Laurie Van Wieren
Guest Artist
She/Her
Laurie Van Wieren grew up on the west side of Chicago before moving to Minneapolis, where she immersed herself in the dance and art community. In the Twin Cities, she has created solo, ensemble, and site-specific works in collaboration with numerous artists. Van Wieren is also a dedicated artist advocate, having curated and produced performances at venues such as the Southern Theater, Ritz Theater, Soo Visual Art Center, and 9×22 Dance/Lab, a monthly inclusive performance and discussion platform she founded (2003–2019).
Her work has been recognized with awards from the McKnight, Jerome, Bush, and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Sage Cowles Awards for Dance. She was also honored with an Artists of the Year Award from City Pages. In 2022, Van Wieren was in residence at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography as part of a McKnight Artist Fellowship.
Recent projects include a collaboration with 20 sheep, one llama, and dancers Judith Howard, Kalenna Miller, and Dexter Carlson; a duet with Kalenna Miller and 500 feet of brown paper; and an improvisational dance performance with ten dancers: Jules Bither, Dexter Carlson, Judith Howard, Eva Mohn, Margaret Ogas, Alys Ayumi Ogura, Anat Shinar, and Jinza Thayer. www.laurievanwierenprojects.com
Guest Artist 2024/25 Session
Photo by Bill Cameron
Choreographic Inspiration: “What do we do when we improvise?”
This improvisational dance project explores the question: What are we doing when we improvise? Each dancer begins by examining their personal relationship to movement, grounding themselves in unique processes informed by sensations, emotions, thoughts, and memories. They will study how they interact with the performance space, considering elements of space, time, and architecture.
As these individual explorations evolve, the ensemble will unite to create a collective structure, blending solo and group improvisation guided by cues and flexible rules. The work also investigates how dancers engage with the audience, experimenting with the awareness of being observed.