.  Highlights include Gluck’s Orfeo, Handel’s Ariodante and Terpsicore, Rameau’s Pygmalion, Les Indes Galantes, Le Temple de la Gloire and Les Fetes d’Hebe, among others. In Washington D.C. she has collaborated with Ryan Brown of Opera Lafayette Orchestra and Chorus in 15 productions. This next season she returns to Houston with Ars Lyrica  conducted by Matthew Dirst.

Internationally Ms. Turocy has worked with conductors Nicholas McGegan (Festival Orchestra of Goettingen),  Christopher Hogwood (Academy  of Ancient Music in London) ,  John Eliot Gardiner (English Baroque Soloists in London), Philippe Herreweghe (La Chapelle Royale in Paris) and Wolfgang Katschner (Lautten Compagney in Berlin).

Catherine Turocy has also worked as a Production Director with Jason Starr on his films: Everywhere and Forever, Mahler’s Song of the Earth, winner of the 2016 Whitehead International Film Festival Award for Outstanding Achievement and Cosmic Portal, released 2025.

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, Julia Bengtsson, Caroline Copeland, Julian Donahue, Sarah Edgar, Rachel List, Megi Sweeney Smith, Alexis Silver and Ani Udovicki.

Ms. Turocy has been invited as a guest teacher by the Dance, Music and the Historical Performance Departments at Juilliard.  She has often been a guest teacher at the Early Music Institute at Indiana University, Oberlin College, Curtis Institute of Music and Case Western Reserve and the Colburn School. 

Always happy to serve dance when needed, she acted as the Ad Interim Chair and Dance History teacher for the Dance Division at the Meadows School, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas from 1995-96.

She is a member of CORPS de Ballet International, the Dance Council and Dance Studies Association.

Catherine Turocy began her studies of historical dance as a freshman with Dr. Shirley Wynne at Ohio State University where she graduated magna cum laude.  She is grateful to Lynn Dally, Peter Saul, Kathryn Karipedes, Ruth Currier, Lucy Venable, Alex Martin and Miss Betsy Widmer for their instruction and guidance during her early years.  As a ballet dancer she performed with the Cleveland Ballet under Alex Martin and as a modern dancer she has performed with choreographer Mitchell Rose and in many of her own original works in NYC.