Laura Peterson is a choreographer, visual artist, and Artistic Director of Open Arts Studio in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Her work explores the visceral exchange between moving bodies and the materials used in her performance environments. She creates large structures and paintings as mediums to express her interest in the intersection of physicality and the world around us. Laura’s recent dances are focused on nature, time, and the climate emergency.
Laura Peterson’s works have been commissioned and presented nationally and internationally. SOLO, Peterson’s performance and large scale paintings, was included in The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done at the Judson Dance Theater Reassembled event. Her dances have been presented at venues including The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Out-of- Doors, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, among others. Internationally, her work has been produced in Argentina, Europe, and Russia.
In 2021, Laura Peterson founded Open Arts Studio, a nonprofit arts organization committed to creating accessible opportunities for all persons to engage in performing arts through programming for professional choreographers, teens, and open level classes.
Laura has been awarded grants, commissions and residencies for the last 20 years including two Brooklyn Arts Council awards, and NYSCA Choreography Commission for Individual Artists for Interglacial. She was awarded a HERE Artist Residency (HARP). was a recipient of a Fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy, awarded two Marble House Project Residencies, and a residency at Subcircle Farm. Her works have been commissioned by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Queens Museum of Art, Dixon Place, Jamaica Arts Center and Temple University. Laura created two works for Nick Cave’s Soundsuits with Balance Dance Company/Boise Art Museum, and repertory for Pennsylvania Ballet and Hartford Ballet.
Laura holds an MFA from NYU Tisch and BFA from UArts. She has taught at universities Rutgers, Princeton, Marymount Manhattan, and others. Laura is a current faculty member of the Joffrey Ballet School Jazz and Contemporary Program.
