Artist Bio
Weena Pauly-Tarr

I’m originally from Atlanta, born in the country of north Georgia and then raised in the city. I moved to New York City in 1998 with a BFA in Dance and a southern, bright-eyed excitement for what I might find. Almost immediately, I was in the thick of it — doing weird, scrappy, experimental shows all over the city with friends and whoever else was up for it.

We performed outside, in warehouses, in tiny black box theaters, behind bars — anywhere we could fumble toward what we were making and why, and where failing felt like part of the education we needed. Around that same time, I began making my own choreography, with solo works presented at Manhattan Theater Source, PS122, Galapagos, and The Flea Theater.

My first paid dance job was with a West African dance company called Magbana, a surprising but deeply fulfilling extension of the years I had spent immersed in West African dance during college. In 2000, I joined Elizabeth Streb’s company (STREB), where I spent three years touring the world in her daredevil “Pop Action” works that tested not only my strength and discipline, but the edges of what a body could withstand and ignited a need for me to learn how to listen to my body, not just control it.

Soon after, I became a founding member of Brian Brooks Moving Company, where for nearly a decade I toured nationally and internationally in choreography that demanded both brainy precision and courageous abandon. Those years taught me how to live authentically inside work that was demanding, intimate, and deeply personal all at once.

In 2007, I went on to dance with Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company, where I performed in Church at The Public Theater — a piece that was part singing, part theater, part dance — which went on to tour nationally and which I so deeply loved performing. And then in 2010 I joined David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group where I felt asked to show up even more as myself. After becoming a mother, I continued to dance in Katie Workum’s feminist and authentically-driven work for many years. More recently, I’ve been continuing to work closely with Katie Workum now as a creator and performer in our collaborative dance theater productions with musician Annie Hart. Currently, we are building a dance-theater trilogy, PASTFUTUREPRESENT: Oh Everything.

The first production, Monster Mourning, premiered in 2023 and was remounted in 2024 to sold-out runs. The second, One Door Closes and Another Door Closes, premiered in May 2025, also to sold-out houses. Our third and final piece of the trilogy, rooted in the present, will premiere in 2027. After more than two decades of performing, choreographing, and touring, I am still in awe that discovering how movement reveals our most essential self, our most-honest truths, and our very real relationship patterning is never-ending.

My study and practice of somatics has deepened my devotion to what a life in dance and performance can offer. That same devotion has brought new depth and gratitude to my somatic work outside of performance. Dance and somatic practice have become interdependent forces, shaping my life and work in ways that are sometimes mysterious, sometimes tangible — and forever exciting and life-afffirming.