About

Laurel Jenkins is a dancer, choreographer, educator, and mother. Her choreography emerges from rigorous experimentation and interdisciplinary dialogues in the realms of contemporary dance, opera, music, and theater. LA Weekly writes that she creates “extraordinary movement/sound pieces in which the body becomes the most versatile of instruments, playing the music of an invisible dimension.” Through an ever-evolving choreographic process, Jenkins reimagines the contours of our collective experience, by engaging themes of individual interiority, human relationships, and our connection with that which is beyond human.  

Jenkins’ work has been presented by Lincoln Center, Disney Hall, REDCAT, Automata, the Getty Center, Show Box LA, Danspace, Berlin’s Performing Presence Festival, Tokyo’s Sezane Gallery, and Paris’ Cité Internationale des Arts. She choreographed Bernstein’s MASS with the LA Phil and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. In addition, she has choreographed for LA Contemporary Dance Company, The Wooden Floor, and many universities including UNL. Jenkins was a member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company from 2007-2012, and has danced in works by Vicky Shick and Sara Rudner. Jenkins performed in the opera Oedipus Rex/Symphony of Psalms by Peter Sellars and solos by Merce Cunningham in the Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event. Jenkins is the recipient of a Vermont Arts Council Grant, an Asian Cultural Council Grant, a French Institute Fellowship, holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence, an MFA from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, and is certified to teach the Skinner Releasing Technique. She is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Middlebury College in Vermont.