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Biography
William Orlowski is one of the greatest tap dancers Canada has ever produced, not to mention an award-winning choreographer! Orlowski has won two Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Choreography in a Musical (Dames at Sea, That Scatterbrain Booky) and was assistant choreographer for the Paramount Pictures feature film, Stepping Out, starring Liza Minnelli. He is featured in a tap dance short aired on TVO and was seen on CBC in Cynthia! as special guest and tap choreographer. He has also appeared on television in such acclaimed works as the CBC's award-winning documentary, Dance Makes Waves, and All That Bach which was nominated for an Emmy award. He created special choreography for Ginger Rogers in the television series The Palace Presents hosted by Jack Jones. William Orlowski has won critical acclaim for his work at the Shaw Festival. He returned for his seventh season in 2001 as choreographer for the Noel Coward musical Shadow Play. His choreography was seen in the 1999-2000 season with She Loves Me!, the smash hit Gershwin musical A Foggy Day (1998-99), The Chocolate Soldier (1997), choreographer and featured performer Mr. Cinders (1996) and tap choreographer and featured performer Lady, Be Good! (1994). William Orlowski co-founded the National Tap Dance Company of Canada in 1977 and for 28 years has been its Artistic Director and Resident Choreographer. He has created over thirty works for the company: among them, The Tin Soldier, Oliver Button is a Sissy, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Brandenburg Concerto #3. His Artistic Direction of the company lead to performances in China, Hong Kong, Bermuda, the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy and the Kennedy Center in Washington. William Orlowski has appeared throughout North America as a Guest Artist with symphony orchestras. Most recently he has appeared with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, the Kingston, London, Kitchener-Waterloo, Windsor, Winnipeg, Quebec City and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras. The repertoire of this esteemed performer includes Morton Gould's Tap Dance Concerto appearing as guest tap dance artist with the Toronto, Winnipeg, London, West Shore, and Hamilton Philharmonic Symphony Orchestras, and under the direction of the late Paul Draper, Orlowski performs Mr. Draper's classic works: A Political Speech (1940) and Tap Dance Sonata (1952). His most recent Tap Dance Theatre project is ABLE disABLE, touring Ontario in the spring of 2006, through the Outreach Programme for Arts in Schools, The National Tap Dance Company of Canada. Mr. Orlowski was invited to Banfield by the Sea 2007 by Christopher Donison, founding Artistic Director. Mr. Donison composed three works for tap dance and musicians, considering his difficulty in using a dancers vocabulary and its limitations. I. On Shuberts Trout Quintet re-scored for marimbas and tap dancer This concert marked William Orlowski's first public performance since undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery in the spring of 2006 for Dystonia, a neurological disease. He was diagnosed in 1999 and over this short period of time, it developed into its most severe form, generalized Dystonia, here the entire body is affected by the most painful and uncontrolled muscle contractions and spasms. This forced him to give up a career of over forty years, using a cane to walk, eventually a wheelchair. Little is known about this third largest movement disorder for which there is no cure. The temporary assistance is this surgery. The three major neurological diseases are Parkinsons, Essential Tremor, Dystonia and MS. As an advocate, speaking and educating the general public and officials with government health policies is essential. William Orlowski will continue therapy hoping that one day a cure will be found. |
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Biography from the
Encyclopedia of Theatre Dance in Canada William Orlowski is an advocate of tap dancing as an art form; he is a hoofer, and proud of it. As a youngster, he fell in love with Fred Astaire movies and began tap lessons when he was ten at the Marise White School of Dance in Port Credit. He also studied jazz and ballet with Gladys Forrester. After graduating from high school in 1969, Orlowski moved to Toronto to pursue a career as a show dancer, continuing his tap training with Bob van Norman and Jack Lemen. He cut his teeth in amateur theatricals, finally breaking into television and the professional stage in 1972. Orlowski left musical theatre in 1977 to become a concert tap dancer. He was intrigued by specialty artists from the past such as Paul Draper, who had tap danced with elegance in concert halls, and who had pioneered tap as a narrative style. Orlowski opened the Hoofer's Club in Toronto as a tap school and co-founded, with Steve Dymond, the National Tap Dance Company, which became an international success. His first major choreography, Brandenburg Concerto #3 (1977) impressed critics with its intricate counterpoint filigree, tapped by six dancers, over J.S. Bach's complex music; Dance in Canada's Spring 1978 issue commented, "Tap triumphed here, emerging as a versatile and legitimate art form". Orlowski also explored the possibilities of narrative tap as a medium for both expressing mood and emotion, and linking motivation and rhythm, in two full-length shows, The Tin Soldier (1979) and Oliver Button is a Sissy (1981). He experimented as well with combinations of tap and poetry, live percussion, and serious subject matter. In the early 1980's, concert tap masters including Americans Barbara Perry and Draper, and Canadian John Stanzel, gave works to the company. Orlowski's own full-length Hound of the Baskervilles (1987), a dramatic and humorous narrative work, was performed at Toronto's Premiere Dance Theatre. He left the company in 1990 to found William Orlowski Tap Dance Projects, creating concert works for dance series and symphony orchestras. In 1987, Orlowski rediscovered his love of musicals, working with director Brian Macdonald on Dames at Sea, which earned him his first Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Choreography. His second was for That Scatterbrain Booky, in 1991. He has also choreographed for the Shaw Festival, and for film and television. Orlowski has been mounting tap productions for schools since 1978, including writing his own short stories to serve as libretti, such as Jennifer's Dream (1984), about a young girl coping with the death of her grandfather. Another ongoing interest is creating performances for the Smile Company, a theatre group which tours hospitals and nursing homes. As part of his mandate to have tap taken more seriously, his choreographic focus is on creating more dramatic works. |