It is with sadness that the Morrison-Shearer Foundation announces the passing of Tom Jaremba, longtime dancer with the Sybil Shearer Company and a founding member of the Board of the Morrison-Shearer Foundation. The Board of Trustees extend our deepest sympathy to his family. Our gratitude for his vision, commitment and wise counsel will never be extinguished.

Tom Jaremba was the Founder and Chair, as well as Professor of the Performance Department at the School of the Art Institute. Prior to this, he was an innovative choreographer and teacher of stage movement and dance at the Goodman School of Drama. In addition to performing with the Sybil Shearer Company and the Alwin Nikolais/Murray Louis Company among others in New York, Tom had a long and rich solo and collaborative performance career, principally in the Midwest from 1961 to 1994.

Some of the many solo and group performance pieces he created are: "Schlamperei" - conceived/performed N.A.M.E. Gallery, Chicago 1983, "At Sea" - conceived/performed at Columbia College Dance Center, Chicago, 1980, "Medium" - conceived/directed/performed at his Webster Street Loft, Chicago, New Year's Eve, 1970 and "Dance Music 1976" -conceived/performed at his loft in Wicker Park, known as the Lodge Hall Movement Center, which, along with the SAIC, became a center for early performance work in Chicago.

His striking stage presence and elegant movement could be seen for twenty years in the Sybil Shearer Company in dances such as: "Fables and Proverbs, "The Reflection in the Puddle is Mine, "Wherever the Web and the Tendril" and" In Place of Opinions" among others.

Tom was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and while studying Sociology and Psychology at Marquette University, he became a performer under the marvelous tutelage of Father John J. Walsh, S.J. John Neumeier, Artistic Director and Choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet in Germany also worked with Father Walsh and had joined the Sybil Shearer Company in the early '60s. Sybil Shearer and Helen Morrison went to Marquette to see a female dance candidate for the Company. Instead Sybil Shearer was so excited by Tom's dancing, that she asked him on the spot to come down from Milwaukee to work with the Company. Tom was Member of the Board at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH.

A celebration of Tom's life was held at the School of the Art Institute's Maclean Ballroom on December 11, 2008.  Presenters included Meredith Monk, noted New York performer; Ellen Fisher, student of Tom's and currently touring with Monk; Werner Herterich, Lisa Wainwright, Trevor Martin, Susan Bodine Bolea, Lou Mallozzi and Sandra Binion, Tom Plazzola, Carmela Rago, and Lynn Book.

The Morrison-Shearer Foundation presented two scholarships to the School on this occasion.  The recipients were Joseph Belknap and Chryssa Tsampazi.