More About Loren Groenendaal

Loren Groenendaal is the founder, artistic director, and choreographer for Vervet Dance, a Philadelphia-based contemporary dance company. She was born in central Pennsylvania and nurtured on a forested mountain. Her childhood in this natural environment and her belief that humans are part of nature, informs her aesthetic. In 2003, Loren settled in Philadelphia where she has found and build a large network of creative people with whom she collaborates.

Her work investigates the community-building possibilities of live art, the spectrums between improvisation and composition and ritual and performance. She has a pattern of making dance about the patterns in nature. She is a proponent of curiosity, complexity, adaptability, empathy, and freedom. Much of her work is "semi-composed," meaning she designs some elements and encourages freedom of expression by her collaborators. When movement is choreographed, she draws from her experience with modern, postmodern, contemporary, release, Balinese, folk, social, breakdance, and contact improvisation for movement material and aesthetic inspiration. 

She earned an MFA in Choreography at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2010 and holds a BA in Dance and Visual Arts from Oberlin College. Her arts and life practices are further informed by her studies of Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals in which she is a Certified Movement Analyst from the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. 

As an artist, educator, and person, she is most interested in creating structures that allow for freedom. She desires more connection and adaptation between people and builds opportunities for people to collaborate and create. She particularly values dance and music improvisation because it highlights the liveness of humans and the fleetingness of everything. She has  co-founded many organizations and events in support of improvisation and dance in Philadelphia including: the Mascher Space Cooperative in 2005, the Contact Improvisation Jam in 2011, the monthly Underscore and the H-O-T Series of Philadelphia in 2013, the Impermanent Society of Philadelphia in 2015, the monthly Philly Compositional Improvisation Lab in 2018 and the Dissolving Doors Festival in 2019 and continues to be involved with all of these organizations.

Groenendaal's creative work has been perform from Canada to Mexico and many place inbetween including Baja, DC, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montreal, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia and presented by various organizations including the Abington Art Center, Bowerbird, the Cannery, the CEC, Fringe Arts, Green Space, High Zero Foundation, Mascher Space Cooperative, Movement Research, North Carolina Dance Alliance, the Quarry, Studio 34, and Triskelion and in festivals and shows of Cultivate, Frantasia, Fresh Juice, Green Space Blooms, Inhale, New Edge Mix, and Philly Fringe Festival. Some of her works include "Boing!" "colorFULL," "In the Light," "Ornamentation," "Surrender and Support," and "SWARM!"

In the Philadelphia area, Loren has danced with Jenny Roe Sawyer's From the Earth Dance Project, Graffito Works, Katherine Kiefer Stark's The Naked Stark, Lacy James' Mereminne Dancers, Melisa Putz Clark's pima group, Megan Bridge's <fidget>, Curt Haworth, Swarthmore College's Balinese Gamelan Semara Santi, and the Indonesian Cultural Club of the Delaware/Philadelphia area. Beyond Philadelphia, she dance in the Modern/Contemporary choreography and structured improvisations of Ann Cooper Albright, Mark Dendy, Ann Dils, John Gamble, Jen Guy, Nusha Martynuk, Helen Simoneau, Augusto Soleodade, and Jan van Dyke.

Loren has over a decade of dance teaching experience with a focus on creative dance. She often teaches Bartenieff Fundamentals, Contact Improvisation, Contemporary Modern Technique, Dance Education/Pedagogoy, Improvisation, Laban Movement Analysis, and Somatics to adults and college students in Philadelphia and as a guest in surrounding areas. She currently teaches Elements of Dance at Rowan University. She has taught at DeSales University, Juniata College, Muhlenberg College, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Temple University, and has been a guest artist at Arcadia University, Drexel University, Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, Towson University, University of the Arts, and the University of Pennsylvania. She regularly teaches children Creative Movement, Folk, Modern, Ballet, Hip Hop, Social Dance, StoryDance, Comedy Improv, and Tumbling. She is delighted to be on faculty for Cardell Dance Studio, Koresh Kids Dance, the Arts League as well as offering freelance classes as Loren Teaches Movement. Please see Teaching for more information.