Lauren Baines
Choreographer | Curator | Catalyst
About
Lauren Baines is a choreographer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist based in San Jose, CA, immersed in creating and producing theatre and dance throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.
She is the Artistic Director of Lauren Baines Dance/Theatre and performs with other companies and artists in the region including for change dance collective. She is also the founder of Convergence Arts Center in San Jose, CA.
In 2013, Baines was named an inaugural recipient of the Leigh Weimers Emerging Artists Awards by the San Jose Rotary Club and she has enjoyed residencies at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center (Berkeley, CA), Milkbar Project Room (Oakland, CA), Gulkistan Residency for Creative People (Laugarvatn, Iceland), and upcoming at Montalvo Arts Center (Saratoga,CA).
She has presented work at Dance Mission Theatre, the ZERO1 Garage, Montalvo Arts Center, the de Saisset Museum, the subZERO Festival, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, LevyDance Salon, sjDANCEco's Choreo Projects, and Karpeles Manuscript Library (NY).
Her own work is concerned with issues of memory, loss, communication, identity and the unconscious and takes the form of concert dance to site dance and devised theater and interdisciplinary collaborations.
From 2009-2013, Baines was involved with founding and managing Cardboard Box Theatre Project. She has also taught dance and creative movement at various schools including Santa Clara University and Bellarmine College Preparatory.
In addition, Baines has multidisciplinary arts management experience in the Silicon Valley (non-profit) arts sector. She is currently the Interim Director at the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University. Previously, she worked at Montalvo Arts Center and the Palo Alto Art Center.
Baines holds a MFA in Dance (Choreography & Performance) from Mills College and BA and BS degrees from Santa Clara University where she triple majored in Theatre Arts with a Dance Emphasis, Art History, and Psychology.