As the World Escapes Us (2007)
Still from footage by Bette Linderman
Lauren Baines Dance/Theatre utilizes movement as a point of departure to examine universal and personal truths, questions, and stories. We are storytellers, but we avoid direct narrative in favor of abstraction and nuance. Authenticity is key to our practice as we strive to create works that resonate with us as individuals. Dances originate from research and discussion, developing in an environment that values movement invention and individual expression in a technically challenging landscape that navigates between precision and rawness. Invested in collaborative and interdisciplinary processes, we create works of modern dance that incorporate diverse artistic disciplines and emerge through rich investigations between artists. Issues of communication, loss, memory, perception, and identity guide our body of work as we explore, reflect, and question multiple aspects of the human experience in pieces ranging from pure dance to dance theatre and site dance.
STORYTELLERS
at heart
at once both prologude and epilogue (2015)
Still from footage by Robert Schultze
Core Company
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Julia Canavese
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Jessica de Leon
Claire Calalo-Berry
Artistic Director
Lauren Baines
Artistic Director Lauren Baines has immersed herself in creating and producing theatre and dance throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond since 2009. Her work has been seen in theatres, museums, and alternative sites including Dance Mission Theatre, the ZERO1 Garage, Montalvo Arts Center, the de Saisset Museum, the subZERO Festival, sjDANCEco's ChoreoProjects, and several festivals in New York.
In 2013, Baines was named an inaugural recipient of the Leigh Weimers Emerging Artists Awards by the San Jose Rotary Club. Since then she has enjoyed residences at the Milkbar Projects Room in Oakland, Gullkistan in Iceland, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, and upcoming at Montalvo Arts Center. She has also received funding from the Center of Cultural Innovation and other grants.
In addition to her own choreographic work, Baines dances with several Bay Area dance companies and has worked with several theatre companies, including being a founding member and later Managing Director for Cardboard Box Theatre Project and a founding member of, and continuing dancer with, for change dance collective.
She occasionally teaches at local schools and studios, most recently serving as an Adjunct Lecturer at Santa Clara University. Her dance scholarship has been presented at the Society of Dance History Scholars and Congress on Research in Dance joint conference (organizations have now merged to form DSA, Dance Studies Assocation) and as part of the LASER talks series organized by Piero Scaruffi.
Baines holds a MFA in Dance (Choreography & Performance) from Mills College and earned BA and BS degrees from Santa Clara University where she triple majored in Theatre Arts with a Dance Emphasis, Art History, and Psychology.
You can learn more about Lauren and her work as an artist, scholar, arts catalyst, and curator at www.laurenbaines.com
Photograph by Robert Schultze
DANCING TOWARDS DISCOVERY
Lauren Baines Dance/Theatre utilizes movement as a point of departure to examine universal and personal truths, questions, and stories.
PROCESS
Mission: To create authentic works of performance that resonate with diverse audiences on a visceral level.
Guiding Values
Guiding Values: Collaboration, authenticity, curiosity
NAME / JOB / TITLE
our collaborators
Our collaborators come from all disciplines and bring diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and energies to our process.
We look forward to sharing more information on these amazing individuals but until then, just trust us, we have the best collaborators!