Lauren Linder (she/her) is a dance artist originally from Muncie, Indiana. Lauren has choreographed, performed, and taught dance in Seattle, Washington and Iowa City, Iowa. Currently, Lauren is the Emerging Artist in Residence at Penn State Altoona.

Lauren’s choreographic research investigates the relationship between stability and ephemerality as it relates to the dancing body, the written word, and the archive. Through attention to softness, syntax, girlhood, gesture, and athleticism, Lauren’s work problematizes hierarchies of form and traces relational ambiguities. Lauren’s research interests also encompass compositional improvisation, the discursive connections between dancing, writing, and femininity, and inclusivity and accessibility in dance spaces.

In the Midwest, Lauren danced for and collaborated with Stephanie Miracle, Melinda Jean Myers, Sean Thomas Boyt, Brady Van Patten, and Sophia McLaughlin on site-based dance work, dance theater work, and dance films. During her time in Iowa City, Lauren taught for the UI Youth Ballet and was the Director of Combined Efforts Dance, a dance company that facilitates purposeful collaboration between artists with and without intellectual disabilities. In Seattle, Washington, Lauren had the pleasure to perform with the Pat Graney Company, Veronica Lee-Baik, Alice Gosti, Petra Zanki, Hope Goldman, Shawn Ketchum Johnson, and Alyza DelPan-Monley among others.

Lauren’s choreography has been shown at the Color Club (Chicago, IL), the River Dance Festival (New Hope, PA), the Iron Factory (Philadelphia, PA), the Erickson Theater (Seattle, WA), Velocity Dance Center (Seattle, WA), On the Boards Open Studio (Seattle, WA), RAD Dance Festival (Kalamazoo, MI), the JewelBox Theater (Seattle, WA), the Green House (Iowa City, IA), Space Place Theater (Iowa City, IA), the Voxman Music Building (Iowa City, IA), the Visual Arts Building (Iowa City, IA), and Arts Building West (Iowa City, IA). Her work The Beginnings of an Emergent Truth About Whipped Cream received a Dance Crush Award from Seattle Dances.

Lauren holds an MFA in Dance and an MA in Multilingual Education from the University of Iowa.