About
Lauren is a movement artist, photographer, and writer, with a heart for community, healing, and transformation. Having been a photographer for 15 years, she expanded into community and nonprofit work founding a community home for artists in Charlottesville, VA and serving as community director (The Farm House 2015-2022) and has danced and trained with companies and collectives from coast to coast.
She began dancing at a young age, and later trained and danced with modern company, Inlet Dance Theatre, in Cleveland, OH (Erik Hawkins Modern Release Technique; Improvisation [Liz Lerman] and Non-Traditional Partnering), where the grounding and storytelling nature of modern dance influences her work and teaching. She has worked alongside dance therapists, inner healing prayer counselors and trauma survivors as a resource to release healing through dance.
Having experienced her own levels of healing and freedom through dance, she has created and facilitated movement workshops and experiences in hopes to share that with others through her created pieces, collaborative works, and movement workshops.
Over the last year, she has traveled researching and recovering land-based memory through dance, music, and storytelling. Creating faith-based, trauma informed movement workshops and experiences, facilitating safe spaces for individuals to connect and explore healing through movement.
God has called me to step into this work full time -- and I am currently fundraising monthly support! I would be honored to have you partner with me to see this healing work come to full fruition, ministering to communities, bringing healing and freedom (mind, body and spirit) through movement, finishing writing, researching, and developing a healing movement-based curriculum.
Ministry Focus
Over the last year since October 2024, I have been on the road researching and recovering land-based memory through dance, music, and storytelling (and our connection to land, and our bodies as our land). I believe this is the foundation of a wider range of healing work that I want to expand and have others experience in a deeper way.
I have been reconnecting with my roots in Appalachia and intentionally traveling to communities that have asked me to explore this land-based, site specific aspect of my research through healing, movement, dance and prayer.
All of the goals I have set out to do in the last year, I am honored to be able to say have come to pass… and the work continues! God has laid it on my heart to ask for the community to surround me in a new way to see this work come to full fruition. I know that these next phases, I cannot do this work alone, nor believe we were designed to.
I AM CURRENTLY RAISING FUNDS TO:
-- Assist in my move to Princeton, NJ (need $1,000)
-- Monthly ministry support for healing movement research and writing (please reach out for specifics on monthly goal)
AT A GLANCE:
+ Developed and Presented Movement as Prayer Workshop first presented in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; As part of The Breath and the Clay creative conference; 45 students. and Philadelphia, PA; New York; Lynchburg, Virginia; online students from Europe, Australia, United States.
March 2024, March 2025.
Exploring sacred movement as embodied prayer, moving with intention; connecting deeper to self, to God, and to each other. This workshop gives you tools to connect deeper with yourself, with God, and with community. Open to all movers.
+ From that workshop, created a 6-week class series, expanding on the trauma-informed and embodied work, Movement as Prayer, with 17 students, in-person and virtual (Lynchburg, VA, April-May 2024; November 2024)
+ Created a collaborative choreographic piece, Elephant Wells, creating original music with Songs of Water (Stephen Roach of Makers and Mystics) featuring William Johnson, Corey Frey, Luke Skaggs, and others; at The Breath and the Clay conference in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, March 2024, where I participated both as a performer and workshop leader.
+ Designed Movement as Prayer reflective prompt cards as a resource for communities, individuals, and therapists to connect with embody prayer
+ Traveled and presented workshops with communities in Philadelphia, PA; Princeton, NJ; Winston-Salem, NC, ministering in different regions and cities across the US, including churches, artistic communities, and individuals with movement therapy work, inner healing, and deliverance
+ The Freedom Project (on-going), land-based, site specific dance research; creating collaborative works (films) founded in research with color, light, sound, and frequency to promote freedom and healing.
Collaborative site-specific short dance films in White Sands, New Mexico, Joshua Tree, California, Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia and throughout Appalachia.
In October - December 2025, I will be based in Princeton, NJ/ Brooklyn, NY for my research, writing, and development. I would be honored to have you as a partner, a part of this journey with me.
How you can pray for us.
Click the Pray Button to let this Donor Fund Partner know you are praying for them.
