LAURIE VAN WIEREN

CHOREOGRAPHER / PERFORMER / CURATOR

Laurie Van Wieren is a dance maker, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has been creating dance and performance since 1980. She grew up on the west side of Chicago, and attended the Art Institute of Chicago where she studied performance art and film history. Laurie has studied ballet with Gary Roberts and modern dance with Nancy Hauser. Laurie was very much influenced by the post modern dance artists that she met while working at the Walker Art Center as well as her colleagues in the Twin Cities.

Laurie formed her own company in 1985. As a solo performer and with her company the B-Specifics, she has performed in many venues, including: the Walker Art Center, The Southern Theater, Dancespace, DTW, Links Hall, Lake of the Isles skating rink and the Fabrik in Potsdam, Germany. Her dance work has also been seen at the Art of Movement Festival, in Yaroslavl, Russia. She is the recipient of fellowships from the McKnight, Jerome, Bush and Rockefeller Foundations. Active in the Minneapolis/St Paul arts community for the past 20+ years, Van Wieren has collaborated with many video, theater, and music artists.

Van Wieren's recent work includes "Who made these videotapes", a retrospective performance/installation. The first installment was shown and performed December, 2010 at Studio 206 in Minneapolis. The 2nd installment, also at Studio 206 was performed in August 2011. "Who made these videotapes" won a Minnesota SAGE Award for Dance in the category of Out Standing Performance, 2011.

SOLO/QUARTET was created with in her retrospective-"Who Made These Videotapes" This dance is an exploration of how we archive movement in our bodies and how we pass movement on to each other. With dance artists Kristin Van Loon, Joanna Furnans and Sally Rousse.

SOLO/QUARTET, Part I- is the first part of a series of explorations with this same group of dancers.

Laurie's new research- 2 areas:

1. Portraits: of each individual dancer of SOLO/QUARTET.

2.The actions of objects and dance: How to reconsider the movement of objects and our relationship to them in dance. Working with the actions of throwing, dropping, moving of objects- clothes, vases, balls, books, etc. Looking at our relationship to these objects in our everyday life. Letting the movement and meaning of an object lead the choreography of a dance.

Laurie is the curator of 9x22 Dance/Lab, Producer of the Twin Cities SCUBA National Touring Network for Dance and curator for the Twin Cities July 2012 Installment of Dances Made To Order.

For more information: laurievanwieren@gmail.com

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Laurie Van Wieren's dance work is noted for its attention to the visual, it's wry humor, and idiosyncratic vocabulary. Her work considers the dancer as archivist, the stage as a visual and social landscape, and choreography as a lens to experience and distort art.

Her work has been seen in Dancespace, DTW, Links Hall, Walker Art Center, Fabrik, Potsdam, Germany and Art of Movement Festival- Yaroslavl, Russia. She is the recipient of fellowships from McKnight, Jerome, Bush and NEA and Rockefeller Foundations. In 2011 she received a Sage Award for Dance, Outstanding Performance for her retrospective: Who Made These Video Tapes?

"I entered choreography through a side door. I had been a visual artist who studied at the Chicago Art Institute, and was teaching my first performance art/dance class in Minneapolis. On a whim, my students and I auditioned a piece I had developed with them for the Choreographer's Evening at the Walker Art Center. This piece was a grid pattern of characters that repeated gestures over-and-over. I added a film loop. People have been calling me a choreographer ever since--and I still prefer entering through the side door. I have created group work for the stage, solo character work for small cabarets, site-specific works, including a large piece with fireworks, ice skaters, and hockey players on Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis. I have collaborated with a number of artists, musicians, videographers, and performance artists. My work has always been about inquiry. I am interested in making an atmosphere for unexpected things to happen."

AWARDS

2011 Minnesota SAGE Award for Dance Outstanding Performance
2008 Minnesota SAGE Awards for Dance, Special Citation Recipient
2008 McKnight Foundation Choreography Fellow
2004 Southern Theater Best Feet Forward Peer Fellow
1998 Minnesota Dance Alliance / McKnight Foundation Choreography Fellow
1993 Diverse Visions / Intermedia Arts
1991 Jerome Foundation, Project Grant
1991 Minnesota Dance Alliance / McKnight Foundation Choreography Fellow
1990 Minnesota Dance Alliance / Sponsor Pool, Dancespace Project at St Marks, NYC
1988 Minnesota Dance Alliance / McKnight Foundation Choreography Fellow
1987 NEA / Rockefeller Foundation Inter-Arts Grant
1986 Minnesota Dance Alliance / McKnight Foundation Choreography Fellow
1985 Bush Foundation Choreography Fellow
1984 Jerome Foundation, Solo Video Project with James Byrne
1984 UCV / Northwest Area Foundation Translations Grant
1984 Minnesota Dance Alliance / McKnight Foundation Choreography Fellow