About
Jennifer creates narrative dance and screendance works that combine movement, text, spoken word, and visual media to explore personal histories, women’s experiences, memory, place, and perspective. Through collaboration, humor, and experimentation, she creates layered worlds where storytelling and movement invite reflection, connection, and new ways of seeing.
Biography
Jennifer La Curan is a choreographer, dance filmmaker, educator, and producer whose creative work explores storytelling through movement, text, film, and collaboration. Drawing inspiration from personal histories, landscapes, human relationships, humor, and everyday experiences, she creates works that invite audiences to consider multiple perspectives and discover meaning in both ordinary and extraordinary moments. Her artistic practice spans concert dance, dance theatre, and screendance, often combining movement, spoken word, visual media, and theatrical elements to create layered, narrative-driven experiences. Whether presented on stage or through the lens of a camera, her work seeks to foster connection, curiosity, reflection, and a deeper awareness of the ways people relate to one another and the world around them.
Originally from Southern California, Jennifer began her dance training at Orange County Dance Center and later attended the Academy of the Performing Arts in Huntington Beach. She performed as a soloist with Ballet Repertory Theatre and danced for Disneyland’s Parades and Shows Department before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from California State University, Long Beach and a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. While living in New York City, she performed with the Albano Ballet Company of America, Momentum Dance Theater, and numerous independent choreographers, and founded Merge Dance Theatre, a contemporary dance company dedicated to exploring the intersection of ballet and modern dance through innovative movement research and collaborative artistic inquiry. During her time at NYU, she also studied privately with renowned Pilates elder Kathy Grant and later became comprehensively certified through BASI Pilates, maintaining an ongoing commitment to movement education, cross-training, and dancer wellness. Her professional career has since spanned performance, choreography, filmmaking, production, arts administration, higher education, and Pilates instruction.
Jennifer served as Director of Dance and Professor at Darton College in Georgia, where she expanded the dance program, integrated emerging technologies into dance education, and received the Campus Technology Education Futurists Award for her innovative use of motion capture technology in dance instruction. She was also the recipient of the Darton College Service Award and was nominated for U.S. Professor of the Year. Since joining Irvine Valley College in 2016, she has served as Professor of Dance, Director of Concerts, and Chair of the Dance Department. As a professional artist, she continues to create original works for the stage and screen, with choreography presented through university productions, community collaborations, festivals, and musical theatre projects. Most recently, she served as a guest choreographer for Legends, an original musical production presented at Segerstrom Hall in collaboration with the South Coast Chinese Cultural Center. Her films have screened nationally and internationally, receiving recognition including Best Cinematography for Falling and an Honorable Mention for The Other Side of the Glass. Jennifer currently serves on the Preview Committee for Dance Camera West and continues to explore the intersections of dance, technology, visual storytelling, and education through both her creative and scholarly work.