Lauren Baines
Choreographer | Curator | Catalyst
ALL
ABOUT THE ARTS
Lauren Baines navigates the artist-administrator balance through an interdisciplinary approach to life in which all things connect back to the arts.
Connecting
People
&
Places
People and places are interconnected. Through our actions and behaviors we define places. I love teasing out the possibilities for creating our lived spaces and activating sites.
Activating
Moments
Memories
Movements
Sites
When are personal moments universal? How do our memories shape us? When do memories change? Can we trust our senses? How can movements, or memories, change how we engage with sites of everyday life?
Storytelling
In the end, it's all about storytelling. That is the thread that connects my art, my research, my "day job." I love finding the synergy between subjects, the connections between people and ideas. At my core, I am a storyteller.
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.
