LA SAMUELSON

(303) 667-5796   |  lauraann.samuelson@gmail.com   |    lauraannsamuelson.com

 

Education                                                 

 

MFA in Dance, University of Colorado Boulder, 2020

• Secondary Emphases: Visual Art & Somatics. 

• Graduate Certificate in Emergent Technologies & Media Arts Practices 

 

BA in Dance & Creative Writing, Hampshire College, 2011 

 

Additional Training

• 800-Hour Guild Certified Practitioner Training in The Feldenkrais Method®, Feldenkrais in Santa Fe, 2021

• 200-Hour Interdisciplinary Yoga, Nosara Yoga Institute, 2011

 

Current Positions

 

• 2024: Visiting Assistant Professor, Digital Arts & Dept of Dance & Movement Studies, Hamilton College

• 2023: Lecturer, Dept of Dance & Movement Studies, Hamilton College

• 2023: Guest Artist/Choreographer: Rent, Dept of Theatre, Hamilton College

 

University Appointments    (Teaching & Administrative)             

 

• 2023 - 2024: Visiting Assistant Professor in Digital Art and Dance

  • DARTS240: Performance, Ritual and Technology

  • DARTS113: Intro to Integrated Media

  • DANCE120: Elementary Contemporary Dance

• 2023: Lecturer, Hamilton College 

  • DANCE202-01: Gut Feelings: Thinking With The Body, Spring 2023

  • DANCE202-02: Gut Feelings: Thinking With The Body, Spring 2023

• 2022: Research Assistant for Michelle Ellsworth, Associate Chair of Dance, University of Colorado Boulder

• 2018-2020: Graduate Part-Time Instructor, University of Colorado Boulder 

  • DNCE 1017 Dance in Popular Culture: Spring 2020, Fall 2019 

  • DNCE 1000 Beginning Contemporary Dance, Fall 2018

• 2019: Teaching Assistant, University of Colorado Boulder 

  • DNCE 4037 Contemporary Concert Dance: Shifting Perspectives in Performance

• 2018-2020: Roser Grant Fellow, University of Colorado Boulder

• 2015: Adjunct Faculty, Naropa University, School of the Arts, Boulder, CO

• PAR490 Special Topics: Physical Research & Creative Process, Spring 2015

• 2014: Guest Co-Instructor Washington University in St Louis: MADE IN FRANCE Study Abroad Program

  • Choreography & Construction Collaborations (collaborative playmaking)

• 2011: Teaching Assistant, Washington University in St Louis: MADE IN FRANCE Study Abroad Program

  • Yoga and Somatic Practices

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Awards, Honors, Grants and Residencies                         

 

• 2023: National Performance Network Development Fund Grant for Telegraph Valley

• 2022: National Performance Network Creation Fund Grant for Telegraph Valley 

• 2022: Insite Fund - Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for Holding Pattern 

• 2022: Understudy Grant for New Work - Understudy Denver

• 2020-2022: RedLine Contemporary Art Center Residency, Denver, CO 

• 2020: Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN - 3 Month studio (+room and board) residency 

• 2020: Boulder County Arts Alliance Unrestricted Fellowship Award 

• 2020: Boulder Arts Commission Professional Development Scholarship for Crosstown Arts Residency

• 2020: Atlas Institute - B2 Center for Media Arts and Performance, 2-Week Performance Residency for production of to get under, you have to lose

• 2019: Charlotte York Irey Scholarship, Graduate Award for Excellence in Dance Performance, Choreography and Teaching, University of Colorado Boulder 

• 2018-2020: Roser Arts Fellowship, University of Colorado Boulder 

• 2017-2018: Center for the Humanities & Arts: Arts & Sciences Fellowship

• 2017: Creative-in-Residence, Denver Art Museum

• 2016: General Operating Support Grant, Boulder County Arts Alliance 

• 2016 Teaching & Performance Making Residency, Dance Initiative/Launchpad of the Arts Spring

• 2015 Project Support Grant, Boulder County Arts Alliance 

• 2014 Major Grant, Boulder Arts Commission 

• 2014 2-week creation residency, Skogen Arts Residency, Sweden 

• 2014 5-month creation/ performance residency, Colorado Conservatory of Dance

• 2014 Boulder County Arts Alliance/Unrestricted Fellowship 

• 2013 Encore! Award Winner, Boulder International Fringe Festival 

• 2012 Encore! Award Winner, Boulder International Fringe Festival 

• 2008 - 2011 Non-Satis Scire Undergraduate Scholarship, Hampshire College 

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Creative Work                                             

 

Solo - Authored Performance (Created & Performed)

 

2024: Telegraph Valley (forthcoming)

Premiere: RedLine Contemporary Art Center 

Sound Design: Adam Stone

Dramaturgy: Elle Hong

Additional Commissioners/Presenters: square product theatre, Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator (DVCAI)

Supported by the National Performance Network

 

2023: Holding Pattern (forthcoming)

Premiere: Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum (Location TBD)

Dramaturgy: Elle Hong

 

2023: I’m Trying to Land 

Premiere: Loculus Collective Festival 

15 minute performance with rotating projectors

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2023: Almost Transmission 

Premiere: Museum of Contemporary Art - Denver 

Sound Engineering: Adam Stone 

Dramaturgy: Elle Hong

40-minute solo performance work focused on dismantling the ubiquitous metaphor of “the body as a house” in order to consider the role of the body in creation and dissolution of a singular self

 

2023: Ordinary Portal

Premiere: Museum of Longmont 

35-minute solo performance work investigating how memory vibrates through matter

 

2021: this time with smaller parts

Premiere: Checking In, Curated by Louise Martorano 

Presented by RedLine Contemporary Art Center at The Evans School, Denver, CO 

40-minute solo performance work wrestling with thresholds, working across dance, sculpture, gender, attachment, loss, love, and text.

 

2020: to get under, you have to lose 

Premiere: Atlas Institute’s B2 Center for Media Arts and Performance, University of Colorado Boulder

Additional Presentation: Harper Joy Theater at Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA, Spring 2020 (virtual presentation due to COVID-19)

40-minute solo performance work destabilizing the floor in order to imagine new futures.

 

2019: Outside’s Insides (you were here) 

Performed with Ondine Geary

Premiere: Charlotte York Irey Theater, University of Colorado Boulder 

10-minute dance exploring “the tools of caring” featuring two dancers and 7 sheets of plywood

 

2018: thinning out 

Premiere: Charlotte York Irey Theater, University of Colorado Boulder

12-minute solo work examining being a lesbian and dead dads

 

2017: Field Dependence: Willful Child 

Premiere: Charlotte York Irey Theater, University of Colorado Boulder

10-minute solo work considering what can be made out of the labor produced by anticipatory grief

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2017: practicing 

Premiere: Boulder Creative Collective, presented by Hoarded Stuff

30-minute work in which a dancer practices organizing their body around a void 

 

2015: Do Not Fear Ideas Do Not Fear Do Not Do Ideas

Premiere: Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMOCA)

30-minute commission created as a tribute to the visual art of Susan Wick 

 

2014: Kitsch

Premiere: Boulder International Fringe Festival; presented by Hoarded Stuff

Additional Presentations: 

• Paloma Arts Space, Los Angeles, CA, 2015

• Performing Arts Center, Naropa University, Boulder, CO, 2015

45-minute dance to practice saying goodbye using packing paper and a Toyota Prius

 

2014: Everything is In

Premiere: Community Dance Collective, Boulder, CO; presented by Hoarded Stuff

Additional Presentations: 

• Tatwerk Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 2015

• MADE in France, Tapis Vert, Normandy, France, 2015

40-minute dance to practice saying goodbye with fruit

 

2013: Tiny Gods: More

Premiere: Wesley Chapel, Boulder, CO; presented by Hoarded Stuff & TinHOUSE experimental dance theatre

20-minute dance for 250 green army men 

 

2012: Falling Out

Premiere: Charlotte York Irey Theatre, University of Colorado Boulder; presented as part of NeXus Dance Concert

10-minute solo

 

2011: DEMOLITION woman

Premiere:  The We’re House, Boulder, CO

Additional Presentations: HyBridge Arts Collective, Philadelphia, PA, 2012

15-minute solo 

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Collaborative Performance Work 

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2021: Suspended Disbelief

Created with Kate Speer and Chris Bagley

Curated by Rosie Gordon Wallace

Premiere:  Chromatic Cogitations, Rhythm Reboot - RedLine Contemporary Art Center, Denver

3-hour performative loop functioning as a search party for changing states of matter; included mixed media installation combining sculpture, live feed, and recorded video

 

2019: A Queer Tradition

Created with and curated by Kenzie Sitterud

Premiere: Sit. Stand. Play. Denver Art Museum 

A collaboration with sculptor and mixed media artist Kenzie Sitterud, looking for queer belonging in childhood furniture 

 

2018: Untitled Duet (Ejection Fraction) 

Created with Ondine Geary

Premiere: Un/Seen Festival, Counterpath Press, Denver, CO 

15-minute duet investigation of the human stand-in 

 

2018: Tiny Dances

Created with Nathan Hall

Premiere: Untitled Series, Micro, Denver Art Museum

30-minute program of tiny music/dance collaborations

 

2016: This Aunt is Not a Cockroach

Created with Emily K Harrison

Premiere: Wesley Chapel, Boulder, CO; Presented by square product theatre and Hoarded Stuff

1-hour long theater piece: Twelve legs and a cactus living next door to each other in a crevice of the coastline (or perhaps it's the Grand Canyon) eat, sleep, and work at regular intervals (or at least: they try). Two neighbors who barely know each other shift their gaze back and forth from the opening of a cozy desert cave to the unknown wilds of the unpredictable seas (or perhaps it’s just a sheer drop into 

the nothingness). They are trying to be decisive. They are trying to figure it out. They ask each other - who is in charge, here? 

 

2016: I’m Going, Middle, End.

Created with Meg Madorin and CoMotion Dance Company

Premiere: Launchpad for the Arts, Carbdonale, CO

15-minute improvisational performance of scores embedded inside of other scores, exploring perpetuity and thresholds. 

 

2015: Goodnight, Courtney Love 

Created with Joanna Rotkin

Premiere: North Boulder Recreation Center, Boulder, CO; Presented by Joanna & The Agitators and Hoarded Stuff Performance 

40-minute duet in the North Boulder Recreation Center’s leisure swimming pool. Built over the course of a year with insights from fellow swimmers, the piece explores the ways in which bodies perceived as female collide with public space 

 

2015: Retriplicate

Created with Buntport Theater Company and Adam Stone

Premiere: Buntport Theater, presented by Buntport Theater & the Clyfford Still Museum, Denver, CO

1-hour long collaborative performance work examining Clyfford Still’s use of the copy, hoarding, and the desire to be of use. 

 

2014: Taming the Apology

Created with Li Molnar Kronlid

Premiere: Skogen, Gothenburg, Sweden 

20-minute duet constructed out of Swedish and American baggage surrounding apologies.

 

2013: Some Kind of Fun

Created in collaboration with Adam Stone, Erin Rollman and Cast

Premiere: Buntport Theater, Denver, CO; presented by Screwtooth Theater Company

2-hour experimental dance theater work that takes place 360 degrees around an audience seated in the center of a warehouse. 

 

2013: Il Pleut

Created in collaboration with Adam Stone

Premiere: Buntport Theater, Denver, CO

20-minute solo work about power, metamorphoses, and rain. 

 

2012: Let Them Eat Cake

Created with Joanna Rotkin and Cast

Premiere: Trident Booksellers, Boulder International Fringe Festival

45-minute dance theater work - An illogical sojourn into the life of an ant family through the efforts and hard work of a gold medal winning (and wearing) post-post-modern dance team. The ants move their furniture as they have done for thousands of years, but when they abandon everything to eat cake, one has to ask: who are the ants that love you and who are the ants that don’t?

 

Sculpture & Installation

 

2023: Circuit Training 

Tender Machines, Curated by Esther Hernandez, Union Hall Gallery, Denver, CO

Combining video, multiplayer cassette tape loops, “lifting with one’s legs” and cardboard, Circuit Training unhooks interpersonal spheres of memory, language and labor in order to uncover alternative modes of relating to self and other.  It is an attempt to recirculate human intimacy, effort and interiority through connection with analog and digital technologies, making new bodies out of where they touch. 

 

2022: Telegraph Valley Site #1 

Presented as part of RedLine Contemporary Art Center’s 2022, Gala, Denver, CO

Telegraph Valley: Site #1 is part of a larger series of works destabilizing divisions between inside and outside. This is a work about bodies, what they are made of, where they begin and end, and calls into question whether what we are made of belongs to us and only us. 6 ft x 6 ft x 8 ft upside down house frame, and interwoven roofing material floor

 

2021: Untitled Wood Sac

Presented as part of RedLine Contemporary Art Center’s 2021 Gala, Denver, CO

Performative sculpture made out of plywood, string, and one dancer’s hidden and ongoing physical labor.

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2019: Same Signal, Somewhat Separate Mouth

Presented as part of Tickle Here, CMCI Studio, Boulder, CO 

A wireless microphone sends a voice through the small piece of plywood sitting on the kitchen counter. That voice crackles across the surface of the mouthpiece. Speaking as the mouthpiece, that voice invites visitors to wrap it in Saran Wrap, and hold it between their teeth. The vibrations of the wood travel through the visitor’s teeth, and amplify the voice within the visitor’s skull. 

 

2019: Fan Machines 

Art & Art History, University of Colorado Boulder

Deconstructed objects of the everyday propel irregular metal structures into ongoing, unwieldy spiraling motion. The installation amplifies polyrhythm within the poetics of mechanization, and investigates the life cycle of repurposing use.

 

2019: Parts/Wholes

Art & Art History, University of Colorado Boulder

Sculpture constructed from disposable work gloves, plaster, air duct panels.

 

2019: Bike Machine

Art & Art History, University of Colorado Boulder 

Constructed from bike parts, this device attempts to contact the sculptor’s dead dad through the movement of a series of interconnected gears and chain loops.

 

Video
 

2020: Testing the Mechanics 

101 animated drawings to accompany performance work, “to get under, you have to lose”

 

2018: Ring Around the Hole in the Ground

A video work hoarding together apertures made from objects that extend the scope of the human body

    

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Choreography for Music Video

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2021: Strange Astrology, Slothrust

Directed by Adam Stone 

Record Label: Dangerbird Records

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Selected Performances (in the works of others)

 

2022: Eavesdroppings

Created by Ben Coleman

Presented at Understudy, Denver, CO 

 

2019: Dances That Don’t Look Like Dances

Created by Michelle Ellworth

Premiere: UN[WRAP], Charlotte York Irey Theatre, University of Colorado Boulder

 

2019: Post-Verbal Social Network

Created by Michelle Ellsworth

Presented at On the Boards, Seattle, WA

 

2018: Radius of Transmission

Created by Ondine Geary

Presented at The Spark, Boulder, CO

 

2018: Manpant Publishing

Created by Michelle Ellsworth

Presented online at michelleellsworth.com

 

2016: Wholeness (Dances made to be viewed in the Dark)

Created by Control Group Productions

Presented at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts

 

2016: Sweet & Lucky

Created by Third Rail Projects

Produced by Denver Center for the Performing Arts 

 

2015: Ham McBeth

Created by Emily K. Harrison

Produced by square product theatre, Boulder, CO

 

2014: The Pain of Becoming 

Created by Chrissy Nelson, Hugh Lobel and Kyle Monks

Presented by CMAP at the Atlas Institute, University of Colorado Boulder 

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2013: Withstand

Created by Chrissy Nelson

Presented at the UN[WRAP] Festival, University of Colorado Boulder

 

2013: Small Death Practice

Created by Joanna Rotkin (Joanna & The Agitators) 

Presented by the Boulder International Fringe Festival, Dairy Arts Center

 

2012: BeeHive

Created by Joanna Rotkin

Presented as part of Embodied Poetics: Naropa University, Boulder, CO 

 

Curation

 

2020: Curation Committee for B2 Center for Media Arts and Performance’s Fall 2020-Spring 2021 Season, University of Colorado Boulder 

 

2018: Untitled Series: Micro at the Denver Art Museum - Evening of live performance

Curated with Nathan Hall 

Denver Art Museum

 

2014: Failure Festival - 3-day interdisciplinary arts festival

Produced by Hoarded Stuff Performance at made|life, Boulder, CO

    

Directing 

 

2013: The Great Green

Created by Joanna Rotkin

Premiere: Boulder International Fringe Festival

 

2012: Tiny Gods: Mine

Created by Joanna Rotkin

Premiere: Wesley Chapel, Boulder, CO; presented by Joanna & The Agitators and Hoarded Stuff Performance

 

Assistant Directing

​

2012: Dollhouse Music Box. 

Directed by David Dorfman and Liz Claire

 

Dramaturgy

 

2022: lightness has a call that’s hard to hear

Created by elle hong

Premiere: ArtGym, Denver, CO

 

2016: We Care.

Created by Meg Madorin

Premiere: Launchpad for the Arts, presented by Dance Initiative, Carbondale, CO

 

2014: Beam Me Up, Scotty

Created by Emily K Harisson & Joanna Rotkin

Premiere: The Failure Festival, made|life, Boulder, CO

 

Movement Direction/Choreography for Theater

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2023: RENT by Jonathan Larson

Directed by Mark Cryer

Hamilton College, Clinton, NY

 

2022: Dance Nation by Clare Barron

Directed by Gleason Bauer

Produced by square product theatre, Boulder, CO

 

2017: House of Gold by Gregory Moss

Directed by Gleason Bauer

Produced by square product theatre, Boulder, CO

 

2015: Peter & The Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev 

Directed by Pesha Rudnick

Produced by Local Theatre Company & the Colorado Music Festival, Bouder, CO

 

2015: Ham McBeth

Created & Produced by square product theatre

Premiere: Dairy Arts Center, Boulder, CO 

 

2014: SLAB

Adapted by Emily K Harrison & Gleason Bauer from the Novel by Selah Saterstrom, produced by square product theatre

Premiere: Center for Media Arts and Performance, Atlas Blackbox, Boulder, CO

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Invited Talks / Panels 

 

2023: 

• Artist Talk/Q&A: Almost Transmission, MCA Denver, Denver, CO

• Artist Talk /Q&A: Ordinary Portal, Museum of Longmont, Longmont, CO

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2021: 

• Artist Talk/Q&A: this time with smaller parts, RedLine Contemporary Art Center, Denver, CO

​

2020: 

• Artist Talk/Q&A: Spring Studio Series, Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA

• Artist Talk: Crosstown Arts, Memphis, Memphis, TN

• Boulder County Arts Alliance Panel: On Failure, Boulder, Colorado 

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2017: 

• Artist Presentation, Denver Art Museum

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2014: 

• Artist Talk: Colorado Conservatory of Dance, Broomfield, Colorado

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Professional Affiliations                                    

 

2016-Present: Artistic Associate, square product theatre, Boulder, CO 

2012-2018: Founder & Artistic Director: Hoarded Stuff Performance, Boulder, CO

2013-2016: Founding Member, The SPILL Project Improvisation Collective, Boulder, CO 

 

Additional Teaching

 

Academic Teaching - Conference Workshop:

 

2015: Between Language and Body: Incubating a New Work: Co-taught with Bhanu Kapil. &Now Blast Radius: Writing and Other Forms. California Institute for the Arts (Cal Arts). 

 

Academic Teaching  as Guest Artist: 

 

2022: 

• Improvisation Workshop for THEATER201- Acting Styles: Theatricalism & The European Avant-Garde, Hamilton College

• Devising Workshop for THEATER204 - Collaborative Playmaking, Hamilton College

• Studio Visits for Graduate Art History Program - Geoffrey Shamos, University of Denver

• Studio Visits for Fine Arts Professional Practice - Gretchen Schaefer & Regan Rosburg, Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design

 

2021: 

• Generating Text Workshop for CMDP 3830: Advanced Performance Media - Keith Haynes, University of Colorado Boulder

 

2020: 

• Feldenkrais Workshop for Experiential Movement, Somatics, and Injury Prevention - Laura Malpass. University of Colorado Boulder 

• Performance Making Workshop for Installation, Shrines, Ritual Art - Sue Hammond West, Naropa University, Boulder, CO

 

2019: 

• Improvisation Workshop, Movement for Theatre Majors - Tamara Meneghini, University of Colorado Boulder

 

2017: 

• Feldenkrais Workshop for Injury Prevention for Dancers - Chrissy Nelson, University of Colorado Boulder

 

2016: 

• Contemporary Dance Workshop for Stage Movement 1 - Dr. Andrea Moon, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO 

• Improvisation Workshop for Multi-Genre Workshop: Notes on Architecture - Bhanu Kapil, Naropa University, Boulder, CO

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2013: 

• Contemporary Dance Workshop for Wisdom of the Body - Joanna Rotkin, Naropa University, Boulder, CO

2012: 

• Contemporary Dance Workshop for Dance Lab - Joanna Rotkin, Naropa University, Boulder, CO 

2011: 

• Contemporary Dance Workshop for Intermediate Modern Dance Technique - Cathy Nicoli, Hampshire College, Northampton, MA 

 

Community Teaching - Class Series 

 

2022: Feldenkrais Method Functional Integration Lessons, Individualized for each student, Weekly and Ongoing throughout Boulder County 

 

2021: Feldenkrais Awareness through Movement Group Classes on Zoom, 2x per week from January - May

 

2021: RedLine Contemporary Art Center’s EPIC Arts Program - Semester long community art project with Ms. Moen’s Third Grade Class, Kunsmiller Academy, Denver 

 

2020 - 2021: Testing the Mechanics, 1-on-1 Courses for Harnessing Personal Creativity, Individualized 6 week course study of Interdisciplinary Art Practices. Repeated 10 times on Zoom. 

 

2016: Making Dances & Amplifying Personal Creativity. 1-on-1 Courses for Harnessing Personal Creativity, Individualized 6 week course of study in Performance Making. Repeated 8 times, Floorspace Studio, Boulder, CO

 

2016: Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement Group Class. 3-month weekly course, Floorspace Studio, Boulder, CO

 

2015: Advanced Contemporary Dance: Relationship to Action. Projekt Move. Weekly Professional Class in Contemporary Dance Technique, 3-month course, Between the Bones Studio Collective

 

2014: Advanced Contemporary Dance Technique. CCD- Professional Training Program, 5 month class series, Colorado Conservatory of Dance

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2014: Inquiries in New Performance. Co-taught with Joanna Rotkin. Performance making and composition. 6 week course, Boulder Circus Center

 

2014: Encountering Contemporary Dance. Beginning and Intermediate weekly course in Contemporary Dance. 6 week course, Boulder Circus Center

 

2014: Inside, Outside and Impossible Tasks: Advanced Contemporary Dance, Boulder Circus Center

 

2013: Yoga & Creative Movement for Kids. AVID 4 Adventure Summer Camp, week -long curriculum repeated for 3 months

 

Community Teaching - One Time Workshops 

 

2016: Mass Movement Workshop. Untitled Fridays - STOP Motion. Evening Workshop in site-specific improvisation, Denver Art Museum

 

2016: Site-Specific Performance Making Workshop, presented by Dance Initiative, Launchpad for the Arts, Carbondale, CO 

 

2016: Composing Awareness, Composing Context, Composing Scores. Co-Taught with Meg Madorin, presented by Dance Initiative, Launchpad for the Arts, Carbondale, CO

 

2016: Improvisation Workshop, presented by Dance Initiative, Launchpad for the Arts, Carbondale, CO

 

2014: Inside, Outside and Impossible Task, presented by Daughter Cells Dance, Between the Bones, Denver

 

2014: Moving to Shape Time: Dance & Feldenkrais, co-taught with Ethan Cowan, Boulder Circus Center