Pittsburgh dancer performs at Karmiel Dance Festival during ceasefire announcement
"This is about healing. It’s about prayer and unity. It’s about humanity. I believe it’s a true humanitarian effort to connect people, especially during times of struggle.”
You’ll have to excuse Maria Angelica Caruso if she seems a little jet lagged.
“Over the last 14 weeks I’ve traveled 59,000 miles,” Caruso said. “That’s twice around the world. I’ve been on tour in Singapore, Japan, China, Brazil and Italy. I’ve been at the beginning part of distributing scholarships, so I’ve been everywhere.”
Part of that travel brought Caruso to Karmiel, Israel — Pittsburgh’s sister city in the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership2Gether Global Network — for its annual dance festival.
Caruso is the founding director of Bodiography, a Pittsburgh dance company, dance conservatory, fitness program and a dance movement therapy system. While she isn’t Jewish, her connection to the Jewish community goes back to when she first launched her dance company.
“I walked by the Yeshiva School, and I went in and was like, ‘Talk to me about how I can serve the community.’ I used to teach 15 or 20 classes a week at Yeshiva for all women,” she said. “The joke is that I’m the Catholic Jew.”
Through that initial connection, Caruso became more integrated with Pittsburgh’s Jewish community.
She credits her friend, Julie Paris, with suggesting she perform at the Karmiel Dance Festival.
“I said, ‘Let’s do it,’” Caruso remembered.
She first made the trip to Israel in 2018, which required a certain amount of chutzpah — Caruso went alone and didn’t speak Hebrew.
“I got picked up by a driver who didn’t speak English. I didn’t have a good translator at the time. I walked into this massive amphitheater with thousands of people. I thought, ‘This is so crazy.’”
Caruso said she quickly made friends with many people associated with the partnership, including a couple she calls her “Israeli parents,” Galit and Arie Erner, and their daughter Nofar. They took care of her during the entire trip, she said, including letting her stay in their home rather than at a hotel.
“I performed ‘Metamorphosis’ for the first time. It really catapulted my whole career,” she said. “It changed my whole life.”
The connection continued in 2019 when Caruso returned to the dance festival with her full company. Dancers from Karmiel also visited Pittsburgh.
Fast forward a few years, through the pandemic and two years of war, and Caruso decided to return to Karmiel to perform a new piece she created as a sequel to “Metamorphosis.”
She bought plane tickets, planning to go to the dance festival, scheduled for August 2025. Several of her friends questioned the viability of going to a country at war to dance, but Caruso was insistent that it was important to attend and perform.
“This is completely apolitical,” she said. “This is about the arts. This is about healing. It’s about prayer and unity. It’s about humanity. I believe it’s a true humanitarian effort to connect people, especially during times of struggle.”
Caruso did not cancel her plans, but they did change when the dance festival was rescheduled to begin Oct. 8.
“I was preparing for my journey. It was such a somber day on Oct. 7 to make my way there. I arrived on the 8th. This whole time I’m praying for peace, praying for a ceasefire. It was such a prayerful journey for me,” she recounted.
Those prayers were answered when a ceasefire was signed while Caruso was in Israel.
“When a ceasefire was announced, it was unbelievable. It was mind-blowing. I went home and showered and just sobbed. It was so emotional.”
It wasn’t the only highlight for Caruso during her time at the festival, though.
“I met Luis Har, who was held hostage for 129 days. He gave me a hug and told me that all he wanted was to dance when he got out, so he joined this community of older dancers to perform,” she said.
She met the mayor of Karmiel as well, something she considered an honor since she was the only dancer from abroad to attend the festival this year.
Caruso also gave away $17,500 in scholarship money for students to study in Pittsburgh with her.
“I had intended to give away three scholarships to Bodiography for a six-week summer intensive,” she said. “I ended up awarding all the choreographers that were acknowledged a scholarship.”
Caruso’s connection to the Jewish community doesn’t surprise her friend Julie Paris, who she’s known for more than two decades.
“Using dance to bridge communities has always been her life’s work,” Paris said of Caruso. “Her performing ‘Incarnation’ at the 2025 Karmiel Dance Festival, despite two cancellations due to the war, is a truly heroic act of love and commitment. She has forged deep, long-lasting relationships within the Jewish community, giving countless hours of energy and support. I’d like to thank Maria for showing Israel and the world that, despite these difficult times, we are dancing again, thanks in large part to her solidarity and inspiring determination.”
Caruso’s commitment to the Jewish community, Paris said, will be celebrated by StandWithUs and Chabad of Squirrel Hill at a Nov. 20 community challah baking event.
For Caruso, her path is simple.
“The world’s been a dark place over the last few years,” she said. “This is the focal point of my life. The more lives I change, the more light there’s going to be in the world.” PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.com.
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