BIOGRAPHY

There is an essential connection between art and life, which can facilitate healing and change. We live in a world challenged by a widening gap between those with great resources and those with few. “The integration of the body, movement, art, and healing, an embodied life-art process, is our ethical criteria for a sustainable life.” (Anna Halprin)

​

Laura Chiaramonte (Choreographer, Dancer, Teacher, and Videographer) has been performing and producing work professionally in dance throughout the United States and abroad for the past twenty-five years and has worked with celebrated companies and artists such as Jennifer Allen, Lynn Dally, DanszLoop Chicago, Jyl Fehrenkamp, Pat Graney, Julie Gunn, Nathan Gunn, Andrew Harwood, Carleen Healy, I Ketut Gede Asnawa, Gina Jacobs, Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak, Kate Monson, Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, Cynthia Pratt, Kirstie Simson, Thread Meddle Outfit, Total Theater, Warner Brothers, Deke Weaver, and Zephyr Dance. Her movement research lies within the intersections of dance somatics and interdisciplinary art forms, synthesizing sound, moving images, design, and technology into performance.

 

Laura co-founded and directed the non-profit performing arts company Creative Arts Melting Pot (CAMP). The company was featured in the PBS Special “The Chicago Dance Project” and performed for Hans Breder, Collaboraction, Cirque Du Soleil, Dance Chicago, and Full Circle Festival. Laura has also shown her work in The Open Space Project, Harvest Contemporary Dance Festival, and Going Dutch Festival. She developed a movement studies class, emphasizing movement improvisation and composition through the inspiration of inter-media at the Chicago Art Department and taught workshops in dance and somatics at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Dance Center at Columbia College, Department of Dance University Wisconsin in Madison and was an Artist in Residence at Illinois Wesleyan and Frente de Danza Independiente at Sala de Artes Escénicas Marina de Jesus Quito in Ecuador. She has also conducted creative movement workshops with Project Danztheatre Company Kids Program at St. Peter’s School, Urban Gateways, and the LEAP Program. 

 

Laura is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor of Dance at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Director and Curator of the Flatlands Dance Film Festival, Dance Media Coordinator and Archivist for Dance at Illinois, and Video Archive Director for the Bates Dance Festival.