About

Lauren Linder (she-her) is an Iowa City-based choreographer, performer, and educator pursuing her MFA in Dance at the University of Iowa.

Through her choreography, Linder mobilizes softness, syntax, silliness, and subtlety towards emotive, thoughtful work that connects people to their bodies, problematizes hierarchies of form, and grounds us in togetherness. Linder’s research interests include dance as a literacy practice, the dance of writing//the writing of dance, and accessibility in dance spaces.

Prior to relocating to Iowa City, Linder worked as a dancer, choreographer, and teacher in Seattle, Washington. There, Linder had the pleasure to perform with The Three Yells, the Pat Graney Company, Alice Gosti, Petra Zanki, Alyza DelPan-Monley, Melinda Jean Meyers, the Baker-Tarpaga Dance Project, Anna Krupp, and Adriana Hernández. In 2018, Linder toured 365, a solo work created by Petra Zanki, to the Dance Week Festival in Zagreb, Croatia, PAF in St. Erme, France, and WOW Café Theater in New York City. In addition, Linder danced with The Pat Graney Company for two years working towards the premiere of Graney’s newest work, Attic originally set for June 2020. With the Pat Graney Company, Lauren participated in residencies at On the Boards (Seattle), Base Experimental Arts (Seattle), and MANCC (Florida State University). In Iowa City, Linder dances and collaborates with Stephanie Miracle, Sean Thomas Boyt, Brady Van Patten, Sophia McLaughlin, and Mariana Tejada.

Linder’s choreography has been presented at the Green House (Iowa City), Space Place Theater (Iowa City), Voxman Music Building (Iowa City), Erickson Theater (Seattle), the Iron Factory (Philadelphia), RAD Dance Fest (Kalamazoo, MI), the Seattle International Dance Festival Spotlight Series, the Converge Dance Festival (Seattle), the Inlay Dance Festival (Seattle), the Seattle International Dance Festival through Sanity Café, Ktisk Contemporary Dance through Access Velocity (Seattle), and On the Boards Open Studio (Seattle). Her work The Beginnings of an Emergent Truth About Whipped Cream received a 2017 Dance Crush Award from Seattle Dances. You can read Linder’s Dance Crush Spotlight HERE. In June 2018, Linder curated and co-produced an evening length duet show with choreographer, Sean Thomas Boyt.

Linder holds an MA in Multilingual Education, a B.F.A. in Dance and a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Iowa. Currently, Linder is a dance teaching artist with the UI Youth Ballet and Director of Combined Efforts Dance, a dance company that facilitates purposeful collaboration between artists with and without disabilities.

Photo by Kelly June Smith