Eileen's profile
Eileen Carson Schatz has dedicated her life to sharing the power and joy of traditional music and percussive dance with people throughout the U.S. and abroad. The Founding Artistic Director of Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble in 1979, she is a pioneer in bringing Americana music and percussive dance to performing arts stages and the general public. For over 38 years, she has filled many roles, including Footworks' Artistic Director, performing artist, choreographer, vocalist, song writer, and teaching artist.
Eileen's family is from the Southern Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee and they moved to Maryland seeking better education and career opportunities. They brought with them a great love and respect for traditional Southern music and dance along with an appreciation of jazz, swing, ballroom dancing, and all of the performing arts. Eileen's parents provided her with ballet, tap, and modern dance instruction along with participation in many youth productions and choirs, and especially transmitted a great passion for the performing arts to her by taking her to live shows whenever possible. In her adolescence in the late 1960s, Eileen's father's work took the family to Japan, where she studied the language and culture. She attended the American school on the nearest Army base during the height of the Motown music era, and dancing every day with her classmates, Eileen discovered the joy of social dance - dancing for the fun of it with others. In her late teens and early twenties Eileen returned to the South and was attracted to the music and dance of her family heritage, especially flatfooting and clogging - the individual improvisational percussive dance native to the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
In 1974, Eileen began dancing with the Green Grass Cloggers of North Carolina, a group of college students with a love of fiddle music and dance and the courage to experiment and innovate with the dance form, which led them to be one of the first traditional clogging groups to bring the form out of the South to a larger audience. The group toured the folk circuit throughout North America, and at the large festivals began to come into contact with many different traditions of percussive dance. Eileen moved back to Maryland in 1979 and founded The Fiddle Puppet Dancers. The group gave her the creative vehicle to begin choreographing, adapting traditional social dance figures into choreography for the quartet, and creating new steps and rhythms while developing her talent for staging and creating concert productions. Through Eileen's direction, the group was one of the first to bring traditional percussive dance to professional performing arts venues. At her request, many folk festivals provided opportunities for Eileen to collaborate with percussive dancers and musicians from many traditions and this path led to Footworks' unique repertoire and theater productions that she went on to create. In 1994, the group changed their name to Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble to reflect both the increased number of dancers and the expansion of the repertoire, a collection of multi-cultural percussive dance along with many original works choreographed by Eileen, always performed to a stellar band of live musicians.
Under Eileen's direction and with her choreography, Footworks was chosen by the Smithsonian to be one of eight groups representing American culture on the first living exhibit to Japan in 1994. Footworks was included as guest artists in the 1996 London run of "Riverdance" where Eileen choreographed a piece that illuminated the connection between Irish and Southern Appalachian dance. Other awards throughout her career include The National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship, and The Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Choreography (1997). Maryland First Lady Frances Hughes Glendening presented Eileen with a Celebration of the Arts in Maryland Award, she received the Annie Award for Performing Artist by the Arts Council of Anne Arundel County, and she was selected "Artist of the Year" by Young Audiences of Maryland. Eileen's talent as a songwriter won her Best Song in the national Chris Austin Song Competition. In 2014, she was again awarded the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Choreography.
Eileen has performed at music festivals for audiences in the thousands, and in sold-out concert halls as well as for children in schools. A spirited and inspiring teacher, Eileen has taught hundreds of workshops and residencies at schools, universities, and traditional arts camps throughout the US and abroad for the general public of all ages and abilities, as well as master classes for dance companies and college and high school dance departments. Eileen is committed to Arts-in-Education and working with youth, and completed studies with the Teaching Artist Institute and is a Certified Teaching Artist in Maryland.
Other high lights in Eileen's career include receiving a commission from the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts in June 2010 to create "Steps and Stripes" to be performed for the Americans for the Arts Conference in Baltimore, which led to Eileen's creation of a full length theater show that was presented with Footworks across MD from 2011-14. She also appeared as a guest artist on the 2011 Grammy nominated recording, "Memories of John," on Compass Records.
In Fall of 2014 Eileen was commissioned to choreograph and perform, with Footworks, the opening number for the International Bluegrass Music Association's (IBMA) Award Show to a sold out Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, NC. The producers requested a production number that would show, thru dance, the history of the music from old time music through contemporary bluegrass with the hopes that the visual addition of dance would lead to the show being televised. Eileen and Footworks' musical director created the musical arrangement that was performed live with the choreography by some of the very best musicians in Americana/bluegrass music, and the piece received a standing ovation. The 2014 IBMA Awards Show went on to be televised on "Music City Roots" and was aired nationally on PBS stations in spring through fall of 2015. In April 2016, Eileen was the Artistic Director and lead choreographer for "Hot Strings and Flying Feet", presented with funding support from the MSAC Presenting and Touring Program at Maryland Hall in Annapolis. Special guest artists included The Claire Lynch Band and the Teelin Irish Dance Company. In September 2016, Eileen created and performed main stage productions with Footworks for the Wheatland Music Festival, one of the premier Americana music and dance festivals in North America.
In 2017, Eileen created, produced, choreographed and performed three new productions for Footworks. "Build A Better World" is a show for family audiences that received partial funding from the Arts Council of Anne Arundel County to create the debut performance and an additional Strategic Grant to further develop the production into arts-integrated programming for schools. "Steppin' At The Junction" is a two set theater show with Baltimore's own acoustic band Charm City Junction that included new choreography and original songs with the Gordon Center serving as Presenting Partner where the production debuted. "Steppin' At The Junction" will be presented in theaters throughout Maryland. "Destination Baltimore", made possible in part by funding from the MSAC Presenting and Touring Program, tells the story of the many cultures that came through Baltimore and was presented at the Community College of Baltimore County, Catonsville Campus to compliment the campus-wide cultural theme of "Baltimore Stories". The project was one of the biggest productions that Eileen has created in recent years and included new songs and choreography, Baltimore and Maryland based guest artists, and songs and poetry from Baltimore writers.
Eileen's family is from the Southern Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee and they moved to Maryland seeking better education and career opportunities. They brought with them a great love and respect for traditional Southern music and dance along with an appreciation of jazz, swing, ballroom dancing, and all of the performing arts. Eileen's parents provided her with ballet, tap, and modern dance instruction along with participation in many youth productions and choirs, and especially transmitted a great passion for the performing arts to her by taking her to live shows whenever possible. In her adolescence in the late 1960s, Eileen's father's work took the family to Japan, where she studied the language and culture. She attended the American school on the nearest Army base during the height of the Motown music era, and dancing every day with her classmates, Eileen discovered the joy of social dance - dancing for the fun of it with others. In her late teens and early twenties Eileen returned to the South and was attracted to the music and dance of her family heritage, especially flatfooting and clogging - the individual improvisational percussive dance native to the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
In 1974, Eileen began dancing with the Green Grass Cloggers of North Carolina, a group of college students with a love of fiddle music and dance and the courage to experiment and innovate with the dance form, which led them to be one of the first traditional clogging groups to bring the form out of the South to a larger audience. The group toured the folk circuit throughout North America, and at the large festivals began to come into contact with many different traditions of percussive dance. Eileen moved back to Maryland in 1979 and founded The Fiddle Puppet Dancers. The group gave her the creative vehicle to begin choreographing, adapting traditional social dance figures into choreography for the quartet, and creating new steps and rhythms while developing her talent for staging and creating concert productions. Through Eileen's direction, the group was one of the first to bring traditional percussive dance to professional performing arts venues. At her request, many folk festivals provided opportunities for Eileen to collaborate with percussive dancers and musicians from many traditions and this path led to Footworks' unique repertoire and theater productions that she went on to create. In 1994, the group changed their name to Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble to reflect both the increased number of dancers and the expansion of the repertoire, a collection of multi-cultural percussive dance along with many original works choreographed by Eileen, always performed to a stellar band of live musicians.
Under Eileen's direction and with her choreography, Footworks was chosen by the Smithsonian to be one of eight groups representing American culture on the first living exhibit to Japan in 1994. Footworks was included as guest artists in the 1996 London run of "Riverdance" where Eileen choreographed a piece that illuminated the connection between Irish and Southern Appalachian dance. Other awards throughout her career include The National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship, and The Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Choreography (1997). Maryland First Lady Frances Hughes Glendening presented Eileen with a Celebration of the Arts in Maryland Award, she received the Annie Award for Performing Artist by the Arts Council of Anne Arundel County, and she was selected "Artist of the Year" by Young Audiences of Maryland. Eileen's talent as a songwriter won her Best Song in the national Chris Austin Song Competition. In 2014, she was again awarded the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Choreography.
Eileen has performed at music festivals for audiences in the thousands, and in sold-out concert halls as well as for children in schools. A spirited and inspiring teacher, Eileen has taught hundreds of workshops and residencies at schools, universities, and traditional arts camps throughout the US and abroad for the general public of all ages and abilities, as well as master classes for dance companies and college and high school dance departments. Eileen is committed to Arts-in-Education and working with youth, and completed studies with the Teaching Artist Institute and is a Certified Teaching Artist in Maryland.
Other high lights in Eileen's career include receiving a commission from the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts in June 2010 to create "Steps and Stripes" to be performed for the Americans for the Arts Conference in Baltimore, which led to Eileen's creation of a full length theater show that was presented with Footworks across MD from 2011-14. She also appeared as a guest artist on the 2011 Grammy nominated recording, "Memories of John," on Compass Records.
In Fall of 2014 Eileen was commissioned to choreograph and perform, with Footworks, the opening number for the International Bluegrass Music Association's (IBMA) Award Show to a sold out Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, NC. The producers requested a production number that would show, thru dance, the history of the music from old time music through contemporary bluegrass with the hopes that the visual addition of dance would lead to the show being televised. Eileen and Footworks' musical director created the musical arrangement that was performed live with the choreography by some of the very best musicians in Americana/bluegrass music, and the piece received a standing ovation. The 2014 IBMA Awards Show went on to be televised on "Music City Roots" and was aired nationally on PBS stations in spring through fall of 2015. In April 2016, Eileen was the Artistic Director and lead choreographer for "Hot Strings and Flying Feet", presented with funding support from the MSAC Presenting and Touring Program at Maryland Hall in Annapolis. Special guest artists included The Claire Lynch Band and the Teelin Irish Dance Company. In September 2016, Eileen created and performed main stage productions with Footworks for the Wheatland Music Festival, one of the premier Americana music and dance festivals in North America.
In 2017, Eileen created, produced, choreographed and performed three new productions for Footworks. "Build A Better World" is a show for family audiences that received partial funding from the Arts Council of Anne Arundel County to create the debut performance and an additional Strategic Grant to further develop the production into arts-integrated programming for schools. "Steppin' At The Junction" is a two set theater show with Baltimore's own acoustic band Charm City Junction that included new choreography and original songs with the Gordon Center serving as Presenting Partner where the production debuted. "Steppin' At The Junction" will be presented in theaters throughout Maryland. "Destination Baltimore", made possible in part by funding from the MSAC Presenting and Touring Program, tells the story of the many cultures that came through Baltimore and was presented at the Community College of Baltimore County, Catonsville Campus to compliment the campus-wide cultural theme of "Baltimore Stories". The project was one of the biggest productions that Eileen has created in recent years and included new songs and choreography, Baltimore and Maryland based guest artists, and songs and poetry from Baltimore writers.
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